Remarkable 2 is better, because of the features it doesn't have.
The best feature of Remarkable 2 is how quiet it is, it doesn't do anything except for Book reading and note taking.
No notifications, no messaging, no email, quiet tech.
The best feature of Remarkable 2 is how quiet it is, it doesn't do anything except for Book reading and note taking.
No notifications, no messaging, no email, quiet tech.
Like syncing local notes using common cloud services?
Technically, the feature's there, but it's locked behind a $100 per year "service".
Rant aside, I have an iPad mini where I turned all notifications off. Just as good as if it didn't have those features when I don't care about them - but if I need them they're right there.
I also feel like you for the paid Connect account, which I work around using open source tools that you're free to run on it. You can SSH as root easily and run whatever you want. I do it frequently for screen sharing.
I for one find the lack of progress astonishing. Because, you know, if you wanted great writing experience you could've used a CrossPad ... 25 years ago. You write on a notebook -- with a quality pen manufactured by Cross as the name suggests -- the CrossPad records it as vector strokes. Done. In 25 years the progress we got is there's a screen now but that's all. The device still can't do, say, offline OCR or indeed anything useful beyond what the CrossPad used to do.
I've had other devices with pens, but never really used them. I got the Remarkable for my wife and it really compels me to use it, but not with any features, just the writing aspect. I can't tell you whether it's the texture, the screen or something else, but it just does. I admit the same could happen with other E Ink writing devices like the Onyx Max Lumi 2, but I don't have any of them to confirm.
Technically this is present on the Remarkable if you're willing to fiddle with the device some. They give you root by default (and provide an ssh service if the device is connected over usb), and the community has implemented quite a few syncing options.
That said - I was also very bummed to see them introduce the paid service. I'd really like them to succeed by selling good & open hardware, not by moving towards a locked down device ties to SaaS.
Clarification: the above are apps for which I still want /useful/ notifications, so I can't disable all notifications for them out-right.
Also, no spyware..
[0] https://blogs.cisco.com/news/huawei-and-ciscos-source-code-c...
It's everywhere. The CCP takes what the CCP wants. If you work for one of these companies like Huawei, or Boox or whatever, when the Chinese government asks you to do something nefarious, you comply because you want to keep existing. They ain't asking.
It was reported by multiple outlets, but never corroborated.
I sincerely apologize for perpetuating misinformation.
I should have looked at this issue harder when it happened, and again before posting about it.
I suspect this is true to some degree but I also think there is no shortage of Chinese nationalists and anti-Americans (including Americans) who by default, upvote anything that has a pro-China agenda and downvote anything that has anti-China agenda.
Alas, tankies and campies exist.
I live in a surveillance state. I don't really like being surveilled. Big companies share data between each other, and it influences my ability to do things like obtaining a house, or getting insurance.
The Chinese have nothing to do with my data. Western companies, on the other hand, can make a good deal of profit from data in aggregate, and don't care if it harms other people.
The Chinese stick to their own people (and what they believe to be China). Western companies, on the other hand, will track everyone on the globe, without any consent at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearview_AI
I don't use Chinese software; it's just that the person's claim isn't nearly as insane as you're making it out to be. They're acting more rationally than you are, here. It's not Chinese scaremongering or anti-anti-Chinese scaremongering to acknowledge that China can't really do much to the average Western citizen in aggregate.
Why do you think the Chinese tech companies are any better than western ones with your data? They have the same pressures of producing profit.
But hey, tell us again how China is only interested in the Chinese.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-a-...
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/china-spent-years-coll...
[3] https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg89aj/china-has-been-doing-...
[4] https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/94493-china-has-st...
[5] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/24/969532277/china-wants-your-da...
(1) using HN primarily for political/ideological battle, which is not allowed here, regardless of what ideology or politics you like or dislike (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...)
(2) routinely breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop.
Those things are not what HN is for, and destroy what it is for.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
> Have you ever been to China, or do you just watch the propaganda of the media hostile to China?
Have you ever been outside of China, or do you just watch media censored and approved by CCP?
Cool, please point me to it.
If not, your comment makes no sense.
BTW, if such a setting were available, I’d choose spying by Big Tech any day over spying by CCP/China.
Else, I want neither.
My question: are you going to avoid it like the plague; don't buy anything made of it, which may be in a lot of the things you touch. Btw, that's not very far-fetched, judging from the number of breakthrough research coming out of that country.
For a piece of hardware, not so much.
It is, though, and examples have been provided of VERY successful platforms built upon this negative space.
Consider the lack of a feature as a feature itself; it lowers the amount of cognitive brainpower required to use the system, and that is VERY valuable.
Incredibly good for mental health.
> The only option I see is… options. User-specific customization.
You can SSH into a remarkable tablet and do whatever you want to it.
> How does a company make a product that sells to a sufficiently wide market to make it worthwhile?
It is very expensive. Its only purpose is to be a digital notebook.
Think of this product as very expensive paper that backs up writing to the internet. Not a sh*ty tablet that can't do a lot of things.
In many cases, you can't. Turning off popups and reminders is a constant battle with my hardware. Duolingo is about to murder me if I don't resume my language practice.
Get an ipad and theres endless apps and accounts and notifications and a shiny bright screen begging for you to play with it. The ipad really wants to be your computer with a stylus attached, and that is great, i take it traveling instead of anything else and its really convenient. The remarkable is NOT a computer. The remarkable sits at my desk and is just ready for me, while the ipad is eternally charging, or chiming, or begging for attention and distraction. I can't have it at my desk while i work.
The remarkable is literally a digital notebook and has about as much utility as a real notebook - a lot for writing and reading and almost 0 for anything else. It is honestly the first product i've used that actually replaces paper at my desk.
It’s pretty distraction free. I would say if you’re willing to run your tablet under its potential it’s possible to have a quiet device.
I ordered a Remarkable 2 but canceled once I realized I had an old iPad lying around. It works for me.
Thats really what matters.
I will say one big thing for me is the light and flashing and stuff. Humans are naturally evolved to be attracted to quick moving and bright things. Bright electronic screens totally hit that, and for me any sort of screen in my periphery completely distracts me. So a device without a light makes a big difference.
Purposefully putting myself in a situation where any dopamine rush is more than a click away is one of the best feelings I've had in years. So yeah, I'd consider that a feature.
All I want is something I enjoy using to write notes throughout the day, sketch out ideas, and organize my day.
Yes, there's a trillion other tools, software, apps, paper notebooks, whatever that I could use to do this. The point for me is that I didn't use those things. I do use the Remarkable and I love it.
Otherwise it's trival to disable notifications, messaging, email etc (at least on Boox and there are quite good youtube tutorials about how to do this), so that's not a particularly strong differentiation.
"You can have any color you want as long as it's black" only works as a selling point if other cars can't be black.
It's like how my screwdriver is significantly better at driving screws than my swiss army knife. Purposeful design drives a better experience
A couple years ago I went from a largely "paperless" life to using a daily planner, largely for my daily work and personal TODO lists, and have found the process very valuable.
I toyed around with making a custom template for my daily notes/lists, and using the RocketBook ecosystem (maybe with just my own printed templates and using their app for scanning), but in the end just stuck with pre-printed planner books.
I'm just getting ready to order my third planner, and this topic comes up and tempts me with a technological solution to a largely solved problem, but makes me wonder what benefits it might have.
I've started building custom pdf planners for these eInk devices (I'm an rM2 owner myself) and am always looking for insight on how people use them. Have a little website setup for this at https://hyperpaper.me
The TODO lists I mark with Done, Won't Do, or Rescheduled for the future. That process is valuable, if I push something off too many times, I evaluate if I really need to do it.
I started with the Panda Planner Pro, but I ended up finding the personal and reflective things more onerous than useful. So once I filled up the first one I moved to the Amazon Basics Daily Planner ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078GVYRZG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... ), which I mostly like. I like having two days of todos at once, because I can just see more that way. I'd probably be just as happy to have 3-4 todo columns per 2 pages, 5 would be convenient but probably too small.
I'm considering the Clever Fox Pro for the next one, but it's $40 while it has a nice week view, it probably doesn't have enough todo entries, I really need a good 10-15 per day. Maybe I just need a week todo, with daily "priorities". That would probably be ideal.
I'd like to try the "timeslots" where I plan out my todo a bit more with times, but that may or may not work.
I found that this made a big usability improvement in low light situations over previous eInk readers I owned, and that in practice there were more low light situations (or at least situations where I'd rather not turn on a light just to read).
If anyone can tell me the artist's name, I'd be grateful.
[1] https://consumer-img.huawei.com/content/dam/huawei-cbg-site/...
Edit: I found it through the lyrics. Olive Musique - Everything About You
https://www.isummersoft.com/transfer-kindle-to-remarkable-ta...