We launched the free NoodleTools Companion mobile app over ten years ago(!) to give students a quick, simple way to scan a book’s ISBN and export a perfectly-formatted citation into the NoodleTools web application. Since then, the app has served its purpose for users who valued that “in the moment” scanning workflow. But technology and user expectations have evolved, and after careful consideration, we’ve decided to discontinue the mobile app in its current form. This has no effect on the NoodleTools platform itself, just the free add-on mobile app.

Why we’re making this change

• Aging tech: The app’s codebase is nearly a decade old and was built on outdated frameworks.
• Cost of updates: Significant development time and resources would be needed to modernize it — resources we’d rather invest in improving NoodleTools itself.
• No monetization: The app has always been free, with no revenue to offset ongoing maintenance.
• Limited functionality: Scanning ISBNs is useful, but obviously limited. Since the app’s release, we updated the full NoodleTools application to include much more powerful citation features, including ISBN import, DOI import, direct database integrations, and the Smart Import beta feature for websites.

What this means for you

NoodleTools Companion will be removed from the iOS and Android app stores and will no longer be supported, so we recommend deleting it from your mobile device. We have some thoughts around future mobile-centric development, so stay tuned!

We’re grateful to the students, teachers, and librarians who tried out NoodleTools Companion over the years. Retiring it allows us to focus fully on delivering the best possible NoodleTools platform experience.