Fuji Xapp is out now

Reading the rumour mill, there were a lot of negative reviews early on with people stating wifi was broken or the app would start up into a black screen and not continue.
Looks like the app was pulled to fix the issue and relaunch with a fresh review score.

About the question of compatibility:

Well I have found that you need at least Android 11 so the new software will not work on my Samsung Note 8 and my Tab S4. I did download it on my IPad Mini 5 and it appears to work pretty smooth and quicker so there is potential of using it on my IPad.

App has been pulled from both the Apple AppStore and Google Play

From Fujifilm:

Message from Fujifilm

I updated my XPro3 and then when I turned it back on I had to reset the date, time and DST flag - that's fine since it was advertised. I then took a picture of the QR code with my iPhone and it downloaded the app from the Apple store and started the paring process - cool. Then it paired with Bluetooth - cool.

Then app and my XPro3 were paired on blue tooth. I took an image with the remote capture option. It worked fine. The I decided to test out the use other features like download, etc. which required the connection of my phone to the camera WiFi. No go - it barfed and puked as the phone could not log onto the camera WiFi. So much for the new app. I can't say I'm surprised. The app is probably better for geotagging and location/time synchronization that the old one. But... still not ready for prime time. Doesn't Fujifilms engineering department have an independent tester or do they just follow the MicroSoft model of throwing buggy crap out to the consumers.

Thanks for posting this. I was looking high and low for the APP on the AppStore. Now I know!

Bob

Back up again on Playstore as version 1.0.1 with the following patch note:

Something tells me that couldn't have been the critical issue that required it to be pulled in the first place...

Back again for the iOS App Store too, where again the supposed issue that caused them to completely pull their brand new app on launch day was some incorrect wording nobody noticed… can’t help feeling there was probably something else afoot?

Fuji, you really are starting to irritate me. First the new X-H series in a PASM body, no battery charger, no click dials etc. The 150-600 not fully compatible with older cameras. Now the new app not compatible with older cameras.

(Opens a beer and retires to corner muttering).

PS has anyone tried the 150-600 on X-H1 yet?
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I'm using the 150-600 on an XH1 body - It works well for my needs :

Regards,
Joe.
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Thanks for that, Joe. Looks good, tempting.

There was a display bug with certain phones using the Android version of the app. I’m speculating Fuji pulled both versions as a precaution — and took the opportunity to fix the language. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I spent some more time with the app. Turn out that the Bluetooth and time and location sync are much better. When I went to transfer, it came trying to connect the phone to the camera WiFi. I checked the settings in the phone and it seems the phone did find the camera WiFi and was going through the handshake process. However, I was either too close to my laptop or WiFi router and they could not finish the hand shake and establish a reliable link so the phone jumped back to my local WiFi. So the issue was one of RF interference and the camera being too weak of a signal. When I took the camera outside, it connected to the phone just fine.

So this app may have some issues, but it seems much better than the old one.

I hate to say this but that sounds exactly like my experience of the old app - outside and “in the field” it would often connect and transfer seamlessly, it was only when I was home I would have problems, which could sometimes be solved by “forgetting” my home network.

Strangely, my experience of the new app is that they’ve fixed this issue, since it seems perfectly able to connect at home and stay connected without any fiddling on my part (on my iPhone 13 Pro running 16.5). Weird that it’s opposite for you! I wonder whether it’s just luck of the draw and to do with what router(s) etc you’re using on your home network (as irrelevant as that absolutely should be).

I don't know about the old app since I never used the WiFi to transfer images. However, it is not a surprise that a camera wifi does not transmit with sufficient power to overcome interference from my 3 band home WiFi system. My home WiFi network puts out a lot more power than my XPro3. The average home WiFi router outputs about 12 dBm. I expect the WiFi in my Pro3 outputs about 0 dBm. So in the house, it probably won't work. On the other hand I was able to update the F/W in the XH2 using the old app connected to the camera WiFi. So I expect the WiFi subsystem in the XH2 is a bit more robust.

Since I don't download images to my phone - as long as the bluetooth connect is robust and the app works - I'll be happy.

Truman

FWIW I had no issues transferring 31 non-scaled images from my X100V while sitting at my desk yesterday. The WiFi here is an Orbi mesh system. Interference didn’t seem to be an issue.

Early days yet, but so far Xapp is does a better job doing the things I’d previously had to coax from of Cam Remote. Initial setup was painless. Subsequently Xapp is easier and faster to connect to both of my X cameras. Geotagging for both of my cameras simultaneously is a big green check mark in its favor. I haven’t had opportunity to test the screen refresh rate of Live View yet. I’m disappointed that the app won’t let me archive/load/create individual Custom Settings.

I do wish for more, but I’m pleased by what I got.

By what I read on Chinese social media, it was related to a mistake that "China" was labeled as "Republic of China" by mistake. It should be "People's Republic of China (PRC)", while ROC is the name claimed by Taiwan today...

The Leica Fotos app is quite good. It supports BLE to minimize batter drain on the camera. However, WiFi by its very nature was designed to carry large amounts of data or to communicate data over a much longer range than bluetooth. The power drain on WiFi is much higher. The only real way to get around that in a system like a camera on battery is to first lower the bandwidth to reduce the output power needed. That means to maintain the necessary Eb/N0 to maintain the necessary bit error rate, the range is significantly reduced. So while the Fotos app is much more robust than the Fuji app, it still has short range and the bit rate is fairly low for WiFi. It is probably a little better than your 40 Mb in 4 minutes but not a lot. If it does drop, the phone shuts down the camera and phone both detect it and shut down the link and the camera does not hang. But given the RF environment that one is trying to use any of these camera WiFi communications on I expect the performance is for high speed bulk transfer of data is never going to measure up to what people would like. That is what devices like CamRanger's are made and even an higher power external WiFi dedicated network is limited to 500 feet. A friend who has a CamRanger 2 says it is more like 150 feet for reliable high speed communications. However, CamRange 2 has a large polarization diverse antenna set whereas the camera does not have the room and no one is going to design a camera with "antenna ears" poking up.

On the old app I even once had the local LTE (4G) network interference and disconnect the phone my my camera WiFi. While the LTE signal in overlapping bands with the WiFi is not exactly the same signal structure, the signal power of LTE or 5G is strong enough to interfere with the weak WiFi signal coming off the camera and the low gain antenna in the phone receiving the signal from the phone.

So in reality I expect that those that expect any app and camera integrated WiFi to duplicate the capability and reliability of a CamRanger 2 will be seriously disappointed.