Lexmark Ditches Inkjet Printer Market, Focuses on Laser Printing Instead

Lexmark semi-recently announced that it was leaving the inkjet printing market altogether, which doesn't mean too much considering the company was never a top contender in the market anyhow. Regardless, the company did announce that it was phasing out its consumer and SOHO inkjet businesses as well as canceling its business inkjet line. With this news, some people are wondering if the world of inkjet printing is dead and therefore the era of laser printers is upon us.

The  good news here, at least for existing Lexmark inkjet customers, is that Lexmark Executive Vice President and President of Imaging Solutions and Services Mark Canning stated that even though the company will no longer be making new inkjet printers, it is not abandoning its current inkjet customers. According to Canning, "We will continue to provide the customers all of the supplies, support, maintenance and technical support. It's not our intention in any way to cut short the value that our customers have purchased from us."

On the other hand, Lexmark's laser printing business is doing well. Despite the company's tough financial times in its two main markets, the laser printing business for Lexmark is growing in both hardware purchases and supplies usage. This brings up the question of whether or not consumers' shift to online is hurting Lexmark's printer business. "Every time things go online, there's more to print," Canning added. "We have a lot of activity around mobile printing, cloud printing, print anywhere, print and release, and managed print services. While these things are shifting online, the volume is increasing content."

Lexmark may not be the only company planning on ditching the inkjet manufacturing business, though they are currently the only ones that have actually come out and said it. Some business analysts believe that Lexmark is making the right decision by ditching this particular industry. In addition to that, a recent increase in Lexmark's stock price is yet another positive indicator that stockholders still have faith in the company.

Source: PC World - Lexmark: Inkjet Printers Are Dead, Long Live Laser Printers

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Apple Files 2 New "Shake to Print" Patents for iOS Devices

Yay! New patent filings from Apple! Just what you always wanted! Unless you're Samsung, that is. Anyway, there are a new pair of patent filings from the company that would allow users to select custom settings for printing by moving or interacting with an iPhone or an iPad in different, unique ways.

The filings were recently published this week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and are entitled Systems and Methods for Defining Print Settings Using Device Movements and Systems and Methods for Defining Print Settings Using an Input Interface.

One example of how the applications could be used described how a user could shake their iPhone back and forth in order to enable a print settings mode. In addition to that, the patents gave an example of a user shaking their iPad to cancel a print job. This isn't exactly new tech for the company, as Apple already has a system-wide feature that allows users to shake their device to undo things as well as a shake option that shuffles music on devices.

This new concept, however, could allow users to change settings, like print orientation, by rotating or moving an iOS device. One example included in the patent stated that viewing a photo in portrait mode could then send the picture to a printer with the same layout.

The patent application also presents new ways that a user could interact with an iPad to select printer settings. Users could select an array of pages to print from a document, while the template selector would show a user how their content would appear on various paper sizes.

Whenever viewing multiple pages of a document at one time on a touchscreen device, a user could also use their finger to draw across the pages and signify the order in which the pages should be printed. Whether or not this technology actually makes it on to future Apple devices remains to be seen, though the ideas are definitely interesting.

Source: AppleInsider - Apple's 'shake to print' concept would add custom printing options to iOS devices

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