Evernote is killing Skitch for Android, iOS, and Windows on January 22, but not Mac
Note-taking app company Evernote today delivered some sad news for users of the image annotation app Skitch. The iOS, Android, and Windows versions of Skitch will be going away on January 22.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second app Evernote has retired in four months, following the September sunset of the Evernote Food apps on iOS and Android. With Skitch going dark on mobile and Windows on January 22, only the Mac annotation tool survives — and the pattern points one direction: Evernote is stripping its portfolio back to the core note-taking product.
The timing matters because the cuts are accelerating into 2016, when Evernote also shut down its Market e-commerce effort and its founding CTO departed. Read against that arc, today's announcement is less a one-off product decision than evidence of a company narrowing focus — and, years later, the same trajectory ended with Bending Spoons acquiring Evernote and laying off most remaining US and Chile staff.
First-order effects
- Android, iOS, and Windows users lose image annotation on January 22 unless they move to another tool, while Mac users keep theirs — splitting the Skitch base by platform.
- Evernote's engineers stop maintaining three Skitch clients at once, freeing resources for the core note-taking app ahead of the leadership reshuffle announced in March.
Second-order effects
- Rival annotation and markup tools inherit migrating Skitch users on exactly the platforms where it is being killed, making mobile screenshot markup a competitive opening in early 2016.
- Every surviving Evernote companion app now sits under a shadow of review; users and developers discount the longevity of anything beyond the flagship client.
Third-order effects
- If the pruning continues, Evernote consolidates from a suite of freemium utilities into a single-product company — a structure that makes the eventual acquisition and staff relocation to Europe more tractable.
- The broader signal for freemium consumer software: side apps that don't feed the core subscription get retired rather than maintained, pushing multi-app ecosystems toward single-focus products.
The trend: Freemium productivity companies are cutting peripheral apps to defend a shrinking core business, with Evernote's run of retirements foreshadowing its eventual sale and restructuring.