Let's face it: Fotos is a crappy app !

[snooper]

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I'm still wondering how Leica can dare adding its name to that app.

Yesterday night, I was trying to shoot Venus in front of the Pleiades, not really a challenge as you can see it with no equipment at all.

Gear: SL2 / VE 90-280, tripod to aim a 5 to 8 sec exposure at 6400 ISO.

So really the goal is reasonable. You just need a remote controller and that would be your iPhone 11 and.. Fotos, latest release. 

As soon as the connection is established - and this already can take ages - all of your camera settings are gone. Whatever you selected, you're back in a stupid mode (P) you really dont care about. So now you reconfigure the camera in manual, by the time you do this the phone goes dark and so does the connexion. So you have to remove the sleep mode of the phone and then re-launch the connection. But the damn app does not reconnect so you have to quit and re-open. So there goes again your settings, you're back in the stupid automatic mode you dont care about. So once you figured all of this, you try to get your shutter speed on the value you've decided, not the one Fotos decided. 5 secs ? No. I want 8. Damn it goes to 10 secs, I want 8. Now it's back to 5 secs. It shows you 8 but wont stay there. It goes either 5 or 10.

And all of it is like this. Selections of any parameter is not precise, response time is very random, sometimes the app seem to loose the camera, etc.

This is the shame of the red dot. Because Leica brought this app as a "remote controller" (knowing that all of the other features are BS), third party wont invest R&D to build a decent remote controller. Because of this crappy app, we will get crappy remotes.

In my company we have outsourced the app developments in India, as everybody does, the code comes back clean, it works, and if there is something to correct, it's done overnight.

When you think that Leica is willing to have us paying $50 per year for this... Really piss me off. 

It really does.

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[Jeffry Abt]

I probably will not purchase the $50.00 version of Fotos. The free version  meets my needs well enough. I use it with both the M10 & the SL2. I only use Fotos for light duty work like posting images to social media and for emails via my iPhone. For any heavy lifting I go directly to my Mac and use PhotoMechanic. I would not agree that it is crappy. But I suppose that my needs for the app are minimal.

[McGirton]

I wouldn't know, because the app doesn't even LOAD UP anymore. On none of my devices. This is a new high in Leica app debacles. I used in with my cameras a lot to quickly grab a photo off the camera, but the app doesn't work anymore.

[lykaman]

39 minutes ago, McGirton said:

I wouldn't know, because the app doesn't even LOAD UP anymore. On none of my devices. This is a new high in Leica app debacles. I used in with my cameras a lot to quickly grab a photo off the camera, but the app doesn't work anymore.

Delete and redownload on your mobile devise,  Clear the relevant  WiFi/BT settings on the camera, reboot then Reset...  Your at home, so why not..L

[wlaidlaw]

If the app is not working, it is important to delete it on all iOS devices, phone(s) and iPad(s) and then reinstall. If there is a problem on one device, though inter-device communication, it seems to cross-infect the others. I had the problem that Fotos would not open on any of my devices and you only got the demand for money each time. It is now working again now and I am only using the free version. 

Wilson

 

[Jeffry Abt]

On 4/8/2020 at 4:40 AM, McGirton said:

I wouldn't know, because the app doesn't even LOAD UP anymore. On none of my devices. This is a new high in Leica app debacles. I used in with my cameras a lot to quickly grab a photo off the camera, but the app doesn't work anymore.

I’ve never had these problems ... “knock on wood”! 

[scott kirkpatrick]

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14 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

If the app is not working, it is important to delete it on all iOS devices, phone(s) and iPad(s) and then reinstall. If there is a problem on one device, though inter-device communication, it seems to cross-infect the others.

Oh, dear!  I have Fotos installed on a whole collection of Android phones of varying ages (Android 7, 8, and 9, I think) and two iPads, also of varying ages.  I need it for my M10-D, which occasionally needs to be changed from summer time to winter time and back, and for remote control with the SL/SL2s.  Right now Android and iOS are at different levels, but I hope the devices will not try to talk to each other across that language gap, as the two releases have different bugs.  If any of these start talking to the Panasonic Lumix app, which allows much greater control of the camera and has not disabled the earlier application structures in which both camera and app talk to a local wireless network, we will really be in trouble.  

Edited April 10, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick