Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to print a really important email or attachment from your Android smartphone or iPad tablet? You are not alone – we all have been there.

There are some options for printing from phones including the iPhone but many of them have requirements or limitations. There are apps that you can purchase or download for free that will allow printing from mobile phones, but they require you to have a Wi-Fi enabled printer.

Thanks to Google, the printing from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets could become easy and affordable.

Google started rolling out a new Cloud printing feature that lets people send documents, emails or web pages on remote printers, straight from their Android devices and iPhones!

“Let’s say you need to print an important email attachment on your way to work so that it’s waiting for you when you walk in the door,” Tyler Odean, who works with Google’s Cloud Print team, wrote in a blog post. “With Gmail for mobile and Google Cloud Print … you can.”

In short, users can print out emails and attachments from Gmail, providing they are using the mobile site (not the client).  It only takes a few minutes to get set up and printing but there is a couple of catches. The feature should work with at least Android 2.1 and iOS 3.0 or later. Adding a printer currently requires the Chrome 9 browser on the desktop, however, and so far needs Windows. Linux and Mac support is due in the near future.
Cloud Print was originally built with Chrome OS in mind but is targeted at the iPad and other HTML5 capable devices where printing might be important but not a usual option. Apple already has wireless mobile printing with AirPrint but only supports the local network and a limited range of printers.

It would be nice to see how well Cloud Print will work with legacy printers. When it becomes widely available I will do a quick test / review and post it here.

Stay tuned for more information on Cloud Print. It looks promising and a very good option for all of us not willing to let go of our “good old” network laser printers or spend $200 on a new printer.

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