topic Re: PIXMA MG6120 Mac compatibility in Desktop Inkjet Printers

PIXMA MG6120 Mac compatibility

vladimirz — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 03:37:08 GMT

WHY does Canon obsolete perfectly functional printers on the latest MacOS releases??

Is that to make us buy new printers?

Even so - what am I supposed to do with the old one??

You force me to turn a working printer, remaining ink, remaining paper - into junk!

Why not just carry forward the old drivers?

Pretty sure this rant will have zero effect, but I had to ask this question... Let's see if there is any response...

Re: Mac compatibility

shadowsports — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 02:38:21 GMT

Greetings,

Not sure the model of the printer you own. Canon typically supports printers for about 10 yrs. Sometime a little more, sometimes less.

In some cases, a printer cannot be made to work with newer hardware or software architecture. This is why a device may continue to be supported under one operating system, but not another. It might be the OS, or it could be the hardware the OS is running on. It doesn't apply in every situation, but is one of the reasons why devices have a limited lifespan.

Re: Mac compatibility

vladimirz — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 03:51:06 GMT

The model is MG6120. Not exactly sure how old it is, but it works just fine. Connection is through the network - wired in my case, but could be wireless too. There should be no technical reasons for this printer not to keep working with the new MacOS releases, except the decision by Canon NOT to support the new releases. I find these decisions going directly against the consumer's interests, and I don't understand how Canon is even allowed to do this. I wish there were some rules / laws prohibiting this kind of behavior. They (Canon) will also lose some revenue, because I will stop buying ink for my printer, and (naturally) I will make sure NOT to buy Canon printer for the replacement. So, whichever way you look at this - it just doesn't make any sense...

Re: PIXMA MG6120 Mac compatibility

jrhoffman75 — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:14:36 GMT

@vladimirz wrote:
WHY does Canon obsolete perfectly functional printers on the latest MacOS releases??
Is that to make us buy new printers?
Even so - what am I supposed to do with the old one??
You force me to turn a working printer, remaining ink, remaining paper - into junk!
Why not just carry forward the old drivers?
Pretty sure this rant will have zero effect, but I had to ask this question... Let's see if there is any response...

Looks like the MG6120 was released in 2011. Canon stopped releasing drivers for it when Apple switched to 64-bit only. Last macOS that had drivers was Sierra.

Canon still supports the printer in Windows at least through W10. (And many W10 drivers work with W11).

Apple computers are great, but they do often obsolete peripherals. One needs to do a cost/benefit evaluation when buying/upgrading an Apple computer.

Re: PIXMA MG6120 Mac compatibility

vladimirz — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 16:46:25 GMT

@jrhoffman75 wrote:
Canon stopped releasing drivers for it when Apple switched to 64-bit only. Last macOS that had drivers was Sierra.

Yep. The question is - WHY? Why is it a good idea to stop supporting a perfectly functional device?
I've listed some reasons why it's a bad idea, and I can list them again:
- It's very annoying for the user
- It's extra cost for the user (to change the printer)
- It's extra pollution (HW turns into junk)
- It's a loss of revenue for Canon (not buying ink cartridges in the future)
- It's a loss of a customer (not buying Canon printers any more)

What's the benefit? Saving of two man-days of an engineer who'd need to recompile the driver, and test it on a new OS?..

...Here is an idea - I'll volunteer to do the compile/test part! 😀 Give me the source code - I'll do it for you 🤣