We got a new iMac set up and installed today. We migrated everything from the old iMac via FireWire and Migration Assistant, so it all seemed to be fine. Then we decided to hook up the printer.
This printer - the Canon PIXMA MP490 Photo All-in-One Printer, which was part of a bundled package via the Apple on-line store, with a rebate. That was why we bought as a package.
So we're told to get the latest drivers from the Canon website, because the files on the CD are not compatible with Snow Leopard. Sure that OS has only been out for a year, so we'll go and download it.
We download and install the drivers and attempt to add the printer through system preferences.
It does not show up in the dialog t . I turn it off and on, restart the computer, and nothing works.
So I go and google for the information and find out that there have been a lot of other people who
have had problems with using this printer with Snow Leopard. The website has a driver - version
10.26.0 which does not work. I find some info that says that I should use the 10.26.1 driver, but
I spend hours looking all over the place for this driver, and do not find it.
I even try to connect this printer to the old iMac, running OS 10.4 on it, and that does not work either.
Now I know the USB cable is just fine because after all this annoyance, we hooked up the old Epson printer, and it worked just fine, as we have come to expect with Apple products.
I don't know what they were thinking when bundling this printer with an iMac if there is not even a driver that works with it. Come on, did anyone test out this combination before they decided to sell it? I know that Microsoft has a 90% market share with this kind of approach. So now is Apple trying to be like this? We pay more for Apple products and we expect them to work without all this hassle.