The Fujifilm XApp

Halelujah – Fujifilm has finally done it. As of yesterday, it is indeed available, the new Fujifilm XApp! Hopefully this means that a long and not always very pleasant chapter concerning the smartphone connection of the Fujifilm X and GFX cameras is history.

I couldn’t argue like some others that the old app (Cam Remote) would never have worked. All in all, I have always managed to connect each of my cameras to the old app and download images with it. But it was certainly never easy and often very awkward and error-prone. Sometimes it was almost frustrating and took ages to get it to work.

I am especially glad that the XApp is now here. We want to leave for Italy next week and, especially when I am travelling, I very often load pictures onto my smartphone to send them.

The XApp

So what is it like, the new Fujifilm XApp? To be honest, it would be silly to draw a conclusion right now. I installed it yesterday and tried it out today with three different cameras (X-T5, X-Pro3 and X100V). The user interface of new XApp is much cleaner than with the app before. It is way more intuitive to use and at least for me the XApp worked straight away with all three cameras. That alone is a huge plus point.

Of course, “worked straight away” means after the firmware update of the cameras. Without the update, the connection does not work. 😉

To be honest, I don’t know how functional and how good the apps are with other manufacturers. But I have heard some good things about the Leica FOTOS app, for example. The old Fujifilm app had a lot of room for improvement in many respects. Am I happy and satisfied now? I’ll be sure to tell you after my holiday, at the end of June.

First impressions

However, what immediately stands out very positively is the much better and simpler possibility of pairing and especially the (semi-automatic) switching of the WiFi connection. I don’t know if there wouldn’t be a better way without WiFi, but this way the app at least switches WiFi within the XApp. So, you don’t always have to jump back and forth between the app and the network settings of the smartphone.

The download speed of the images is OK, but it still only works with the JGPs, not with the RAW files – which doesn’t bother me. The whole experience with the new XApp is not really ultra-fast, but it’s fully sufficient for my needs for the time being. The remote control of the cameras also worked perfectly and without problems.

I am very curious to see how this all will work in practice and I will report back. Until then, I’m looking forward to my holiday.

There is always light somewhere – go out and shoot!