HP Smart for Desktop 4+

I've had this printer for a few years so it's a good choice for desktop purposes. However, it prints fairly slow and get paper jams a lot. It also went through a phase where it just clicked and made adjustment noises but never fully went on and I had to unplug and replug over and over again and do the alignment and adjustment every single time I turned it back on. I just want to be able to hit the button to turn it off without having to adjust it every time. Also, for some reason the images always print askew. I have to open the tray and really push the paper all the way back and squeeze the sides every time before I print if I don't want it to be crooked. Lastly, The HP printing app is ok, but I can't change the order of the tiles so that means that the help tile is before the print tile and the fax tile (which I might use like once a year) is in front of printing and scanning which are used most often. I can turn them off and on, but I can't move them around. So that's frustrating.

I've been using this app since moving to Mac a year ago to use my generally reliable HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus. While some aspects were clunky (especially where login was required - and which shouldn't be required), the app generally performed its functions reasonably well. I mostly used it for scanning items to PDF and JPEG on my laptop, such as forms or doctor reports.

Over time, some improvements have been made, including native Apple Silicon support. I appeciate active development while supporting older devices. However, a recent update (version 15 perhaps, about 2 months ago?) made significant changes to the user interface, particularly in the scanning functions. There were a number of major interface regressions and lost capabilities and options; while some of these have been restored or improved (such as finer controls over where to save files), there remain major missing features or options. Most notably, I am unable to use the automated document feeder (ADF) on my scanner to scan more than one page or to scan a double-sided page, and there is no setting to use this in the software. As best as I can tell, each page has to be scanned manually. This feature worked fine for almost a year on Mac using this application, and as far as I can tell continues to work on my Windows machines using the helper application the same way this has always worked for 10 years.

I'm floored by what a terrible idea this is. Using my scanner from my OS is janky and error-ridden, but the app offers a strealined experience. Except you have to be connected to the internet and logged into the HP account you're required to make to use any of the features. Why do I need to be logged in to scan a document? Well presumably so HP can get their copy of my document too, and that's why this is a truly terrible design and concept. HP is unabashedly and unapologetically forcing you to hand over ALL of your personal data and information, and there are no reasonable alternatives--it's overall a gigantic step BACK in terms of user friendliness and useability. I'm disgusted. But that's not even why I'm writing this review, I'm here because I got logged out of the app and I can't log back in now--no matter how long the wheel spins it never opens a browser window, so regardless of how hard I try to get the app working and re-establish HP's close connection to all of my most sensitive information I CAN'T because this product is so absolutely, magnificently, poorly conceived and constructed... What's clear is this interface is merely a cheap facade and no more than vehicle by which they operate their all inclusive executive campaign to shamelessly harvest your most confidential records.