Ikivo Animator 1.1

Mobile devices have been growing in popularity over the past few years and, as a result, demand for specifically designed content is taking off. On the back of this trend, companies such as Ikivo have sprung up aiming to fill a hole in the market and help designers create content for the small screen. 

Ikivo Animator 1.1 has been designed with Adobe Creative Suite very much in mind, borrowing many elements that will make regular Adobe users feel at home. A timeline gives you control over the position, rotation, scale and appearance of any SVG object. It takes a little mastering, but making the required adjustments is pretty intuitive.

Animator certainly plugs an animation-editing gap in Adobe, between creating SVG content in Illustrator and preparing it for online delivery in GoLive. Macromedia users, however, will wonder what all the fuss is about considering the capabilities of FreeHand, Flash and Dreamweaver already available to them. 

Despite all the palettes and features, most of the editing is carried out directly on the canvas by making manual adjustments. However, without access to a toolbar, any changes must be carefully executed to avoid inadvertently affecting other attributes. 

The software is pretty well constructed, although with little change from £200 you may want to make full use of the 15-day trial before making any final buying decision.