It is 2021 – time for an update of our “Applications we use – our favorite tools” blog series.
An overview of tools we like and use frequently (an update to our 2018, 2019, and 2020 article). These tools are essential in our development and publication process and in spreading our ideas.

Development

To develop our apps and our upcoming software tools for app developer and publishers like our App Store Manager or our Android Release Notes Creator, we use a couple of development tools.

  • Gitlab – offers a wide set of functionalities and allows us to store and maintain our code.
    So we intensively use the issue tracker for planning our development tasks and maintaining our product backlog, usage of the CI/CD functionalities for our automated build, test, and deployment into various stages
  • TexturePacker – create optimized sprite sheets for your apps with this excellent tool
  • Visual Studio Code – we changed our IDE to an offline editing
  • Google Firebase – as a development platform for our tools
  • Pencil – we create our mock-ups with this graphical tool
  • Draw.io – to create mock-ups and charts as well as diagrams online (new)
  • Android Studio – we develop apps once in a while (new)

Design tools

For creating our artwork, we sometimes use just pen and paper and then a scanner. But if we are digital, we have some favourite applications.

  • Inkscape – most of our artwork is vector-based. So our main and beloved tool for creating our graphics is Inkscape. Because in our opinion it is the best free and open-source vector graphics, editor
  • XnView – is an easy and fast image viewer with great batch tool features. Therefore we often use it to transform, resize or convert multiple images automatically
  • Flashback Recorder – To capture screens and to edit them for a release on our Youtube channel
  • Movavi Video Editor – for Mac – helps us to cut clips, tutorials, and videos
  • Aseprite – a very intuitive sprite and pixel art tool
  • LaunchMatic – generating and translating thousands of app screenshots with a few clicks (new)

Ressources

  • icons8.com – a perfect source for many things: icons, illustrations, photos, music, and design tools (new)
  • Fontawesome – the icons we like (new)
  • Pexels – amazing free stock photos (new)

Communication

We are a distributed team and work most of the time remote. Therefore a good communication tool is a must.

  • Slack – is our main communication platform. For this reason, we use it to share ideas, to keep decisions, and to message
  • Whereby – we use Whereby’s easy to use video meetings frequently
  • Hubspot – our CRM, contact center, and email marketing tool

Helper tools

For different tasks our development and marketing often use this small web-based applications.

  • TinyPNG – compressing images and be aware of the quality. This makes applications and websites smaller and faster
  • Littera – creating text and font sheets for our apps. Upload your font and create image maps
  • BeFunky Collage Maker – creating nice collages for our tweets and social media activities
  • EZGIF.com – we create our animated GIFs with this little tool and do some video resizing
  • Convert CSV – some CSVs need conversion? We use this online tool
  • Deepl – our favorite translation tool for almost any correspondence
  • Convert Case – useful for converting texts from right to left and left to right (new)
  • Material Color Design Palette – define the colors of your material applications (new)

Marketing channels

There are many options and channels to market your app ideas. We mostly use the following:

  • Twitter – follow us on Twitter. Mainly tech things
  • Facebook – we share our articles and blog posts there
  • Instagram – find pictures of our marketing campaigns on Insta
  • Pinterest – not used very often at the moment
  • YouTube – we published already many videos and tutorials on YoutTube
  • LinkedIn – find our business there

Applications we use

Our “Applications we use” blog series is updated once a year. We do not receive any compensation for adding an application or service to our list.
These are simply tools that we like to use often.

Feel free to follow us somewhere or give us your feedback about the tools you know and use and would recommend for us.

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