If you read my TechRepublic posts regularly, you know I don’t push a lot of products. I try to keep the focus on app development, largely tutorials with a smattering here and there of things I have learned (often the hard way). However once in a while, I come across a tool that makes life easier and fits nicely into the app development workflow. Such is the case with the $3.99 USD MultiRezer utility (Figure A).
Figure A

Until several weekends ago, I had never heard of the app. I have been dabbling with the Corona SDK and decided I would try my hand at targeting (shudder) iOS. When I finally got around to needing some graphic resources for the iPhone, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPad 3 (wait… I thought it was Android devices that burdened developers with supporting myriad displays), I called a buddy of mine.

Kyle is a very talented graphic designer. In a transaction that consisted of information in exchange for beer and chicken wings, Kyle turned me on to MultiRezer. To my surprise, MultiRezer supports not only the various versions of iOS, but a great representative sampling of Android devices too.

How does MultiRezer work?

In the interface, you simply select the native device for which your images are designed, and then select the target device where you wish to move the images. Finally, drag an image into the window and wait for the magic to happen (Figure B).
Figure B

The interface allows you to drag not just single image files, but entire image directories. Any graphic resizing utility does a better job working with a larger image and scaling it down, but on the whole I am impressed with MultiRezer’s ability to scale in both directions.

Where MultiRezer falls a little flat

The tool is only available for Macs. While I certainly like my Mac, I still do some development on a Windows box, and now and again I find myself on a Ubuntu laptop. It would be nice not to have to save all my graphic conversion work for when I am on my Mac.

The second issue I take with MultiRezer is that clicking the Help menu brings up a dialog informing the user that there is no help (Figure C). The app is pretty intuitive, but seriously, come on guys. If you are going to give me a help pull-down menu, make it do something.
Figure C

Conclusion

Even with the aforementioned shortcomings, MultiRezer is a bargain. It’s a very focused app that does what it advertises. Most importantly, at the end of the day, MultiRezer lets me spend more time coding and less time tweaking images. In my book, that’s a check in the win column.