Skitch review: Skitch

Skitch is a photo, map, and Web site snapshot app with annotation tools so you can comment on content and draw arrows and other graphics to get your point across. Evernote bought Skitch recently and this is the first major release as part of the Evernote family of apps.

7.7

Skitch

The Good

<b>Skitch</b> lets you create quick and easy image and map annotations to express your ideas visually. As an Evernote app, it now syncs across platforms so you can pick up where you left off.

The Bad

Evernote compatibility means you must log in to save. You can no longer use satellite images in the app. Most importantly, you can't name your files.

The Bottom Line

The Skitch update adds new features while taking away important older ones. It's an excellent way to quickly get your ideas across to someone, but it needs some work for it to become your go-to app for annotating images, Web sites, and maps.

Skitch is a very useful tool for expressing ideas visually with a simple tool palette and a number of handy features. You can snap a fresh photo, pull one from the iOS library, bring up a map, draw on a blank page, or capture a portion of a Web site for annotations.

Once you have something on the screen, you can open the tool palette by touching a spring-loaded drawer on the right. You can choose from stretchable arrows, text, basic shapes, a pen, pixelation (to hide names for example), and a cropping tool. You also can pick from a basic assortment of colors along with three line widths. If you make a mistake, there are both undo and redo buttons that show up in the lower left. The interface is very simple and makes it so anyone can make quick annotations.

When you're finished adding notes, you have separate sharing options depending on whether you use an iPhone or iPad. On the iPhone, you can create a public link that you can direct people to on the Web, share via e-mail, or save it to your camera roll. On the iPad, you get the same options, but additionally you can display it on other devices via AirPlay.

Use Skitch for annotations (pictures)

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As a part of the Evernote family in the latest version, your Skitch drawings will be saved in a Skitch folder on Evernote that syncs to your computer and other devices. This is certainly handy for cross-platform syncing, but there are some drawbacks. As a school teacher pointed out when I read the user comments in the App Store, requiring students to register with Evernote in order to use the app makes it useless in a iPad-enabled children's classroom setting. It's a worthy point because in this new version, the only way to save your work is if you are signed in. On the other hand, for personal use, the syncing power of Evernote means being able to pick up where you left off on other devices.

A couple of other changes will also be jarring for people who used the previous version. There is no longer the capability to show a satellite- and map-view hybrid, so even though you get an easier interface experience in the new version, you also lose features you once had. There is also no way to name drawings on the iPhone while you can on the iPad. This seems to be a huge oversight on Evernote's part because it will make it difficult to search for annotated images once you have several on your iPhone. Even on the Evernote Web site, you are unable to edit titles.

Nevertheless, Skitch remains a useful tool for making quick annotations on your iOS and other devices, and the interface enhancements make it easy to use the simple tools to create comments and notes on images. If you want an easy way to express an idea visually, Skitch is a simple and free option.