This Was Not Made For Me 🔗
Ratta, Supernotes, and the Manta 🔗
E-ink, as a technology, is in a very exciting place right now. It is by no means a new technology, but as with a lot of tech it has required a lot of time to simmer in order to reach a state that is consumer-ready. It has some inherent qualities that clash a lot with a lot of modern usage patterns for tech, the refresh rate being the most obvious. This has relegated the technology to devices with specialized applications, such as the Amazon Kindle. But the hard lines between a strict e-reader and other tablet devices has started to more and more blur as display technology has gotten better and as more companies has entered the race. Most notable for this text is Ratta, the company behind the Supernote series of e-ink tablets.
Ratta hasn’t been around for very long, but that is quite common in the e-ink space which previously has been practically an amazon monopoly with some upstarts coming and going along the way. Their philosophy is comparatively focused on the long term sustainability of their products at a hardware level, while keeping their software stack streamlined and functional. This is a hard balance to achieve, but they have made an admirable job of it. A comparison that comes to mind is “imagine a Fairphone that runs Apple software”, which is somewhat representative of the user experience to me. There are obviously issues with it, I don’t find it a perfect device by any means, but the shortcomings always have reasonable explanations and don’t impair the intended usage of the device. However, as with most tech I get my little hacker hands on, I had no intention of using it as intended
Distraction-free environments 🔗
I feel like quite a rare breed sometimes, at least in some conceptualization of the “average” person. I am not prone to things like “doom scrolling” or similar ways of converting the general malaise of life to something more bearable- it is simply not engaging enough. This is likely the reason why I despise my phone, not tech in general of course, but my phone specifically. My reasoning for this spite is quite simple and utterly intrinsic to how smartphones work; it is a small screen with a terrible user interface. Thus the little black mirror struggles with “distracting” me from anything as most things are simply more engaging to me than interacting with it. I suspect my ADHD has to do with this disinterest since my relentless unwavering pursuit of anything that creates the funny little dopamine molecules in my brain somewhat immunizes me to something so… dull.
Not that I can reliably focus on most things of course, distraction is most certainly my most consistent state, but most things most people find distracting seem to not even scathe my scattered brain. But I do tend to align the tech I have with my preferences overall. My phone will, for instance, only ever make itself heard if whatever it wants to say is urgent. Focus modes and Shortcuts on iPhones are a blessing for accomplishing this as they make sure only exactly the apps I want to make noise get to but doesn’t kill notifications entirely. My point is that I too have had to do quite some fanageling to create an environment that I am comfortable in, I understand that the defaults here are anything but sane. The same goes for the machines I more regularly use, like my workstation and laptop. They will not try to rip my attention away from something unless I’d want my attention ripped away by what they have to say.
For me this disposition is obvious, apparently it is less so for others as one of the leading ideas in marketing a lot of e-ink devices (especially the Supernotes) is that they are free of distractions. As someone who is used to an environment where the only distractions received are welcome ones, this seems somewhat counter-intuitive. But I am also the kind of psycho that uses three monitors, all of which are filled with things. I will reduce margins on text and other media so that I can use every single pixel of display real-estate as efficiently as possible. Information overload was just never an issue for me, nor was ignoring a blinking notification light. I’ve been more or less glued to a computer monitor or counting the minutes until I can be again since about age 5, so i want everything, everywhere, all at once with no arbitrary limitations on the flow.
For those who write 🔗
I can’t remember ever enjoying wielding a pencil for writing. Plenty of people say they remember better when they take notes by hand, others say it makes the writing feel more intentional and purposeful; I frankly envy that relationship to the pen. I, on the other hand, experience only a mild to intense pain in my fingers from writing by hand. Luckily I haven’t had to do so much recently, except for the math and physics classes in Uni. Those exams were torturous for me for entirely different reasons than my peers it seemed as their pain was presumably more existential whereas mine was primarily physical. Needless to say, my aversion to writing by hand has left my handwriting in a sorry state, barely legible to myself let alone some OCR system.
The Supernotes however is marketed under the slogan “For those who write”; clearly an interest of mine, just not one a pen and infinite notebook could aid. However, from what I have heard from others around the internet, this seems to be the primary use for it. And I can see why people who are already writing a lot by hand would see it as a clear upgrade- the feature list for this use case is staggering. I’ve only messed around with it a bit, but it seems to be incredibly well implemented as well. As I learned to type on a keyboard about the same time as I learned to write by hand, it comes incredibly naturally to me. On top of this, the medium I learned to type on a keyboard on was naively digital and hence came with a lot of features. These features didn’t exist on the medium I learned handwriting on- paper, making the process of writing on it feel sluggish and counterproductive. Had I learned to handwrite on a medium like the Supernote from the start a lot of those medium-specific conveniences would be there for me and I might have grown to enjoy using a pen more.
Not for those who tinker 🔗
That heading is a bit misleading as there most certainly are some opportunities for tinkering with the Manta. But it isn’t made FOR those who tinker, those who tinker are an afterthought and a compromise. The hardware is comparatively open, the pen being a particular standout, which allows people to put together some custom designed solutions. I have seen projects for custom designed pens, cases, folios, and such circulating and the DIY spirit of the community really shows. But the hardware is still proprietary, and so is the software to a large extent (i.e. a lot of the android core components are still open source, but the Supernote specific software isn’t). The serial number system they have put in place is somewhat distressing as it implies that third party components can be gatekept if they were to start being developed. So my hopes are very low for a Framework-style open hardware solution where full documentation on components is released for use by third parties to expand the system that the platform is built with.
You can, however, load arbitrary APKs on the device- a freedom not afforded on a lot of e-ink devices. Your mileage may vary due to hardware limitations, but that is a given due to the inherent restrictions of the display technology. Not much anyone can do about that without a concerted effort between wildly disparate parts of the industry. But the hardware is not the only blocker for running custom software on Supernote devices, the software stack is also quite limiting due to it’s age. The Manta runs a slightly modified Android 11, an operating system from 2020 which lost official support from Google in early 2024. A lot of system apps, like Android System WebView, run on similarly outdated versions which breaks a lot of apps that depend on those components. While rooting the device is pretty trivial, and there have been no real efforts to stop it from happening from Ratta, it isn’t officially supported. But even with root access, your ability to easily modify the system is somewhat hampered. So upgrading WebView yourself, for instance, seems quite a moot effort if you don’t want to really get into the system internals and rummage around.
Some things, like the default android settings menu, is also hidden from the end user in the default interface. There apparently was a workaround using fonts and the kindle app, which was supposedly patched, but that was the only on-device way I could find of accessing the Android settings. Even so, it was just easier to manage the device with ADB instead (you can pop the settings just like you would any app: adb shell am start -a android.settings.SETTINGS). But excluding a few infuriating cases, most apps run fine on the Supernote. The display is good enough to run basically any app no matter how low-contrast their very sleek and modern UI might be. I avoid third-party apps where I can on the device, and it just keeps working for whatever i use it for- we will get to that part later. I just have one thing left to address first.
The massive elephant in the security blog 🔗
It was quite recent that this article by PRIZM Labs was published and flew right to the top of my algorithmically curated feed. In short, it details a very cool exploit to gain persistent root access to a Supernote device with no user interaction over a network. This is in professional terms: really, really bad. It is also an excellent example of security suffering due to a need for user convenience, which is a very common story. If you are curious about the details, I highly recommend reading the writeup- it is excellent. The issue I want to talk about isn’t how there was a security vulnerability in the device, that happens all the time, but rather the seemingly complete disregard from Ratta in addressing it.
It is seen as generally good practice to perform what we in the industry call a “responsible disclosure” to the vendor when you find a vulnerability in their product. Occasionally you do this to earn a so called “bug bounty”, other times you are just trying to help the vendor, and the users of their products, out by highlighting an actual issue. While it is rare nowadays to see a company outright ignore a responsible disclosure, let alone react to it aggressively like in the olden days, it does still happen. But to light a proverbial fire under the metaphorical ass of a vendor, it is also seen as OK to release a vulnerability to the public to spur a patch being released ASAP. In my personal experience, well written disclosures are handled with utmost urgency and patches released as soon as humanly possible.
Ratta, sadly, has not acted in this way. The disclosure timeline at the end of the PRIZM Labs article shows an incredible disregard for the security of their product. The issue was disclosed to Ratta at the end of July 2024, with two monthly follow-up emails until they get a reply in October. The PRIZM team then submits a full technical report with all the details about the exploit, and later reminds Ratta of the earlier set deadline for public disclosure. Ratta then responds that they plan to address the issue in the December update- nearly 6 months after initial disclosure. PRIZM agrees to hold off on publishing their findings until this update rolls out. I understand that Ratta had their hands quite full around this time in 2024, there was a lot going on, but this SHOULD take ABSOLUTE priority to remediate.
I don’t know how much has changed at Ratta since this all went down, and I was not familiar with the company before July 2024 so I can’t evaluate their progress from the outside either. But their website now has a vulnerability disclosure policy listed which includes a security@ email, a commitment to acknowledge the vulnerability within 15 business days, and deploying a fix within 90 days for simple vulnerabilities. They also state explicitly that they will not pursue legal action against those who comply with the policy. This is an industry standard timeframe that I am happy to see that they are committing to. We shall see if that holds up I suppose.
The attack vectors against the device if used as intended, without sideloading or any similar third-party modifications, is pretty slim. But since they already passed the 1-year mark since their OS stopped receiving support from Google, it is only a matter of time before something dangerous for all users creeps up. Naturally, we gung-ho sideloadin’ types are by far the largest risk group, but the PDF-receiving regular users are also at risk. And given how large the enterprise userbase is, I implore people to do a structured risk analysis of using the device. This goes beyond concerns of data sovereignty (which is also a huge issue in a lot of industries) and affects the direct security of individuals and businesses.
The Ratta cloud solution and concerns about China 🔗
I thought I should mention this, given how the rest of the text is looking. I really don’t see the issue here. I don’t use the built-in Supernote sync because it is simply not a good end-user experience for my applications. The serial key registry is a bit shady, but not weirder than most tech you buy today, just more transparent with user choice. They now offer more servers than before, so I can house my data closer to my jurisdiction, which is preferrable to the US or China. But it’s not like I expect Ratta, or any other regular software company, to keep my data with any kind of sane privacy policy or not cave at the least bit of legal pressure. So this is just not a point where I can see Ratta as worse off than any other part of the industry, in fact they are probably better than most as they don’t force me to use their offsite services. They actually encourage offline use to a great degree, and that is wonderful to see. If you are actually more scared of Chinese companies than others by default, you are simply delusional.
A recap of the feature list 🔗
So there is a lot to the Supernote that I haven’t covered here. Mostly this is because I find my issues or apathy towards them boring, but I will make an attempt at just rattling some off here to have some more bases covered. This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the possible things you can do with the Manta, just the ones that I have interacted with.
The kindle app 🔗
Never will I ever use Kindle as a reader unless absolutely forced. Not here, not anywhere. Now that Amazon is bumping their DRM this may become a larger issue, but I have survived until now not turning a single page within their apps.
The built-in reader 🔗
I like it! It’s snappy, works with all the file types I care about, and has all the features that I need. A lot of people seem to prefer other readers with richer feature sets, but a lot of those features pertain to text-heavy PDFs which is something I never interact with on the device. Very rarely do I consume text by reading several pages “cover to cover”, so the default reader is perfect for me
Digest 🔗
I don’t use it since I don’t touch text heavy PDFs. Simply no use case for me.
Mail 🔗
It is a sub-par email client from what I have seen from others. I can see why it is on the device, but it can’t even load my primary mail so I literally cannot use it myself. The fault there is obviously not on Ratta, Protonmail is a highly incompatible service and I don’t expect any first party to support it.
Calendar 🔗
I’m sure someone has a need for a calendar without colour, that doesn’t show event names in the grid, and that is writable with a pen which doesn’t sync to other devices. But that person is not me.
To-Do 🔗
Can’t sync with my other reminders lists on other devices, and if my reminders cant remind me with one of those little “distractions” mentioned way back- they are useless to me.
Files 🔗
A featureless but perfectly cromulent file manager, no marks except it’s inability to access all files on the filesystem.
Atelier 🔗
Basically the reason I got the device. It does drawy stuff and it is quite barebones- perfect!
Notes 🔗
Since the introduction of the straight line feature, I find myself using it more and more. I’d love some more things like an infinite canvas, but it has replaced what little paper there was in my life.
So why did I even get it, let alone keep it? 🔗
I’ve spent a not inconsiderable amount of page-space outlining a bunch of reasons that you shouldn’t get a Manta; or rather why I shouldn’t have gotten one. And despite all of this, I still have one and like using it a lot, how can that possibly be? It’s honestly quite simple: I don’t expect it to accommodate me. It does a perfectly perfect job of doing what I got it for, which is really not a lot. I had found myself wanting to draw more, or rather: doodle. But as I ran out of what little paper I had left over from uni, and snail mail dwindling in quantity, there just wasn’t a lot of medium to do so. Of course I could buy a lifetime supply of paper and pencils for the cost of a Manta, but then the threshold of effort would increase exponentially. Doodling, as an activity, ought have the lowest possible bar to entry to facilitate it’s ages old headspace. And the Supernote offers a massive quantity of doodling possibility right at your fingertips. You could make more serious art on a Manta no doubt; I really should underline YOU there. I can’t. I’m completely inept when it comes to creating art, and I have in no way the discipline to learn or discover how to.
The second thing I wanted an e-reader for is reading electronically. Earlier I mentioned in passing that I don’t read text-heavy PDFs, which is absolutely true. Despite my mounting pile of ECTS, I am practically illiterate. My eyes just start running over the page as my mind shoots off on a tangent abut other things. Text is just a thoroughly unengaging medium for me. It is quite ironic then that I enjoy writing as much as I do, but that kind of irony does seem to permeate my life. What I can read, however, are image-heavy CBZs and the Manta handles these excellently. I’ve hacked together pseudo-readers in the past from old tablets and such for this express purpose and they always sucked in one way or another. The rendering of the images was slow, there were a bunch of issues with the reader overall, the things just ran out of battery immediately. Terrible. The Manta has infinity battery, a really quick reader, and just works perfectly. If what you read has a lot of colour, your mileage may vary, but it still works for that too. I’ve absolutely destroyed graphical novels on this thing and it’s been a blast getting back into it.
Last, and least, I use the device to obliterate the last bastion of productive paper use in my life: casual physics. The one thing I could never use a computer for was quick statics calculations that any normal human needs to do in their everyday life. Sometimes you just need to do some trigonometry as well, and I am not drawing triangles on a computer and hell will sooner freeze over than me developing the ability to keep them in my head. Equations have a slightly lower need, as a programmer I’m already used to the clumsy interface that is text files to communicate maths, but still a welcome addition to my life.
I got the device for it’s beautiful screen, which will likely be rendered obsolete by new tech in a year or two. But it has reached a point that even if it is completely dominated by developments down the line, I am certain that I will happily use the device for years to come. Even if I shove my face right up to the display, I cant count the dots which is more than enough for me. Given Ratta’s commitments to repairability and maintenance down the line, my Manta will chug along even if things break on it. Even if they go out of business, the device is usable enough as is to not lose viability for ages either. You can always just hook it up to another machine to transfer files onto it, so it doesn’t even need to be online. As someone who hunts convenience with a rare bloodlust, and who finds optimizing expenditures and amazing pastime- this device is just perfect.
So to summarize 🔗
There are plenty of reasons to not get this tablet. Especially as someone who really has no use for most of the features that set it apart from the competition. But even if you are someone whose hand immediately punishes them with great amounts of pain if they dare use it for writing, there is a use case for this surprisingly light paper-killing slab. But don’t expect it to be what it isn’t, and that’s just a general rule for getting any kind of tech. I’m not a gadget loving person, most of the things I own in ways of tech are out of necessity and not desire, but sometimes a need makes itself clear only once met. I didn’t know that I needed to kill off paper once and for all, but now that I do I think I might struggle to sit in an exam hall with a shitty pencil writing on printer paper even more.