4 ms·

"so little effort into software"? Quite the opposite, it seems like they've put a lot of effort into the software. Everything "just works" and is polished, unli

• Arainach 5y ago
  I'm all for fewer polished features - but we don't get any of those. Prior to the latest updates I actively regretted my reMarkable 2 purchase. Now it's back to "a decent device that I would never recommend anyone pay full price for" Let's start with eReading: Hyperlinks in ePub and PDF didn't work. As such, your table of contents and index are worthless, you don't have quick access to footnotes, and so on. They only very recently finally added this in the 2.6 update. If links don't work they must have some way to jump between pages easily, right? No, wrong again. Jumping to a page number is 3 clicks deep (pretty sure it was 4 prior to 1.17): Upper left corner, page overview, "Go to page". You then have to move from the top of the screen to the bottom to enter the page number and then back to the top since they couldn't be bothered to put an enter/OK button with the other buttons. Then there's the controls in general. To switch between writing utensils, you need the left menu. This covers your document content and there's no way to just scale the content into the remaining space. This means that to work on an entire document you need to be constantly opening and closing that menu. There's not even a way to have the button backgrounds be transparent so you can read what's behind them without interacting. Search is very slow. It takes FOREVER to index a book, and you're given no indication of if it's done. Instead, if I open a large PDF and search, I will be told that there are no results rather than that it hasn't finished looking yet. If I wait 15 seconds, things may magically appear on my screen unexpectedly. eBooks are slow to load, and changing text size requires you to wait while the entire book is rerendered (losing your notes in the process since they're image-based rather than proper annotations) This is primarily a drawing/creation device. A basic tool that would help here is stroke-based erasing. They have stroke knowledge since Undo supports that, but the eraser is a clumsy mess that reminds me of the worst cheap elementary school supplies. While we're on basic UX, why is the entire device in "light mode" except for the settings app which is inverted into dark mode with no way to change it to a normal UX? Those are all off the top of my head. I have a much longer list of thoughts in a document somewhere. My overall point is that my expectations a full Android device with fancy editors. My expectations were an optimized focus/creation device, but the software lets the hardware down in a bad way even for their core scenarios of reading, annotating, and drawing.
  • fouric 5y ago
    > I'm all for fewer polished features - but we don't get any of those. I don't think that the rest of your comment substantiates this. You don't have any arguments that the core functionality is lacking in some way - everything you say seems to be about non-core things. > Hyperlinks in ePub and PDF didn't work. Note the "didn't", and also PDF hyperlinks is not an "essential" feature for the purpose of the rm2, which is writing and annotating. > If links don't work they must have some way to jump between pages easily, right? Not core to writing and annotating. You're looking for a document-navigation system, which the rm2 is not. > Search is very slow. See previous comment about the rm2 not meant to be a document-navigation system. > eBooks are slow to load, and changing text size requires you to wait while the entire book is rerendered (losing your notes in the process since they're image-based rather than proper annotations) This might be the only valid complaint here, although it's still a non-essential feature. An essential feature is the ability to take notes, which you can. > This is primarily a drawing/creation device. That's literally how it's marketed - "Writing, reading, and visualizing only". > A basic tool that would help here is stroke-based erasing. They have stroke knowledge since Undo supports that, but the eraser is a clumsy mess that reminds me of the worst cheap elementary school supplies. The eraser tool is perfectly functional. I use it continually with no problems. Could it be better? Yes, like almost every piece of software ever written. Is it "a clumsy mess"? Not even close. > While we're on basic UX, why is the entire device in "light mode" except for the settings app which is inverted into dark mode with no way to change it to a normal UX? That's a single UX issue, among many things that they got right, that has little impact on the usability of the device. You neglected to mention how the drawing, cut/copy/paste, convert-to-text, eraser, templates, and almost every other feature "just work". You do get all of those "polished features" - your stretch goals are not core functionality.
    • Arainach 5y ago
      >That's literally how it's marketed - "Writing, reading, and visualizing only". >Not core to writing and annotating. You're looking for a document-navigation system, which the rm2 is not. Document navigation is absolutely a core part of reading. When I read a book, I page around it because that's how books work. When I reference a book I've already read, I want to look in the index or the table of contents and go there. There are 6 things that reMarkable claims the device does on their homepage. "All your notes, organized and accessible on all devices" and "Take handwritten notes, read, and review documents" are two of them. Reading and searching are core scenarios.
• mstipetic 5y ago
  If a guy could create amazing ux improvements without access to code [1] and by binary patching I’d assume a vc funded company could also. I consider this patch to be essential for my sanity [1] https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable-hacks https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable-hacks