One step forward, Two steps back

Xee is my go-to replacement for OSX’s built-in Preview app. Version 2 was very quick and allows you to easily browse across dozens or hundereds of images in a folder, while effortlessly toggling between windowed and full screen views.

Xee3 seems at first to be a nice refresh of the app, but the performance is unusable. Trying to view RAW .CR2 files from a Canon 5DMII (about 25MB each) takes Xee v2 about two seconds to load per image. Xee v3 takes a full FOURTEEN SECONDS to load the same image! This is on a brand new 15” RMBP w/SSD and 16GB of RAM, so hardware is certainly not the problem. Even worse, the image takes just as long to reload every time, even if you’ve just viewed it seconds before, highlighting the fact that the app is simply inefficient and is not taking advantage of caching or leveraging my machine’s discreet graphics acceleration.

If the developer can restore performance back to version 2 standards I’ll give this app 4 stars. Right now it’s unusable so it gets a single star for lack of a zero star option.

freediverx01 about Xee³: Image Viewer and Browser