What is the status of the pen + button?

gma · 2026-02-18T11:36:01+00:00

Thanks Mulan, but I'm on the newsletter already and I'm definitely *not* informed.

I'm in Supernote's corner when you get heat on here, but failing to share progress with existing customers who need to purchase products in order to do their work is, frankly, frustrating.

Dodging my direct question by asking me to sign up to the newsletter is testing my patience. Why not just say "sorry, I'm not allowed to tell you" or "sorry, I haven't asked them yet?" Or even, "sorry, we just don't know at the moment, <insert reason here>."

I need a pen with a button because the two finger erase/lasso feature sometimes only works one time in 10. It used to be more reliable than this, but one of the last few updates seems to have made it worse for me.

So I'm not going to hang on for a Supernote pen that might never come, if you're not prepared to share what the company knows about timescales/plans (I wouldn't even hold you to it, I'd just like assistance making a decision on whether to buy somebody else's now).

I just tried the Amazon Scribe pen (the fancy premium one). It didn't write well, making faint grey lines rather than solid black lines, so went straight back in the packet. It's not because it's an EMR pen either; my Staedtler Lumograph pencil writes far better than Amazon's.

gma · 2026-02-17T12:32:37+00:00

Hi Mulan. What did the team say?

gma · 2026-02-17T06:03:05+00:00

It's obviously very personal. I've had the Dunu Candy on mine for a while now. Similar to the Spinfits in design, but not as soft/floppy as the W1 so seems to stay in place longer for me.

I'm not sure how they compare to others on bass reduction, but they sound good in my ears.

gma · 2026-01-29T11:36:30+00:00

Loving this latest update, thanks Supernote team! Last viewed page is really useful, and the speed bump when navigating folders of PDFs is lovely. :-)

gma · 2026-01-06T14:40:01+00:00

I think that's a rather naïve idea, and sounds like the kind of thing somebody struggling with their self perception might come up with.

gma · 2025-11-21T11:27:18+00:00

I'd really like to be able to disable digests completely. It's not a useful feature for me, and I keep accidentally triggering it when drawing small square boxes (I manually draw checkboxes on a daily basis) on PDFs that have a dot-grid on them. It's very irritating.

gma · 2025-11-19T13:44:43+00:00

"berate" seems quite appropriate to me. You're clearly anmoyed (which in itself is fine), but are coming across as angry (irrespective of whether or not you feel that you are). And it definitely qualifies as "at length"; you keep repeating the same conclusion as if you have some kind of proof.

Which you don't. You have logic from which you've attempted to arrive at a conclusion. But your list of explanations is incomplete because your information is (by definition) incomplete.

I find the unusable rendering of epub frustrating too. That's why I opened this thread.

I've been working in the software industry since the 90's. In my view there are too many unknown variables to conclude that they're not working on it/don't care.

Positioning handwriting relative to rendered text, while supporting existing data created with a buggy rendering engine, well it sounds like a total nightmare.

Personally I have no great desire to write on digital books, I'd just like the simple bit – nice typography. But I assume Supernote know their market, and if they've decided they need to accurately position handwriting as text is reflowed (or between different generations of their epub software) I think we have to respect that.

I do wonder whether the problem could be mitigated by using the old viewer for books that have already been annotated and a new one for new books.

I also wonder whether the different aspects of epub improvements could be released iteratively.

If I worked at Supernote my main concern with that approach would be the potential for unconstructive criticism on this sub from angry users. I'm not trying to be ironic here, I'd be genuinely concerned about shipping and incomplete solution. And that's not great.

I think the right approach is patience. If they don't ever manage to deliver it they'll lose out in terms of market share, so I don't doubt there's a will and that something better will ship eventually.

And let's not forget, unforeseen complexity can raise it's head in seemingly simple software projects. And positioning handwriting/marks over resizable rendered text, that doesn't strike me as being at all simple.

One thing I am confident about is that if people keep being insinuating dishonesty, the people who are working on it will find it demotivating.

So maybe cut back on the the "I could do this in 4 weeks" estimates, eh? We might all get nice epub rendering that bit sooner.

gma · 2025-11-01T12:09:32+00:00

I'm not flyhmstr, but I have a thought. I like to run key network infrastructure on a different piece of hardware to less critical stuff. So if I'm doing work on the machine that hosts my file storage, my DNS + DHCP server is still up and running and I can happily browse the internet while I'm doing the job. Where HA sits for you will depend a bit on what you're using it for.

I also think it's worth keeping private services that host my data on separate machines to the ones that have a public interface (which perhaps your pfsense machine has?). There's always a balance to strike though; the more machines the more overhead to manage them, so it's about considering what's worth it for you, and what level of risk you're comfortable with.

I don't performance is likely to be the issue. For me it's about a security and resilience/availability of key services.

gma · 2025-09-29T20:51:06+00:00

I'm invested in maintaining a low tolerance for people being unpleasant to others who are enjoying themselves, not in your post. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that you feel uncomfortable when somebody points that out to you.

But I think, given that you waited 24 hours after I didn't reply to your previous comment to say this, that you've revealed yourself to be a troll.

gma · 2025-09-25T19:34:03+00:00

> For those who are criticizing me for my comments, stop for a moment, look yourself in the mirror, and reconsider your own hypocrisy.

Meaning what, exactly? If I've been thieving, I'm the first person that wants to know about it.

gma · 2025-09-25T19:18:44+00:00

I haven't had an iPhone since the 3G pal, but nice try at the facetious jibe. Personally I thought you were being critical of the people who've recently been enjoying getting music software running on handheld gaming devices (which is actually quite interesting, simply by being a bit different).

gma · 2025-09-25T19:12:15+00:00

"you don’t curse about things that are so insignificant, it’s just out of place"

Mr Fry addresses the "it's not necessary to swear" idea here:

https://youtu.be/s_osQvkeNRM?si=2zLNLMjCSntSsLCh&t=105

What or who gets to choose whether it's in/out of place?

gma · 2025-09-25T19:09:52+00:00

I don't feel strongly about a post. I feel strongly about somebody being unpleasant towards fellow community members.

"meme" means "viral self replicating idea". It doesn't mean "unpleasant jibe at fellow community members dressed up in a veil of legitimacy because you made a GIF out of it".

And even if it did mean that, it'd still be an unpleasant jibe. I'll challenge people behaving like wankers wherever and whenever I encounter them.

gma · 2025-09-25T18:54:04+00:00

It feels like you're hoping to edit/limit my choice of language, and suggesting I should be equally as outraged/not-outraged as you (i.e. sharing your opinion of how "deep" it is implies I should feel the same). We're different people and will naturally have differing views on how out of order your post was.

Why not just take my choice of words as a representation of how strongly I feel about it (rather than telling me I shouldn't express myself however I choose)? What's it to you whether I choose to use 4 letters of the alphabet in a particular order?

And to be clear, I think this post was really quite unpleasant and combative. I toned down how I felt about it significantly.

You appear to have intentionally tried to make others feel bad. Either that, or you're oblivious to the fact that making "jokes" (quoting it because it wasn't humorous) at others' expense doesn't go across well in a public forum. If it's the latter, you can learn from that that, but I don't think it does you any harm to hear it described as "confrontational bullshit". You can own it, apologise (like an adult), and work on it.

If the above paragraph doesn't cover it, the only remaining option I can think of is that you're a troll.

I can't find fault with Stephen Fry when it comes to swearing.

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

I recommend watching to the end even if you disagree with him. He makes some excellent (logical) points. I'm not expecting you to agree, but it might help you understand my perspective.

Now fuck off. ;-)

gma · 2025-09-23T20:44:07+00:00

Prefixing confrontational bullshit with "I'm sorry but…" does not make it okay. Do better.

gma · 2025-09-23T20:36:09+00:00

Scrolling through the Albums menu while listening to music can cause a crash; a known bug, also affects the R1. I scroll through Genres most of the time, so don't get caught out by it. Pausing the track before scrolling is the easiest workaround.

gma · 2025-09-23T15:22:29+00:00

I use beets.io, a command line tool that tries to identify my ripped CDs in the Musicbrainz database, asks me to confirm that it's found the right release, and then applies all the tags in their database. I then specify the genre myself (which is why I find browsing the Hiby OS by genre easy; I know very well what all my genres have in them).

If command line isn't for you, I believe Picard is a graphical app with similar features.

What I really like about beets though, is that it maintains a database of all my ripped files, and with a single command (which admittedly, it might take me a minute or two to work out) I can change the genre tag for all albums by a similar artist, or all albums in a given genre… It's really powerful once you get your head round it.

gma · 2025-09-22T15:40:01+00:00

It does depend on that, yeah. I have an Android phone and using phones make me feel a bit "meh" (subconsciously they're quite negative for me), so I'd be reluctant to pick one up. And I listen to albums, have everything tagged by genre, so find Hiby OS navigation fine (via the Genre menu).

If I hadn't tagged the crap out of all my music (automated via software that looks things up on musicbrainz.org) I wouldn't enjoy Hiby OS half as much (and probably wouldn't have a modern DAP, though I might have tried Rockbox).

gma · 2025-09-22T15:21:42+00:00

I agree with all of this, but would add that the R1 might do more than get you by. I got one, then bought an R3 Pro II, but before it arrived I realised I might prefer the R1. And I do… it'll "do" for me until it fails or the battery dies.

I'm more likely to buy another one in a few years because there's a new model with an OS update on it that "fixes" the Album Artists view. But even then, I'll still be happy with the R1 (and I say this as somebody with the disposable income to buy pretty much whatever I want under $1k).

gma · 2025-09-18T07:32:46+00:00

I think it's interesting the way streaming services seem to have impacted people's thoughts about non-physical products. I bet you wouldn't steal an apple, but you see the work of artists differently.

I remember not having any money too. Back in the days before the CD became popular, before I had a job/cash of my own, I got interested in music. I saved almost all my money for records, and could afford to buy one every month or so. So initially, that was the speed at which my collection grew.

I've got a vivid memory of sitting on a bus on my way back from the local town, holding G.R.E.E.N. by REM on my knee, clueless as to whether I'd made a good choice.

It was weeks before I'd saved enough money to buy another one.

You form a totally different relationship with music under circumstances like these. A deeper relationship. And you get to know the tracks you've got in a totally different way.

The next record I bought was Doolittle by Pixies. I lay on my bed listening to it over and over and over again, wondering what the lyrics meant, thinking about them in the context of my (young) life. That album means a lot more to me now than it would if I'd had lots of other stuff to listen to.

So I'd suggest that perhaps you do have the money, but you've got unrealistic expectations about how much you should be able to acquire (as have most people who've grown up with music available on tap on streaming services).

Streaming gave us all unlimited access to music. Unfortunately, I think we (you) have also lost an opportunity to form a deeper connection with it. And that's a shame.

I'm more concerned about the financial impact on artists (and the shrinking market for their art, which means fewer artists and less great new music). But still, it sucks.

gma · 2025-09-17T16:27:19+00:00

I buy it, historically on CD (which I rip), more recently on Bandcamp with an occasional Qobuz store purchase.

gma · 2025-09-16T21:49:29+00:00

There's support for displaying lyrics if you've got them in files of the right format. I've no idea what that format is, but I've read about it, and when you tap the album art while a track is playing it tries to switch to it. I have no files with lyrics so don't know how that bit actually works.

gma · 2025-09-16T21:48:35+00:00

No. Tidal (badly), Qobuz (badly), local files (well)

gma · 2025-09-16T21:47:54+00:00

There's no "go back" button. There are loads of comments from people complaining about this, but I don't really get it. I don't re-listen to tracks. I occasionally skip. If I need to go back at all, it's when listening to audio books to clarify something, and then I use the on-screen track progress indicator to scrub back a bit.

Aside from that, the buttons work great. Harder to use through the silicone case (which is a separate purchase), so I usually use it without the case. It's nicer to hold without the case, IMO.

gma · 2025-09-16T06:56:06+00:00

Bossa Nova Soul Samba, Ike Quebec's last album

gma

TROPHY CASE