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!

9 Comments

  • Im Google Playstore wird sie mir noch nicht angezeigt. Wo hast du sie denn gestern schon her. Sollte doch erst heute verfügbar sein. Die Kameras habe ich geupdate, nur die xapp find ich nirgends zum herunterladen.

  • Unfortunately I haven’t been that fortunate, and – so far – the software doesn’t seem to be really more functional or user-friendly. even though I registered both cameras, I have not been able to download GPS data to the cameras nor have I found a way to automatically upload images taken to the Smartphone (iPhone). And I also found the instructions and help not convincing so far. May be it is just me who doesn’t understand how the software really works

    • Hello Christian,

      I’m sorry if you’re having problems. However, at the moment I cannot confirm or reproduce the problems you describe. Both the geotagging and the downloading of selected images in the background (I assume that’s what you mean by automatic upload) work perfectly and reliably. As I said, I haven’t tried everything out in practice for a long time yet, but I tested both briefly this morning. And I did so with an X-Pro3, which is more of a camera that is no longer quite up to date.

      Above all, I stand by my assessment that the app has become much more user-friendly and clean. The UX design has really been extremely improved.

      Cheers,
      Peter

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