App review: Skitch

Sim Ahmed solves his screenshot problems with this handy app

Last week I needed to take a screen shot on my phone to show someone a security flaw on a recently launched website (ahem, Wheedle). Apple's iOS has the ability to take screenshots by pressing the home and lock button at the same time, but there is no pre-bundled app to edit and annotate screenshots.

The app I used to solve my quandary is Skitch, free from the Apple App store for iPhone and iPad.

At one time Skitch was probably the best screenshot tool for Mac OS X. A recent update for its Mac version made the tool unresponsive and worst of all, removed many of the features long time users had become accustomed to. Last year Skitch was purchased by cloud productivity company Evernote, which has since been on a mission to integrate the tool into its cloud document platform.

Where the Mac version frustrates users with its sparseness, the Skitch apps benefit from the minimalism.



A tool drawer that's hidden away until needed, and an undo button is the sum total of the working area on Skitch.

Tools include arrows, text, shapes, and highlighting. The size and colour of the tools are controlled by a palette located in the drawer.

Placing objects onto an image is intuitive, and if a mistake is made the undo button has several history states to go back to.

The most useful tool I've found is a pixelator which obscures any confidential information you might not want to pass on.

Skitch takes advantage of its Evernote pedigree, and lets users store and sync screenshots directly to their Evernote accounts.

4 Stars

Free from the App store