The iPhone was never designed to print with a cable, but several wireless options are available. Printers are one of the most maligned and problematic pieces of tech, often serving as a boundless source of errors even when you're positive you've done everything right. If you have an older printer without modern wireless capabilities, you might have tried to print directly from your iPhone using a wired connection, to no avail.

Since late 2010, the iPhone and iPad have been capable of AirPrint, which is Apple's wireless printing standard. There are standalone apps from brands like HP and Canon that offer wireless printing options for non-Air Print printers, but the catalog of models they support only goes back so far. Unfortunately, as wireless tech has become dominant, those with older printers have largely been left out, especially when it comes to printing from an iPhone.

Apple's mobile devices don't have native driver support, which is an intentional decision since handling the many variations of device drivers would be a massive hassle. This means if you plug your iPhone into a printer, it won't know how to talk to it. Though there are some Android apps that support direct USB printing, none exist on iPhone.

Apps like Print Central Pro, Print Direct and Print Cast can be somewhat useful, though they rely on a computer middleman. Similarly, you can utilize special software like Printopia to force a USB printer to show up as a wireless printing option, but this still requires a computer. At that point, you'd be better off emailing the document or photo to yourself and printing directly from the computer.

There are even more advanced options, like using a Raspberry Pi print server, but upgrading to a modern AirPrint-equipped model is more sensible if you need to print from your phone often.