It's an e-ink display with paper like friction and if you really want to, you can shell into the linux system it runs on.
I have owned both a gen 1 remarkable, and an older iPad Pro. In my opinion, the remarkable is garbage in comparison. The note taking app is just so far behind. And cross platform seems it’s never going to happen.
My note taking app of choice is always: write, by stylus labs. It’s wonderful, and really expresses what I hoped pen based writing would always be. Especially the undo-wheel. For quickly scrolling back a whole word or sentence. But the real killer here is that it’s cross platform. I can move the notes to the native Linux app or the native windows app.
That having been said, I am forever annoyed that I can’t run Xcode on either Linux or my $1000+ iPad. Also, on the iPad, there are ridiculous restrictions in how you are allowed to run apps side by side in split screen.
/sigh
So the race for the good pen note taking device is still on for me.
I have hope that soon the Pine Note will take off and allow me to finally run write by stylus labs on a platform with development tools. In this case Linux.
Again, Apple could win me back by opening access to dev tools. Either in the iPad itself or cross platform on Linux/windows—or by allowing me to install macOS on the iPad.
Remarkable could win me back by opening the platform and allowing my to install write by stylus labs.
Dell or Lenovo could win the race by shipping a 2-in-1 with a current generation processor and Linux officially supported, and preferably pre installed.
But it honestly looks like pine 64 is out in front in this race.
It's linux under the cover that you can connect to if you know the password (in the settings).
There's a whole bunch of apps that you can side load into it.
https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
I'm not sure there's anything preventing you from installing write by stylus labs other than that no one appears to have ported it to the device.
I've never side loaded anything on the remarkable, but... I do own one.. so it's worth dusting it off and trying.
Thanks again for the link to the reHackable repo. Hacker News threads seem to cool off quick, but if I have any luck, I'll report back here.
Make no mistake. Their stuff is great. But I'm not buying something they tell me is for early adopters unless I want to write code for it and use JTAG to load that code, possibly with a handbuilt wiring harness.
Like you, I'm willing to take Pine64 at their word that they are still "crowdsourcing system level software". I am eagerly awaiting their monthly blog update/podcast. Tragically, last month's update didn't happen. So, we've all been a little in the dark.
