In a move that reminds me of this painful memory, the two have paired to create an iPhone app that lets people print photos on their iPhone to networked HP printers via the Phanfare Photon app. “Phanfare Updates Popular iPhone App to Enable Home Printing to HP Printers,” says the press release.
Not to pick on Phanfare, which is a great photo site. And while I’ve been hard on HP lately, I’m not one to complain about people printing too much stuff (see Hey, You Condescending Jerk, No One Prints Emails Anyway).
But there’s a reason why no one else has licensed HP’s iPrint software yet. It’s because it’s something no one wants to use.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever had prints made of a photo you took on a mobile phone. Now keep your hand up if you were so excited to print that photo that you actually did it on a home printer, sacrificing quality for immediate gratification. I’m pretty sure no one has their hand up.
But anyway, in the spirit of supporting startups, we’ll help get this thing started. The first person to download the app, take a picture, print it to an HP networked printer and then takes a picture of the printout with the iPhone next to it gets a free TechCrunch tshirt. You will definitely have earned it. Just upload it somewhere and leave a link below.*
* – Phanfare and HP employees are not eligible for the tshirt.**
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** – Oh, what the hell, nevermind. Go for it. Someone has to test the software.
