I've written before about Nikon's ever-changing and somewhat unorganized software initiatives. (Disclaimer: my company in 1994 was bidding with Nikon to create what eventually became Nikon View. Much of Nikon's software initiatives have licensing or external foundations in them. Second Disclaimer: I stopped providing my Introduction to Nikon Software book when things got out of hand with Nikon software.)
With the Z9, we finally have a slightly more clear picture of what Nikon is doing (this is Nikon's graphic):
This isn't quite a complete chart, as using the camera for streaming isn't incorporated, for instance, but it does give us a better sense of how Nikon sees things.
Some observations: Nikon View is gone in this chart, in all its forms. It seemed fairly clear previously that NX Studio is Nikon's choice for browsing, selecting, and processing images now. Note the straight line from the camera to NX Tether to NX Studio: that's the preferred Nikon solution for direct image capture in the studio today, however NX Tether can integrate with other applications (still unknown how that works or which applications). Technically, there should be a drive icon between the connect/control and edit portions on the PC side of the chart: all three connect/control options save to your computer's drive in some way.
The mobile side (left) of the chart still seems to leave Nikon Image Space as an orphan (no line goes to it). Technically, SnapBridge can push to Nikon Image Space, and Nikon Image Space can connect to social media, but it's interesting that Nikon has that icon isolated without connection. I still don't think they understand what they're doing there. (Disclosure: the above chart is very similar to one I presented to Nikon executives in 2011, though I obviously labeled things generically; i.e. the Nikon Image Space position is labeled ImageShare in my chart, and I put the mobile stuff on the top and the desktop stuff on the bottom between the camera icon).
Nikon's simplified chart still has some gremlins to it. For instance, NX Mobile Air can perform automatic transfer of image data to a smartphone, too. The difference between SnapBridge and NX Mobile Air is two-fold: SnapBridge is solely wireless with the lowest common denominator Bluetooth/Wi-Fi abilities, while NX Mobile Air is either wired or wireless with the high-end Wi-Fi abilities. SnapBridge speaks mostly to the Camera Roll as its output (from whence the social media connection is made), while NX Mobile Air ultimately speaks to an FTP Server as its output.
It strikes me that the software architecture at Nikon still hasn't been fully rationalized. SnapBridge and Wireless Transmitter Utility ought to be the two adjacent capabilities, as they basically serve a similar, simplified function. Indeed, I'd love to see those two apps/applications be conformed to basically have the same abilities and operate the same (other than the connection differences).
Nikon Image Space actually should be sitting above the camera in between mobile and PC. That's because it works with both. Here's the way I see the way things should be thought to work:
Dashed is wireless, solid is cabled, red is Internet connection (which may be wired or wireless).
And finally: whoever's designing Nikon's new app/application icons needs to be replaced. Those icons convey little or no useful information, and the NX icons, in particular, are going just to confuse people if this "some abstract yellow graphics on a black block" design style continues. This is minimalism and flatness at its worst.
And the naming isn't all conformed either. It should probably be NX Bridge, NX Cloud, NX Transmit instead of SnapBridge, Image Space, and Wireless Transmitter Utility.
That said, Nikon's finally starting to have a consolidated view of how the camera operates in an Internet and mobile world. Next step: improve everything.
