Android 10 tablets, comic readers, and a programming question

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For a few years I have been reading comic and manga .cbr/.cbz files on Android devices using an app called Comicat. Comicat is, from my point of view, nearly perfect, almost exactly what I would have asked for if I were designing a comic reader. Though it can access a few cloud storage services such as Google Drive, it is primarily an off-line reader. It has a simple, uncluttered bookshelf interface that is very similar to the Moon Reader Pro or Aldiko apps for ebooks, except that it allows you to display comics by individual issue cover or by folder, nested folder. (While nested folders can mean a few extra taps to access a specific issue, it is almost mandatory when you are dealing with thousands of issues. And a shelf organized only by individual issues is unmanageable when you have tens of thousands of issues.) There is almost nothing that I would add to or remove from Comicat, but there is one huge problem: Android 11 broke it.

Specificly, Android 11 changed the way permissions for accessing MicroSD cards works. Now Comicat not only can’t read from external storage locations, it can’t even show that they exist. Which leads to the second part of the huge problem: Comicat hasn’t been updated since 2017 (version 2.42-95) and the publisher apparently no longer exists. There is never going to be an official fix for the problem.

I have tried other comic/manga readers for Android. They all suck to one degree or another. They have a clumsy or cluttered or ugly or crippled UI or catalog organization, and they are usually tied to a proprietary service like Comixology or Crunchyroll and their specific catalog. There does not appear to be anything out there that is not glaringly inferior to Comicat. The closest thing to an acceptable replacement so far is the Android version of CDisplayEX, (which I long used for reading in Windows) but even that is a major downgrade.

So, I’m faced with a big problem. For more than three years I have been reading on two tablets, a Kindle Fire HD 8 and a 7 inch called the Vankyo Matrixpad Z1. Eventually the USB port on the Kindle broke. I actually like the Vankyo because it is very light and compact, but the screen isn’t as vibrant or high-resolution as it could be, plus it is plastic and has picked up a couple of scratches and scuffs. So I’m itching for a replacement. But it is critical that it does not run anything newer than Android 10. I’m not looking to buy a tablet, I’m looking to buy an appliance for running Comicat and if it does not run Comicat with MicroSD access, it is a paperweight. But all new tablets seem to advertise running Android 11 or higher. Even the newest Kindle Fire HDs are based on a modified Android 11 and therefore are useless.

So, any ideas? I need suggestions for tablets that are definitely running versions of Android older than 11. I don’t care how much older than 11 it is as long as the tablet can support at least a 512 GB MicroSD card. (I’m currently using a 256 GB, but with only part of my library installed. I want to have everything installed, and that is in excess of 300 GB.) Compactness is important, so no 10-inch tablets. It is okay if it is so underpowered that it can’t run anything more challenging than Comicat, but it has to have a decent, defect-free display. What I’d like to get (well, settle for) is a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.7 inch, but even with those I run the risk of getting Android 11. (I’m seeing Amazon descriptions of them as 10 and as 11.)

On a side note, a question to any Android programmers out there. Is there a plausible chance that the current, six year old version of Comicat could be modded to be able to ask for MicroSD access in a way that Android 11 will allow permission (if I could convince anyone to look at it) or is that something that requires access to uncompiled source code not included in the apk? I’ve seen lots of apps that have been modded to add or remove some feature, so I know that they can be edited in general principle. (If I could program, at this point I’d write my own new app that is basically a Comicat clone.)

Comicat: For navigation, neatly arranged labeled nested folders. For reading, the option of displaying the file name and page number.

CDisplayEX: For navigation, ugly unlabeled cropped squares jammed together in a flat folder structure. For reading, no option of persistent page name and page numbers. CDisplayEX is the least bad option I’ve found to replace Comicat, but it is still bad.

2

Is the microSD just used to expand the storage, or is the removable aspect critical to your use case (i.e., maybe you plug it into your computer to download new comics)?

3

To expand storage. I forgot to mention, I’m looking to spend around $75-$150 on the tablet, not counting the MicroSD card. A tablet with 512 GB baked in is far outside my budget (if one even exists.)

4

Understood. I ask because it’s apparently possible to use a microSD card as internal storage. For example:

This should appear to Comicat as ordinary internal storage, and thus bypass any problems that Android 11 caused with external devices. I haven’t tried it, though.

5

And why it matters if you’re using it for data transfer or not:

With Adoptable Storage, Android encrypts the external SD card being used as internal storage, thus, it gets tied to a specific Android device. The key used to encrypt the data on the SD card is stored on the Android device’s internal memory. So, it is not possible to mount the adopted storage to another device because of its encrypted nature.

6

I thought of that–but not everthing supports adoptable storage, so I’d still be gambling that my choice would support it. I would accept that option if it worked.

7

I think it probably matters whether you’re talking about moving the app vs. the app accessing data stored there. Does the app have a filesystem view? If so, it should be able to access the storage transparently.

8

Yes, I can choose any folders (or any hierarchy) of folders to act as a source. In Android 10 and earlier, that included external memory. But with Android 11, the external memory doesn’t even show up. (Android 11 broke a lot of apps this way. It was only a temporary problem for those still in development.)

Here is a reddit thread showing that access is broken on the latest Kindles.

9

Adoptable Storage is a good suggestion and should work. Can’t you test it out on your current tablet with a fresh card?

10

nvm, re-read the thread and saw what I was discussing already mentioned

11

I think it would work–if the tablet I buy supports it. But not everbody does, and some actively discourage it. For instance, Samsung tablets would be out.