Monday, March 02, 2009

The sorry state of OS X device drivers

I've written before about the lousy quality of OS X scanner drivers. Today Scott Gruby, a vendor of OS X software, provides some details on miserable Epson drivers and makes a limited recommendation:
Scott Gruby’s Blog -- Accepting responsibility for bugs

... The only scanners I recommend are the Fujitsu ScanSnap and the Pentax DSMobile 600. The ScanSnap series don’t use TWAIN drivers so they can’t blow up ReceiptWallet and the Pentax DSMobile has incredibily well put together drivers. My guess is that they didn’t start from legacy code....
Things are so ugly out there I think Apple needs to start certifying device drivers. Vendors would then be incented to invest in drivers that earn certification and the right to advertise compliance.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for your post. I decided against buying a Neat Receipts scanner (and an Iriscan 2) in favor of a Pentax DSmobile 600. It sounds like this is the best of the portable USB Mac scanners out there even if the software is non-existent and the button on the device doesn't work. If the TWAIN is good (as you say), then that may be good enough for me.

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