Apple, please get into the printer business (again)

I'm a fervent devotee of all things Apple'ish. I believe that if I buy enough gadgets from Apple, I will achieve perfect (roughly speaking) happiness.

I have an iPod touch, an iPhone, and a MacBook Pro, plus two Airport Extremes that smoothly and easily connect me wirelessly to the Internet and a printer. Which -- the printer -- I just replaced, again, after my Samsung decided that it would be fun to print half of a page, then stop dead, leaving the paper jammed.

I researched the issue via Google and learned that this is a common complaint of the Samsung CLP-315W, which otherwise has been a fairly decent performer for me over the past couple of years.

But when you're used to Apple products working way beyond the fairly decent performer level, it's more than a little frustrating to be stuck with a choice of printers that seem crappy by comparison.

I started my Apple love affair back in the 1980s, when I got an Apple II+ that was marvelously equipped with a floppy disk and a small green screen monitor. Soon I upgraded to early Macs -- along with the Apple Laserwriter, which debuted in 1985 and was discontinued in 1988.

I loved that printer. I've bought a lot of other printers over the last twenty plus years. My expectations have become depressingly low. Along, it seems, with almost every other computer user on the planet.

Yesterday I read through a lot of user reviews of various color laser printers, since I wanted to get a replacement for the Samsung as soon as possible. I was struck by how, on a scale of 1-5, it was extremely rare for a printer to earn more than a 3.8 or thereabouts.

Hardly anybody gets ecstatic over a printer, like Apple maniacs do over the iPhone and Mac computers. Complaints are ubiquitous, even with the more highly rated models. Clearly, there's something wrong in printer land.

It's the computer industry's neglected product.

But here's the thing, Apple: my MacBook laptop can be working flawlessly (as it is), communicating effortlessly with your marvelous Airport Extremes to connect me wirelessly with Qwest DSL -- yet when my printer screws up, as every printer I've owned for the past twenty years has regularly, my entire computing experience goes in the crapper.

And when I turn to the online Apple Store, I'm reminded that Apple leaves its customers to fend for themselves in the rough sea of printer choices. It's irritating. I wanted to be able to order an Apple printer that I knew would work reliably, simply, and well.

Instead, for an hour or two I had to wend my way through printer manufacturer, Amazon, Office Depot, and computer magazine web sites, searching for expert reviews, customer ratings, and what not.

Eventually I settled on the HP Color LaserJet 2025dn, which, pleasingly, was on sale at our local Office Depot. This morning I set it up and found that it plays nicely with my MacBook. The print quality and speed are superior to the Samsung (when it worked).

So I'm temporarily a happy camper. But I know that when it comes to printers, laser or otherwise, happiness is just a glitch away from turning into WTF frustration. Help me out, Apple.

Take a few of your geniuses off of their iPad or iPhone project and turn them loose on designing the world's greatest printer. I'd like a color laser variety. Make several kinds -- photo, high speed business, whatever.

Just make them as cool, reliable, easy to use, and Wow as the rest of your products. You'll sell a jillion of them. And make a whole lot of dissatisfied printer buyers, like me, even more devoted to Apple.

Comments

[Steve PP]

I'm with you! Apple let's have a printer!

[Chuck Sheketoff]

My wife's an Apple gal, I'm a jealous PC guy cuz can't afford to switch the office...but I do love the HP OfficeJet PRO series of printers -- she printed multiple copies of her novel and the duplexing never jammed and the ink cartridges are huge. They are real workhorses.