[John Kwon]

Is there an app for WP8 that simply allows you to print whatever you're currently viewing on the phone to a network printer?

I've looked and there are some that allow you to print docs or other files stored on SkyDrive, but none that doesn't require you to save the file to the cloud first.

It'd be nice to just print a webpage I'm viewing to my printer over WiFi.

[philxor]

I don't know of anything which works with WP8. I was looking for something the other day and ran across mostly cloud print apps like you did. The only app which was supposed to support direct printing didn't work for me.

A rant of mine is why we can't just have one protocol/method for connecting to wireless printers. Google has cloud print now built into some printers, Apple has forced people to make printers with AirPrint compatibility, etc.

[theomodsim]

I doubt that there will be any apps that allow you to print directly to Wifi printers (with the exception of possibly printer manufacturer-specific apps). This is because supporting the many types of printers is a very, very difficult task due to differences in the protocols as well as the data formats that the printer expects. Other platforms have this issue as well, with iOS devices only supporting AirPlay-enabled printers natively (to print to other printers, you need to run a connector program on a machine on the local network) and Android primarily using Google Cloud Print.

As for printing documents not sent to SkyDrive, the print functionality would have to be built into the Mail, Photos, Messages, Office, etc. apps directly because applications cannot access another application's data (apps can only access files in their own "sandbox"). In other words, a printer app can't directly access Office's document storage, so the Office app would have to provide the Print feature itself. However, any app can access SkyDrive (or any other cloud storage provider), so the cloud storage services serve as a sort of "bridge" for data sharing between the different apps.

[Alex Rodriguez Jr.]

HP has Windows RT apps, hopefully that's a sign of things to come

[John Kwon]

Other platforms have this issue as well, with iOS devices only supporting AirPlay-enabled printers natively (to print to other printers, you need to run a connector program on a machine on the local network)...

On my previous iPhone, I had an app that did just this (the second option). I have a wifi-enabled HP printer with no AirPlay. I had to install a program on my laptop (the server, I guess) in addition to the app on my iPhone. It all worked flawlessly.

[cakanani]

I do have Brother network printer at home. Brother printing app for Windows phone 8 is working fine for me.
It is working fine for my Andorid tablet too.( its same name in all three ios, android and windows store )

For HP at work. No luck.