That Happened!

New York - How many times have you grabbed your phone to take a quick picture and found that you captured the moment perfectly? Then what happens? You have to figure out how to download the pictures from the device, and then fool around with some software to print. What if you could instantly print your pictures directly from the iPhone to your printer with only a few clicks on the iPhone? It’s now possible, with the announcement today of HP iPrint Photo, the new free application from HP. It’s available from the Apple App Store as a free download.

HP has published a new iPhone application that allows you to print 4×6 photos wirelessly from the iPhone or iPod touch to almost any wireless enabled HP printer. The application is called HP iPrint Photo and is a free download from Apple’s App Store, or through the PC with iTunes. It can be used on the iPhone as well as the iPod touch.

Since the iPhone camera has a 2 mega pixel resolution and takes pictures at 1200x 1600 pixels, this is a great extension of its abilities. Imagine being able to carry a small HP compact photo printer and be able to print on the go with no wires or setup. You could literally print on the go anywhere.

HP iPrint Photo is based on Apple’s Bonjour technology, which allows it to automatically identify HP wireless printers or other supported HP printers available on your network. HP iPrint supports WiFi networks such Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, or Apple Airport. Bonjour is Apple’s implementation of the ZeroConf “zero-configuration” networking protocol.

HP iPrint Photo is a highlight of the 2009 MacWorld Conference & Expo and is expected to be shown as well at CES - Consumer Electronics Show. HP’s Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, stated that “Today’s news demonstrates how HP is enabling customers to turn special moments captured on the go into high-quality photos.

It is clear that HP wants to hold onto and expland its printer market share by adding easy printing to printers from HP on the iPhone. This is really smart move on their part. By giving away the iPhone application, they make it easier for the iPhone owner to justify that new HP printer purchase. Since so many digital pictures languish on media cards and hard drives, any way to make it easier to get quality prints is a boon to the consumer.