Wednesday, March 14, 2012

App Review: Print to Go in BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0

Review: Print to Go in BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 We’veÂ all been there before. Hours before a flight, praying to the gods of printing that your printer doesnâ€™t get a paper jam when printing out your e-ticket. When finally arriving at the airport, your paper boarding pass and itinerary are in-hand, all folded up in your pocket or purse. But what if you could handle situations like this with ease, not worry about your HP Laserjetâ€™s shoddy track record, save the trees, AND even look like a pro at the same time? Look no further.

One of the new apps native to the BlackBerry PlayBook to come out is â€œPrint to Goâ€. This app is an interesting addition to the PlayBook’s productivity suite. Print to Go is actually a service where you can “print” to your PlayBook wirelessly from any PC as if it was a sheet of paper. The files are essentially catalogued and saved inside the Print to Go app, where they are always available.

None of the features are specifically novel, but the implementation, however, is something that is truly innovative.

To enable this app, you’ll have to install the correct drivers on your printer, which are available online. Once that is set up, you can simply go to File–> Print and choose Print to Go. Youâ€™ll have to sign in with your BlackBerry ID and input a special PIN(found inside the Print to Go App settings) to link the computer and PlayBook together.

You’ll also have to make sure your PlayBook and computer are on the same Wi-Fi network.

The document is then printed as a PDF and securely sent over Wi-Fi to your PlayBook in the Print to go app.

Keep in mind that most of these steps arenâ€™t necessary each time you have to print something. If you check the box saying â€œRemember me on this computerâ€, then all you have to click is print!

From there, you can view any of your printed documents in a super-slick, easy-to-use, Cascades-powered interface. The transitions are top-notch, and the animations are the type you wish you had in the native PIM apps. Documents can be manually sorted into folders or automatically sorted by date, title or size. The execution is simple, powerful, and just a dream to use. You can search directly through your documents, add ones as favorites, and filter through them for just the unread ones.

It may appear like a glorified PDF reader since you can always email yourself documents or print to pdf yourself and transfer it to the PlayBook manually, but by combining a beautiful file manager, a PDF printer, and incredibly easy wireless document transferring, you get something that is more than the sum of its parts.