Mulled No. 001 · Beta

A note from the editors

“ A quieter Read Later,
for the slow paper screen. ”

Mulled is a reading companion built for people who read on E-ink — on a Boox, on any Android E-ink reader. Save the long things you mean to read. Read them as if on paper. Talk them over, in the margin, with a thoughtful second reader who remembers what you’ve underlined before.

Free during beta · No card · One email at launch

Designed for Boox · Bigme · Meebook · Any Android E-ink with Google Play

Editorial · I

Why now

In 2025, Pocket closed. Omnivore closed. The category that quietly shaped how a generation read on the train collapsed into a single survivor — Readwise Reader — which is a fine product, in its way, for people who read in colour and motion on a glass screen.

We are not those people. We read on slow paper screens. We like serifs. We like the page turning, not sliding. We have spent more money than is reasonable on a device whose only job is to look like ink, and we would like the software on it to extend the same courtesy.

Mulled is built for that screen first. Everything else — the phone app, the desktop view — is downstream of it.

Editorial · II

How it reads

The reader is the product. Everything else exists to keep the reader uninterrupted.

Paging, not scrolling: The page advances all at once, the way E-ink wants. Scrolling stays, for the few who prefer it.
No animation: No fades, no slides, no skeleton shimmers. The screen settles into the next page and stays there.
Serif by default: Charter, Source Serif, Atkinson Hyperlegible — bundled. The body is set in real ink-friendly typefaces.
A2 friendly: We onboard you to your device’s fast-refresh mode so the app reads as well as your reader does.

Issue I · On reading in centuries p. 014

On reading in centuries

A library is a standing argument against the short attention span. It assumes that something written now might be worth meeting again in ten years, and builds a quiet place for that meeting to happen.

The screen forgot this for a while. It learned to interrupt, to autoplay, to slide the next thing under your thumb before you had finished the last. Paper never had the option, and is better company for it.

| The trick is to make a reading surface that turns the page once and then leaves you alone, the way a book does when you stop noticing it.

In conversation about On the long view

You

Is this just nostalgia for paper, or is there an argument here?

Mulled

There’s an argument, and it isn’t really about paper — it’s about interruption. The claim is that a surface which can interrupt eventually will, and that a book’s value is mostly in what it refuses to do. You underlined a related line in something you saved back in March — the part about “the consolation of scale” — which this piece quietly inverts: scale as a duty, not a comfort.

You

Pull that March highlight for me.

Editorial · III

A second reader,
in the margin

Open a panel beside the page and ask. Mulled brings the piece itself, the things you’ve underlined in other pieces, and a quiet sense of what you tend to care about. The replies sound like someone who has been reading along with you.

Not a chatbot in your book. A reader, in the margin.

Editorial · IV

Write in the book

Underline with your pen. Scribble in the margin. Cross something out. Mulled reads your handwriting back into clean text, attached to the passage it sat beside.

Coming in v1.5. Beta readers see it first.

Page, with your hand

The trick is to make a reading surface that turns the page once and then leaves you alone, the way a book does when you stop noticing it.

the patient surface — keep

Markdown, after

> The trick is to make a reading
> surface that turns the page once
> and then leaves you alone…

**Note.** the patient surface — keep.

Editorial · V

Yours to take

Your reading does not live in our database. Download every article, every highlight, every margin note as Markdown. Mail a tidy weekly digest to yourself. Take it elsewhere whenever you like; we will not be offended.

GitHub, Dropbox, and a handful of other destinations are on the way. For developers →

Editorial · VI

Subscriptions

One issue every month. Cancel any time — we keep your highlights for export, not as ransom. The margin stays generous on every paid plan; if you’d rather not think about limits at all, bring your own key and we step out of the way.

Reader

—

For curious readers.

· Save what you like, no limit
· The E-ink reader, in full
· A taste of the second reader in the margin

Subscriber

$9 / month

For the regular reader.

· Everything in Reader
· The reader in the margin, every day
· Markdown and email, whenever you leave

Patron

$19 / month

For those who write back.

· Everything in Subscriber
· Write in the book — your hand, read back as clean text (v1.5)
· A sharper reader in the margin, for the harder conversations
· Every export destination, as it ships

Your own key

+ $3 / month

An add-on to any plan.

· Bring your own Anthropic key
· Read and spar without a meter

Editorial · VII

Letters & replies

Will it work on E-ink devices other than Boox?

If your device runs Android with Google Play — Bigme, Meebook, Likebook, the various other Android E-ink tablets — yes. The reader is the same one Boox owners get; A2 onboarding is tailored per device, and the Onyx SDK adds one extra layer of polish on Boox specifically. Kindle Scribe (Fire OS) and reMarkable (its own Linux) cannot run the app directly. If you are reading this from a Scribe or a reMarkable and feeling unhappy with what you have, we suspect you will eventually own a Boox; we will be here.

What about iPhone or iPad?

An iOS Share Extension is on the v2 roadmap — designed for capturing things to read later from your phone, not for replacing the E-ink reader. The reader stays where the ink is.

How is this different from Readwise or Matter?

Readwise Reader is a colourful, scrolling, animated app built for glass screens, with E-ink as an afterthought. Matter is similar in posture. Mulled is built E-ink-first: paging by default, no animation, real serif typography, and an AI sparring partner that knows what you’ve underlined before.

Does the AI cost extra?

Every paid plan includes a generous monthly allowance — comfortably more than most readers use, and you’ll rarely meet its edge. We meter by what a conversation actually costs us, not by counting words, so re-reading a piece you’re already discussing stays cheap. If you read very heavily, add your own key for $3 / month and the meter disappears entirely.

Can I read offline?

Yes. Saved articles, your highlights, and your notes live on the device. Sparring needs a connection; reading does not.

What separates Subscriber from Patron?

Subscriber is the full reader, with the second reader in the margin at hand every day — generous enough that most never reach its edge. Patron lets you write in the book by hand (v1.5), brings a sharper reader in the margin for the harder conversations, and opens every export destination as it ships. You’re paying for writing in the book and a keener reading partner — not for a bigger pile of anything.

Beta opens summer ’26

Reading,
in ink.

Leave a line below. We’ll write once when the beta opens, and a second time only if there is something genuinely worth saying.