I have a real soft spot for FTP applications, so when Panic announced that they were releasing Transmit 4, they had me hook, line and sinker. Up until using Transmit 3, I found myself jumping from one FTP application to the next, never quite satisfied.
This is by no means a comprehensive review, but it is a listing of the things that we find extremely valuable in Transmit 4, making the upgrade well worth the price.
Steamlined nav
Panic’s cleaned up the UI for Transmit 4, which isn’t really a surprise since they’re constantly releasing beautiful looking apps, most recently this amazing looking ticketing system for bug submissions (it’s a thing of beauty). As you can see from the screenshot, they’ve taken a number of icons out of the design and made the application a lot simpler to use. That’s a huge plus for a lot of users, me included, and it makes using their application a little more pleasant.
Real FXP. Woot!
Server to server transfers may have existed previously, but a true FXP option on the Mac is few and far between. Up until now, Transmit was using the PC you’ve connected to the servers as a conduit between the two applications, transferring your files from the first server to your Mac, then from your Mac to the second server. It was quite the bottleneck, and with true FXP support you can now move files from one server to the next without a middleman. What does this mean for users? It means no longer having to rely on a crappy internet connection, and instead being able to rely on blazing speeds at data centers to transfer your files. That’s a big plus.
Better transfer listing
Something that’s been bugging me for over a year is the upload and download window that Transmit 3 would pop up while you were transferring files. Previously, you were unable to differentiate which files were uploaded, which were left to be uploaded, and where exactly you were in the process. It was a little bit of a mess. Panic fixed the problem in Transmit 4, and it’s probably one of the best enhancements over version 3. It’s been a theme throughout this review, but it’s no joke. Transmit 4 really polished off some of the rough edges on a really great application.
Mount from the finder
Did you know that the Finder has built in FTP support? If you click on the Finder, then the Go menu, then click on the Connect to Server option, you have the ability to connect to an FTP server. It sucks, so don’t waste your time. We’re pretty sure that Panic had this in mind when they were putting together Transmit 4, and they certainly solved the problem. The Panic team put a menubar item together that lets you quickly mount your favourite servers, without having to launch the application at first, or at all.
Click the Menubar item, select your favourite, and voilà, a new drive is mounted on your desktop. The drive is accessible throughout the finder, so you now have the ability to save your files directly to a server from your traditional save dialogs. This is quite the timesaver It’s the little things that sets Transmit apart from the competition, because lets face it, FTP applications aren’t really all that different these days. In this case, however, the sum of its parts certainly adds up to more than any other application on the market.
Final thoughts
There’s a list for 45+ upgrades and new features listed on the site, and we certainly don’t have time to review them all, so we’d encourage you to go and check out their page for more details. Here’s a quick listing of some of the other features:
- Friendly file sync
- Amazon S3 support
- One-click SFTP key import
- Fully 64-bit
If you’re looking to pick up Transmit 4, you can purchase it for $34.00 per version, or upgrade from Transmit 3 for $19.00. It’s well worth the price, especially if you’re upgrading.
You can download Transmit 4 here, and try it out for seven days.
