Do mobile photographers want to print more?

At the Macworld/iWorld conference, we took a look at the Photo Cube mobile printer.

In a digital world, how many mobile users really want to print from their devices? 

Currently, if you want to print photos wirelessly from mobile devices, you have to use a wi-fi or Bluetooth-capable printer—or, if you have an Apple device, you need an AirPrint-compatible printer. Most newer printers also accept mobile photos from a USB connector. Older printers, on the other hand, will only accept documents sent from paired computers.

A recent study from IDC Analytics indicates that more users would print from their mobile devices if they were properly educated on how to do so. The analytics firm claimed that the percentage of users who printed from a mobile device increased "dramatically" in 2012 but a large percentage of smartphone and tablet users still do not know how to print from their phones and tablets or they think that their device doesn't allow mobile printing at all.

Additional findings from the IDC survey include the following:

• A higher percentage of tablet users than smartphone users can’t print but want to
• Smartphone and tablet users at large and medium companies print more applications more frequently than their small company counterparts
• Business-use smartphone/tablet users are more likely than their personal-use counterparts to print, and to have an interest in printing
• Most consumer applications are cited as having flat print volume, but photo and coupon printing are increasing, while newspapers/magazines, explanation of benefits, event tickets, games, airline boarding passes, and flight itineraries are decreasing
• Three mobile print services dominate at small companies whereas at large companies, a greater variety of mobile print services are cited more often
• A smartphone or tablet camera for document capture, and cloud file services (e.g., Dropbox) are used by more smartphone and tablet users than mobile scanners, and mobile printing services
• Smartphone and tablet users are more likely than non-users to scan most applications examined