Brother iPrint&Scan 4+

Ruler needed

Its a good app but i cant count how many times my images i print out for my clients tattoos were either too big or too small not due to client but due to the fact for example ill want a 6in image i have to guess and hope for the best im using the PocketJet 773 airprint the app doesnt show a reality layout of the paper i wish the app had a ruler for width and length on bottom and one side for the actual measurements of paper so you can size and edit it accurately also app doesnt have a label to show which side is the top or bottom of sheet that leads to my next concern i don’t understand why we cant add multiple images in one sheet you gotta keep rerunning for each image and thats when the problem with which is up and down ive printed out a image over another image several times because ill forget which is top or bottom of layout a app update on that would be fantastic honestly

The UI is sorta bad but the functionality is there

I would rate the user interface as “fine” by 2009 standards, and just not up to date compared to today, but this app works shockingly well for faxing out, scanning to Files app (big one for me), printing (though I usually just use AirPrint natively in files), and machine/ink status for my 7 year old Brother MFC J480DW on my iPad Pro 3 11” running 15.4.1. The fact that I can do this stuff relatively smoothly from my iPad to my ancient printer on a different VLAN’d subnet is insanely cool*.

Four stars for doing the job reliably and in some cases above expectations (for the most part), but not five because boy it hurts to look at.

*Since mDNS and therefor Bonjour is a multicast service, the printer is only “visible” to things on its own subnet; you need to get Avahi Reflector running somewhere on your network to cheat and bounce the mDNS Bonjour packets between the subnets for interVLAN routing, EVEN if your interVLAN firewall is set up correctly, or the app won’t see the printer advertising and therefor won’t know where to find it; same with Airplay and AirPrint and Roku across subnets. Once Avahi is reflecting packets between the subnets, you’re home free. Make sure to set Avahi’s cache size to 0 or the printer and device names start to get real funky after a few weeks.

One lousy app

I purchased my brother printer model:
MFC-J480DW approximately 3-4 years ago. I wanted a printer that I could wirelessly print from my iPhone. I use the iPrint&Scan app. Up until 5-6 months ago everything worked great. The only time I had to reconnect/re-link my cell phone to my printer was after a power or internet outage. But not anymore! Every time I want to print something I have to set-up a new connection, like it’s the very first time I’m using it. So now I’m having to purchase a new printer that I can depend on & depend on it’s connection. I purchased my Brother printer because I was assured that it was easy to set-up wirelessly & would keep the connection. Which ever since 5-6 months ago, it won’t. I can’t walk 10 feet away from my printer without it loosing its wireless connection to my iPhone. I have spoken to brother support and apple support regarding this. Just to make sure I was linking them correctly. Which I knew I was, since it worked fine for years. But now I absolutely hate everything about Brother. All I can think is that an update did something to the brother iPrint&Scan app.
I can’t believe that a huge corporation would allow something like this (app update) to loose thousands of customers for them.
I didn’t read one good review. Which tells me Brother doesn’t care about there customers or keeping them!

Developer Response ,

We understand you are experiencing connectivity issues with the Brother iPrint&Scan app. We'd like to help. Please contact the Brother USA support team at: https://brother-usa.com/support