Apple has touted that their new printing system for Mac OS X is exceptionally easy (relative to Classic Mac OS, I suppose) to develop drivers for. Like any operating system, even this new printing system depends on the printer manufactures to provide drivers that control most aspects of the printing process, such as:
This last item is where I feel Apple failed, since this limits the user unduly. For example, given perfectly good PCL instructions, it should be the operating system’s responsibility to decided where it can go and does go, whether it be down a USB cable, FireWire cable, or to an IP address. The operating system only needs to wait for the driver to deliver usable printer instructions, then send those instructions where the user wants, without being limited by the manufacturer to “support” network printing.
In fact, did you know that your Mac OS X already can spool these printer-specific instructions to your AppleTalk network printer?