Skitch and Evernote: an open letter to Keith Lang, co-founder of Skitch

I really liked Skitch for Mac, but I’m worried about the negative feedback we received from some of our oldest and most loyal users. I thought about the reasons for this over the past few weeks and concluded that we underestimated how closely Skitch integrated into the daily work of many people and how destructive product changes could be in such a situation. I would like you to know that we are planning to fix it.

While we are adapting the new version to your needs, it may be more convenient for you to work with the version prior to Skitch 2.0 for Mac, which can be downloaded here . Of course, in this case, you will lose the new features of version 2.0, but we will actively work to make the new version more attractive for you in the long term.

As one of the founders of Skitch, I want to say that Skitch is a very personal and meaningful application for me. I suddenly realized that during these 16 months we were so absorbed in the development process that we didn’t even find the time to meet you and share our plans for the future. But Skitch was created to share plans.
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So let me briefly review Skitch history, and then tell us our vision of its development.

How did Skitch appear

The Skitch idea took shape in 2004 and was immediately implemented in the simplest working prototype, which was just a red box on the screen. But we liked him. For four years, we and our close friends have been working on new features, and in 2008, the first beta version of Skitch, available to a wide range of users, was released. Skitch remained in this status for another 3 years, while we continued to expand the capabilities of the application, work on its design, and at the same time gathering a group of fans of the fancy beta interface. I think that somewhere in the mail, an unclaimed package in our name is still gathering dust with a reward “for the longest stay in beta status”. In fact, Skitch 1.0 was released shortly before we started negotiating with Evernote.

Hello evernote

Scientists call this deictic gestures, and ordinary people describe the process more simply - “pointing and explaining.” I read somewhere that the ability to draw attention to an object or comment on it is a skill that turned a small group of people from a lunch for saber-toothed tigers into intelligent and effective hunters, gatherers and creators. The choice was made when Phil Libin and the wonderful Evernote team identified the Skitch development direction as creating a tool for visual commentary that is indispensable in the modern “digital” world. We realized that together we can help millions of people become more efficient through sharing opportunities. That's why Skitch joined Evernote.

Absorption

Skitch became part of Evernote in August 2011. At that time, we had one part-time developer. Fourteen months later, I was surrounded by more than 25 of the most intelligent and hardworking people I know of. And together we worked on Skitch.

Over the past 16 months we have designed, developed and released:

• Skitch for iOS, including the interface for both iPhone and iPad
• Skitch for Android, with an interface for phones and tablets, including version 2.0
• Skitch for Windows 8
• Skitch for Windows Desktop
• Completely redesigned Skitch 2.0 for Mac

I am really proud of what we did. Now more than 10 million people use our product. Users like that Skitch can be used not only on a computer, but also on other devices. But our work did not end there - some things were done incorrectly, and we did not manage to get to others yet.

Skitch 2.0 for Mac is the most visible example of this situation. This application is loved and used daily by many people, of course, including me. So why did we decide to rewrite and rethink Skitch for Mac when we moved from version 1.0 to 2.0?

New Approach at Skitch for Mac

First of all, if you looked inside Skitch 1.0, you saw that for the last five years everything has been based solely on patches and good intentions. The application needed to be rewritten completely at least for its further development. For example, in Skitch 1.0 for Mac it was impossible to change the size of the figures, the direction of the arrows, and it was not even possible to transfer the Skitch library to a new computer. We had to create a modern application from scratch.

Secondly, we thought about how to make Skitch for Mac a really great product. How could Skitch be simplified to make its interface more pleasant and understandable for the average Mac user? By the time we started working on Skitch, many great applications already performed some functions better than Skitch could ever do. Therefore, we decided that we should not include them in the product. How to work on the application of the future, if its interface is already overloaded? That's why we completely rethought Skitch for Mac interface and work. However, not everything was done correctly, and, of course, we will continue to work.

Skitch Plans for Mac

Since the release of Skitch 2.0 for Mac, users most often asked to bring back a number of features from version 1.x listed below.

Menu bar

Initially, Skitch 2.0 lacked a separate menu bar icon. We needed to make a number of changes to make the panel more efficient for work in Mountain Lion, however, I am pleased to announce that it was back in the version of Skitch 2.02, which is already available for download.

Selecting the file format in the "Drag and Drop Document" tab

Appeared in version 2.02.

FTP / sFTP

Expected at Skitch soon.

Automatically create links for sharing

This function will return within a few weeks as a setting (many users do not want this to happen by default, worrying about the privacy of the information).

Short links

Although short links can be quite convenient, they pose a certain security risk. The chance that someone accidentally stumbles upon a private file, accessible via a short link, is many orders of magnitude higher than in the case of the long URLs that are used now. Many of our users understand this, but prefer short links for documents for which they are not afraid. Therefore, the ability to create short links will soon return to Skitch and will be accompanied by a warning for users who may not be aware of the risks.

Direct Skitch Image Hosting

Image storage is a separate business that is significantly different from an Evernote business. Most of the companies that do this are trying to monetize their audience using a combination of advertising, tracking user behavior on the site, attracting potential customers for online retail, analyzing data and other "indirect" methods. Evernote does not do any of the above. We do not make money on your data and assume that all the information you added is private and under your complete control. Therefore, we have removed the direct storage of images on Skitch.com. We will return it in a few weeks with some restrictions, to be sure that it will not lead to negative consequences.

Storage, synchronization and collaboration

At Skitch for Mac, you can do three things with your documents:

1. synchronize them with Evernote, making them available on all devices with Evernote installed;
2. save them locally and work with them the same way as with other files;
3. share them via email, Facebook, Twitter and other services.

I think that this way we cover the whole range of user needs. All three features are already available, and in future updates it will be even easier to work with them.

Various fonts and custom colors, simple cropping and resizing, automatic selection of tool type

All this will return and will be implemented much more convenient and easier than in versions 1.x.

The best version of Skitch is still ahead

Of course, we are not just planning to bring back the improved features of version 1.x. We are working on some new great features that should appeal to both our regular users and the millions of new fans of the app. Imagine the opportunity to make notes on documents of different types, to express complex ideas by e-mail without a single line of text and to make a manned mission to Mars. Within a few months, we will accomplish at least two of the three tasks.

All this is possible only thanks to the attention, energy and resources that Evernote devotes to Skitch. It is very flattering for me to work in a team that is ready to work late, to refuse vacations and invest my soul in a project I was fortunate to be a part of. Nowhere, except Evernote, I have never met such intelligent and attentive application developers. We have much to do, and I can't wait to get to work.

Kate Lang, Skitch Chief Designer