There's one universal constant of travel -- you'll always be scrounging for pieces of paper with vital details on them throughout your trip.
But what if you could print documents to your iPhone or iPad and use them as your virtual suit-pocket?
Australian Business Traveller spotted a nifty new app that lets you do just that.
Created by Australian programmer Jeffrey Lim, "Zap" allows your iOS device to appear on a Wi-Fi network as a printer.
There's minimal configuration needed -- you just open the app, select the shared printer on your PC or Mac, and click "print" as usual.
It's remarkably easy on a Mac, as the shared printer appears in the "printers" menu without even having to add it to the system first.
It's a little more complicated on Windows, as the printer does have to be manually added in Control Panel.
Once you've printed your document, it appears in a list of documents in the Zap app on the iPhone or iPad.
Of course, you could achieve a similar effect by printing to PDF on your computer and emailing it to your iPhone, but that means the document will appear in your list of emails, which means it might be tricky to find quickly if you're on the go.
You could also transfer documents to your iPhone using an app like Evernote, Dropbox, or even just iTunes' rather cumbersome file transfer capability.
But there's nothing quite as simple as hitting "print" in any program, and having it appear on the iPhone with no additional thinking needed.
Zap is $1.99 in the iTunes Store, but is currently on sale with a 50% discount at just 99c. Download link: iTunes Australia | US.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
24 Nov 2010
Total posts 60
I agree fumbling through email can be inconvenient, I do print to PDF and email but I save the PDF in iBooks so it's easy to find, probably easier ways but have been doing it like this for quite a while now and it does the job, this app looks more convenient though
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