> The reMarkable cloud is crap and has been since the beginning

Citation needed

On the contrary, reMarkable's cloud and associated sync functionality is praised regularly in the unofficial subreddit, as is the access Support has when people accidentally overwrite or otherwise delete notes.

I fully understand why some people would prefer to self-host their documents, but to link your own work whilst labelling reMarkable's as "crap" is somewhat disingenuous

> On the contrary, reMarkable's cloud and associated sync functionality is praised regularly in the unofficial subreddit

Are we sure it's not just from bots?

I tried to use reMarkable as a tablet with screen casting when teaching, and it failed miserably. The screen casting just breaks randomly.

For storage/sync it's fine, but even that is problematic if you want to organize a large library.

I've been a big name in that "unofficial" subreddit for the past 8 years (u/rmhack), and I check it daily. I put unofficial in quotes because the moderators communicate and coordinate with reMarkable AS, so it's not really quite unofficial anymore.

I don't think it's disingenuous to link to my own work, when that work was directly inspired by reMarkable's own awful software. I would call that "relevance".

I don't think it's fair to praise reMarkable's support for restoring access to files they mistakenly deleted in the first place. And secondly, their support is doing this FAR less than they used to. Some people in the subreddit report they don't do it any longer, since about 2 years ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/1caeble/b...

https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/1nzwt9c/d...

Another defect of theirs is erroneously RESTORING files that were previously deleted.

They do not have sync or cloud figured out.

https://www.google.com/search?q=remarkable+support+restore+d...

This thread made me curious about remarkable, what would you say is a good summary or entry point to the whole remarkable hacking scene?

Where is is obsolete? It's still receiving software updates and likely to for at least 3-4 years. Even after that it's not going to magically brick itself

Manually updating a config file to enable the web server was a wholly unnecessary step as that's just a toggle in the "Storage" section of settings.

reMarkable software has its faults, but I keep coming back to them for the best-in-class hardware, developer-friendly platform, which itself spawned an active developer community. Could it be an easier platform to develop on? Sure. But that hasn't stopped a huge number of supported mods being made available

There is indeed a "USB web interface" toggle under Storage. I've added a note in the final section, thanks.

Please point to the marketing page where it's primary purpose is declared as an ereader.

My car has four wheels, that doesn't make it a good ice-cream van

I’ve heard this excuse for it plenty of times, and it rings hollow and/or Stockholm syndrome. People (rightfully) made fun of Apple for not including a calculator on iPadOS for the longest time. Imagine Apple claiming “we never advertised it as a calculator!”, which is technically true, but clearly silly because it’s an obvious use case that everyday users would want.

Well, same here: a Remarkable tablet is nearly identical to a Kobo or Kindle in form factor and basic capabilities. It even includes an ereader app. But the app, frankly, sucks. They could swapped in KOreader and called it a day. But instead of that, they — or rather, their supporters — give the laughable excuse that “it’s not an ereader”. Well, an iPad’s also not a calculator, and yet…

If your car has four wheels, room to walk around inside, and built in refrigerators that are mounted upside down for some reason, maybe the factory would say that they didn’t sell you an ice cream truck, but everyone else looking at it is going to wonder why they didn’t make it possible to stock popsicles while they were at it.

Similar in form factor and basic capabilities, sure. But. And it's a big one. The reMarkable tablets are aimed for content creation rather than consumption. Nobody realistically buys a reMarkable device when Kindles, Kobos, etc. all perform that task much better with all the connected ebook stores, whatever DRM keeps the publishers and authors happy, etc. etc. That's just not reMarkable's core business and likely never will be.

I'm not sure what the "ereader app" is that you refer to. reMarkables come with exactly one app "xochitl" that handles all user interaction. Sure, they let you access PDFs to annotate - but again the primary use case isn't to read them. ePub files are consciously converted into PDFs to support that premise.

KOreader, whilst an excellent reading app, doesn't support annotations. So it's not obvious why reMarkable would consider that an enhancement given the primary device purpose.

My car doesn't have space to walk around, nor refrigerators. That's why I bought it. Same with reMarkable devices. I buy and use them for the content creation functionality. I have a Kindle for the times when I want to swap to "consumer mode"

Well, nonetheless, those missing features and a thousand other papercuts led me to send it back and upgrade to a Supernote. It’s not perfect, but hasn’t deliberately kneecapped itself with some purity vision that just makes it frustrating to use. And honestly, I’d rather carry a Kobo and a paper notebook than a Kobo and a digital notebook that could’ve been an ereader, too, except “LOL we don’t make ereaders”.

Except it was able to be updated. Looks like mostly a time issue and having to restart the update service, possibly due to an old bug - or maybe a reboot would have fixed it.

The rm2 is still receiving software updates. The fact that this would have been impossible on more closed tablets, or indeed most mobile phones should show reMarkable in a positive light surely?

Bad take. The rM2 is still receiving software updates and likely to for the next 3-4 years.

All that happened is they stopped selling it. Source: https://remarkable.com/products/remarkable-2

Get the new "Pure" one, it's (far more) repairable!

Caveat: reMarkable have not said they will supply spare parts but this should be on their radar

My goodness, I could have written this word-for-word. Similar age, same Apple II BASIC and 6502 upbringing (roll sleeves and call -151) and also wrote to Infocom. We were in the UK so even more surprised to get a reply similar to yours several weeks later. Sadly my letter is also lost to various house moves. Or eaten by a grue.

I wrote them, and after a while I received a brochure in my mailbox, with this stamp:

    ---v----v----v----v----v---
    |         _______         |
    >  One   /       \     G  <
    | Lousy /         \    U  |
    > Point |   ___   |    E  <
    |       |  (___)  |       |
    >       <--)___(-->    P  <
    |       / /     \ \    o  |
    >      / /       \ \   s  <
    |     |-|---------|-|  t  |
    >     | |  \ _ /  | |  a  <
    |     | | --(_)-- | |  g  |
    >     | |  /| |\  | |  e  <
    |     |-|---|_|---|-|     |
    >      \ \__/_\__/ /      <
    |       _/_______\_       |
    >      |  f.m.l.c. |      <
    |      -------------      |
    >                         <
    |   Donald Woods, Editor  |
    >     Spelunker Today     <
    |                         |
    ---^----^----^----^----^---

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23114927

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8Z1cKUxD9c

https://crpgadventures.blogspot.com/2016/05/zork-victory-sor...

Ha! They probably assigned an intern to reply to all the kids wanting to help them write the “next one.” Too funny! They had class, Infocom did.

Me too, except my letter was to Sierra On-Line and my experience was on TRS-80 6809. Really classy reply asking me to write back when I finished school.

I recall sending a letter to them asking them for information on how they compressed their images for their hi-res adventure games. While they replied, they said it was a trade secret. I was kind of bummed. But being a 12 year old kid who barely understood the 6502, it probably would have gone over my head.

Lovely to hear this about Infocom and SOL. The former was my obsession throughout the mid-late 80s on my Atari 800XL, and then the latter for the next few years after getting a 386SX in '89.

Nice.

Recruiter pipelines back then were long, huh?

Yes. Assuming the Move is the same as the Pro, it's PIN-protected with hardware encryption at rest.

I was sceptical at first too then gave their 100-day test a try with the bigger Pro and have the Move on order.

I see the benefits over paper as:

- Search. Still in beta, but you can now search handwritten notes. Seems to work well even with my scrawl.

- Integrations. Just "send to Slack" for now but rumours from YouTuber Kit Betts that more are coming.

- Working at night. The backlight, whilst lacking in temperature control, is handy at night or when ambient lighting is poor.

- Backups. Annoying it's a paid subscription, but I consider it more like insurance against data loss at $3 per month.