It’s been a while since we’ve seen any updates about Google Cloud Print, but that changed today, as the company announced that over 6 million printers have already been connected to the service using Google Chrome.
Google says dozens of cloud-ready printers have been released by manufacturers like Epson, HP and Kodak. Back in March, it was announced that all HP e-print enabled printers were Cloud Print-friendly.
Google says developers have released “a flurry” of apps and extentsions to enable cloud printing from Android and iOS. Android apps include: Google Docs, Cloud Print BETA, PrinterShare Mobile Print, Cloud Printer and Easy Print. On iOS it’s PrintCentral Pro. On any mobile device, it’s Mobile Google Apps, The Web (any web page wher eyou see a “print” button with the Cloud Print logo), and Kodak Email Print.
I don’t know if that’s a “flurry,” but it’s certainly a start.
On Chrome OS, you can simpy use Cloud Print from Chrome. On Mac and Windows, there is Cloud Printer and again, the web.
“While developers and printer manufacturers have embraced GCP, we’ve also released a variety of improvements to the service,” says product manager Akshay Kannan. “You can now share and control access to your printers so your friends and family can use them too. With “Save to Google Docs,” it’s easy to save your online receipts and confirmation pages to an archive in the cloud. The management page has a new tablet-friendly design and a “Print” button so you can upload and print files to your cloud printers from anywhere.”
Webmasters can add the print button element to their site to printing.
“People with Chromebooks have always had access to the latest and greatest Google Cloud Print features, but today, we’ve reached a new milestone: starting with the latest release of Chrome, anyone using the browser on Windows, Mac and Linux will be able to print any webpage to Google Cloud Print,” says Kannan. “We’ve also turned on print preview for Chromebooks, so you’ll get the same familiar experience wherever you use Chrome.”
Google says Cloud Print will come to more Google products in the coming months.
