2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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created_at: '2014-03-26T04:15:37.000Z'
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title: Why Apple Will Never Make Printers Again (2009)
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url: http://www.macworld.com/article/1144929/apple_printers.html
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author: d99kris
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points: 47
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 34
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1395807337
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_d99kris
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- story_7471550
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objectID: '7471550'
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2018-06-08 12:05:27 +00:00
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year: 2009
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2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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Apple improved music players with the iPod, and revolutionized the cell
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phone with the iPhone. So why shouldn’t it do the same thing with
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printers?
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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That’s the question a Macworld editor put to me when describing the
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[slideshow look at Apple-built printers over the
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years](http://www.macworld.com/article/144736/2009/12/appleprinters.html).
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I’m not sure if the editor was joking, but it took me a while to stop
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laughing before I could remind him why some things are better left in
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the past.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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Frankly, there’s no money in printers, only in printer supplies—and you
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can only get that revenue if you make the printing engine. Apple never
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did.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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As discussed in this [overview of Apple’s printer
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business](http://www.macworld.com/article/144880/2009/12/five_important_printers.html),
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the company sold printers throughout the 1980s and 1990s because it
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needed to be sure that high-quality printers were available for its
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computers. You may forget that the “Windows monopoly” didn’t really
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consolidate until around 1995-1996. In the ’80s there were lots of
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computer makers; in the early ’90s, the operating systems were so
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fragmented that every application supported its own graphic printer
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drivers. Consider yourself lucky if you don’t remember the days when PC
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owners had to check every application to see if it was compatible with
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their particular printer.
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Graphical operating systems with their own printer drivers helped
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reverse that trend, but far more gradually than you may realize. The
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Classic Mac OS had no “printing architecture.” Each printer driver
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implemented everything, from the ground up, including figuring out how
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to emulate every hack that every application had used to get better
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results from the ImageWriter and LaserWriter drivers. (My favorite:
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Until about 1998, unless printer drivers set a specific address to
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non-zero while the Finder was printing, the Finder refused to print
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icons.) QuickDraw GX hoped to change that, but died under pressure from
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application developers who didn’t want to rewrite their printing code.
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By the late 1980s, HP and some other innovative printing vendors had
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done the thankless work of figuring this out; they started shipping
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their own Mac printer drivers. By the time Steve Jobs returned to Apple,
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there were plenty of high-quality Mac-compatible printers available from
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a wide variety of manufacturers. When the company had to winnow projects
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to focus on the basics, lower-margin printers were an easy cut to make.
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If you long for the days of Apple printer innovation, you should know
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that Apple never made its own printing technology. The print heads in
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its dot matrix printers came from C. Itoh; the inkjet engines from Canon
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or HP; the laser engines from Canon or Fuji-Xerox. Early on, Apple built
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some printers itself with OEM parts, but by the end, StyleWriters were
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merely rebranded HP printers built with Apple’s logo. The innovation, at
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the time, was in the drivers. Thanks to CUPS in Mac OS X, printer
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drivers are no longer nearly the black art they used to be. There’s
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finally a real printing architecture open to everyone.
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That’s all background to the main point—there’s no money in printers.
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Macworld’s own comparison pricing site lists a 4800-by-1200-DPI color HP
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DeskJet printer, capable of 20 pages per minute, available new for [as
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low as
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$30](http://macbuy.macworld.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=740315673).
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[HP’s annual
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report](http://www.corporate-ir.net/seccapsule/seccapsule.asp?m=f&c=71087&fid=6045810&dc=)
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says that the money in printing is in supplies—some specialty papers,
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but mostly ink and toner. [Lexmark’s SEC
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filings](http://investor.lexmark.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=92369&p=irol-SEC_other)
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describe no fewer than six restructuring programs since 2006 and detail
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the company’s efforts to focus its products on “high-usage” markets—the
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ones that consume the most supplies.
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Printer companies have been trying to protect the fat margins on their
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printer supplies with everything up to and including smart chips that
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only accept digitally signed supplies, leading to lots of lawsuits and
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consumer enmity. And those margins remain under pressure as consumers
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look for lower-cost ink, with new services such as [Costco’s on-site
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inkjet cartridge refill service](http://www.costcoinkjetrefill.com/)
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emerging to put even more of a squeeze on printer manufacturers.
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Even if you want to ignore those problems, you’d still face the dozens
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of extra parts Apple would have to add, stock, and track for supplying
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and servicing any printers it made. Apple’s retail stores would need
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additional repair space and staffing. And printers introduce a large
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class of technical support problems that Apple currently avoids. And
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after all that, unless Apple made the print engine, it wouldn’t make the
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ink, and that’s where all the money is.
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There are hundreds of printers available to today’s Mac users at no cost
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to Apple, and no money to be made by competing with them. Unless Apple
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has a game-changing printing technology hidden in its labs somewhere—and
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there’s no indication that it does—then printing is a game Apple can’t
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beat. The only winning move is not to play.
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\[Matt Deatherage is the publisher of [MDJ and
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MWJ](http://macjournals.com/), journals for serious Macintosh users. He
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saw the innards of the classic Mac OS “printing manager” in a previous
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life and has yet to fully recover.\]
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