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Print Magic for iPhone: Simple wireless printing

If there's a printer on your network, Print Magic should be able to put it to good use, churning out photos, Web pages, and whatever text you choose to copy.

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
Print Magic can produce hard copies of text, photos, and Web pages.

The App Store offers a handful of solutions for transporting data from iPhone to printer, but few work as easily as Print Magic.

The $6.99 app makes it a cinch to print text, Web pages, and photos, all without wires: it connects via Wi-Fi to any printer on your network (or any shared printer on your Mac).

Well, almost any printer. While the app had no problem detecting my Brother HL-2170W laser printer and MFC-440CN multifunction, it couldn't figure out how to print to the latter.

Ideally, you should take Print Magic for a test drive before plunking down your 7 bucks. You can't just yet, but developer Wellala says a printer-testing trial version of the app was just submitted to Apple for review. Look for it in about two weeks.

Assuming you're able to print successfully, you'll definitely enjoy the results. You can print any text just by copying it to the iPhone (or iPod Touch) clipboard, then firing up the app and tapping Print.

Web pages work much the same way, except you copy the URL. As for photos, Print Magic provides direct access to your library--just tap the one you want to print.

The app doesn't support documents or e-mail attachments, but it's ideal for turning snapshots into prints, Web pages into real pages, and any copyable text into hard copy.

My only suggestion: wait for the trial version to make sure Print Magic can work its magic on your printer.