But, since you can SSH into the device, rsync works just fine on the Remarkable. :)
Personally I would be ok with my device disabling it's UI while it emulated a mass storage device when plugged into a host.
I'm fine with them choosing to solve those challenges instead of supporting USB mass storage.
USB mass storage requires exposing a block device with a filesystem, which is error-prone and complex.
The point is, USBMS is a solved problem. My MP3/MP4 players, my Android phone, my satnav, even my soldering iron[1] can do it. The Linux kernel, which reMarkable uses, already includes support for this[2]. It's conceptually very simple --- in its most basic form, if the device detects that it's plugged in, it unmounts its internal block device and lets the host control it, and vice-versa. More advanced functionality, such as found on Android and many MP3/MP4s, lets you choose whether the device or the host controls its storage, via a very obvious interface on the device itself (one position is "charge only", the other is "transfer files".)
[1]https://hackaday.com/2017/07/24/review-ts100-soldering-iron/
[2]https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/usb/mass-storage.tx...
Exposing files from a device's internal storage (which is ext4 in this case) over USBMS is very much not a solved issue. You'd have to copy the files back and forth or write a driver which emulates a FAT filesystem.
The alternative would be to use FAT internally and expose that block device, risking corruption (you have no control over what is done to your poor filesystem).
None of my Android phones can do that. In fact, Android used to expose the raw device in earlier releases and stopped doing it because it was too unreliable and the UX was bad since the filesystem had to be unmounted.
However, here's what Martin (the CTO) has been playing with:
I agree that it should definitely be an option because there are plenty of situations when using this device where you might not even have connectivity.
> the default behaviour of requiring one to send files from a computer out far away to some server on the Internet, and then back to the tablet sitting only a few metres away seems rather silly and wasteful.
It is definitely silly and wasteful but it's oh so simple when it works correctly. Instead of dealing with SMB shares, email, FTP, rsync, cables, mass storage devices, properly ejecting things, or any other technology; you instead just put a file in a designated folder and it's available on all of your devices in a matter of moments.
It was one of the first things I thought of, "I hope I can run rsync on this thing to sync notes".
My enthusiasm for this device instantly evaporated when I found out about the mandatory cloud integration. I already know from a customer support situation that Amazon has remote access to kindles, they can tell you what files you have on device, etc.
It's depressingly bad...
Bonus: this reMarkable website does not work without third party JS. It's completely blank. One of the 3rd parties is hotjar, which does all sorts of shady analytics like clickstream and keylogging.
From GP: "So if you don't like their cloud offering, you can turn of wifi and be sure your data is local"
By using a search engine on their web-site(!) one can find details about USB support: "NB: This functionality is currently experimental, as we haven't fully implemented it yet. We will work to improve how this works and looks in future software updates."
Maybe this is a great device which allows open access, but it's very difficult to figure this out from their website.
Isn't that par for the course for esoteric information only useful to highly advanced users in the consumer electronics[1] space? I'm yet to see an Android device that touts unlockable bootloaders on their websites.
1. Being "open" isn't the ReMarkable's tablet schtick/selling point. It's a consumer product that happens to be open. The minority users who want to take advantage of that know where to look/can find that out on HN.
This is a very basic feature, supported by everything except those spyware products which are selling customer information or those that reserve the right to do it in the future.
If reMarkable is not one of those, they should make it clear in their marketing.
Maybe it's just me, but why do the defaults for devices like this seem to now always require either a special app or reach out into the Internet? Whatever happened to simple USB mass storage where you can just plug it in and copy files back and forth? The hardware is certainly capable of it.
That said, I don't mind the presence of WiFi, but the default behaviour of requiring one to send files from a computer out far away to some server on the Internet, and then back to the tablet sitting only a few metres away seems rather silly and wasteful.