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by techdragon 1176 days ago
I’m trying to consolidate my note taking with Obsidian but I’m with you about Notes being a go-to tool… it’s just so much better integrated into all the apple devices, I can scribble quick notes with the pencil, ask Siri and all sorts of shortcuts can easily make or add to notes… but I’m absolutely sick of being held hostage by my software and for me my notes are too important not to protect. I’m glad to see anyone work on this, because I wasn’t relishing the idea of trying to force Apple to open up using the EU digital markets directive. Its my nuclear option if the situation gets worse, the various scripts and fixes stop working and I can’t work around it, because I’m pretty blown away by how complicated the notes format is and I won’t be surprised if they add something new and the format develops another layer of complexity.
2 comments

For what it's worth, I am working on a tool that syncs files from a ReMarkable drawing tablet to Obsidian.

I was planning on looking into support Samsung notes and Apple notes next. An open-source project like in the OP will help a lot here!

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https://streamsoft.gumroad.com/l/remarkable-to-obsidian?layo...

Is this an alternative to needing Remarkable’s Connect service subscription?… Because needing Connect to sync notes off my tablet pretty much killed any desire to buy a remarkable 2 … and I voted with my wallet on it too… I bought a PineNote eink tablet instead (I hope this will eventually be a useful tablet… but I’m not holding much hope given my experience with various Linux distros on the first generation PineTab…)
I think this is a fair perspective on the one hand - on the other hand, as a rm2 owner i appreciate that the software keeps getting significant updates, and i think a subscription model makes a lot of sense.

I do whish the standard software made more concessions to third party software - ssh access is great, but running any kind of gui app feels hacky.

It is not, it requires the connect service subscription as it uses their cloud API to access data from your Remarkable.
I thought it might based on a lot of things I saw back when I was still keen on a remarkable tablet. It’s still awesome to see people developing tools to funnel data into Obsidian. It’s great additional evidence I’ve the right long term choice with Obsidian for my notes. And who knows, maybe I’ll end up getting a Remarkable as a gift or change my mind, and I’ll definitely try to remember your tool if that happens… and I’d definitely pay for a tool that automates my Apple Notes to Obsidian… for what that additional data point is worth to your product planning.
It's possible to do it without their connect API for sure, but that would require users to

1. Look up their ssh password 2. Connect tablet to their computer 3. Run a (my) program on their computer to install custom sync software on the tablet

I'm not focusing on the technically capable ReMarkable users so I opted not to do this. Besides, it would involve a lot more development time which I don't have a lot of as I have a day-job as well.

For Mac - I use Noteplan. Obsidian has some amazing feature but it is soo complicated. I find Noteplan has a more simple user interface and most of the features. They can work together because they both use local markdown files.