The Necessity of Establishing E Ink Display Technology Software Ecosystem
The Development of Electronic Ink Display
The development of electronic ink (electrophoretic ink, E Ink) display technology has a history of nearly 25 years. This technology was first invented by American physicist Joseph Jacobson and his team at the MIT Multimedia Lab in 1996. Later, his students established E Ink Corporation in 1997. At the beginning of the company, it partnered with Philips, but this technology did not have many applications at that time. So since 2005, Philips has sold its electronic paper business and the entire E Ink related patents to Taiwan's Yuantai (元太）Technology, which was originally named Prime View International in English and later it was renamed E Ink Holdings Inc. [ Note 1]. Since then, Yuantai continues to improve electronic ink technology.
I first came across this technology when I visited the Taipei International Innovation and Invention Exhibition in 2007. I was very impressed by how energy-saving it was and it looked like real paper. I also felt that this technology has great potential but at that time it was only suitable for reading. (Amazon just released the first Kindle in that year.) Later, this technology has improved in refresh rate, resolution and contrast. The firmware and software algorithms have improved in these years and moreover the production yield has also improved. Therefore, in 2017, large-size note taking e-Readers equipped with stylus began to appear in the market.
On the other hand, color E Ink display technology has also been explored for more than ten years. It was first used in the Electronic Shelf Label (ESL). And 2020 was called the first year of color e-Paper by Yuantai. There are color E Ink readers that utilize color filter arrays (E Ink Kaleido). In addition, the refresh rate of the color E Ink technology that uses colored pigments (Advanced Color ePaper, ACeP) has also greatly improved in recent years. Although it still cannot meet the needs of most applications, it is believed that the technical bottleneck will be overcome sooner or later. (Rumors had it that the recently sampled second-generation ACeP technology will be used in e-Readers in the middle of this year and maybe the RD team has overcome the technical bottleneck?!).
2022/05/23 Update: Yuantai has released the latest generation ACeP technology which is called Gallery 3 at Touch Taiwan exhibition last month. The refresh rate has been greatly improved. The refresh rate for standard refresh mode has been improved to 750 ms to 1000 ms, and that for fast refresh mode is 500 ms, while that for the best color refresh mode is 1500 ms. A year and a half later, although there is still no color e-Reader product using ACeP technology in the market, Gallery 3 has already met the application requirements in terms of the color gamut and refresh rate. I believe there should be an ACeP e-Reader product within one or two years. Those who are interested in seeing the color effects of the latest generation of ACeP technology Gallery 3 can refer to here: "Color Performance of E Ink Gallery 3".
25 years of development seems to be a long time but it will take at least 20 to 30 years for a technology to go from conception to prototype in the laboratory and to real commercial use and even to the general public. Taking semiconductor computers as an example, it took 32 years from the advent of transistors (1948) to the commercialization of computers (1973) and later to the popularization of personal computers (1980). The same goes for other technologies like touchscreens and facial recognition.
The current stage of E Ink technology, in terms of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, has entered the Early Adopters. After the color products are launched one after another, it will have the opportunity to enter the Early Majority. But it must cross the so-called death well (Chasm) in order to have the opportunity to popularize and become the future paper of human society.
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| E Ink display technology is currently in the early adopter stage and must cross the so-called well of death before it can be accepted by the general public |
The Time is Ripe
Judging from its current development, it is not difficult to cross the well of death, because E Ink technology enjoys some advantages at the right time. As the business model of e-books gradually matures, more and more authors and publishers are willing to publish e-books. The proportion of e-books has increased year by year, and the population reading e-books has also increased year by year.
Second, the popularity of the Internet and the mature applications of the cloud services have resulted in a large number of data and documents being digitized. Government agencies, educational institutions, corporations, medical institutions, etc. have all digitized a large amount of data in recent years. And digital text and image data are actually more suitable to be presented by paper, not by the luminous backlit screen. (For reasons, please refer to "The Benefits of Electronic Ink Displays" , "The Reasons Why Backlit Mobile Phones and Tablets Hurt Your Eyes".)
Thirdly, the population with eye diseases is also increasing year by year. Sooner or later, the public will be forced to pay attention to eye health issues and pay attention to the harm caused by luminous screens to the eyes.
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| The e-book reading population is increasing year by year. |
Despite the above favorable environmental factors, in order for E Ink display technology to be truly accepted by the public, it is still necessary to pay attention to the user experience of both hardware and software. The hardware ecosystem has gradually taken its shape in recent years because E Ink technology is becoming more and more mature. Many manufacturers have stepped in and developed various devices, such as E Ink mobile phones and tablets, making many relative software applications possible.
Now the most important thing for E Ink technology is the establishment of a software ecosystem. Some people may wonder: Isn't there already a software ecosystem? However, the current software ecosystem is the software ecosystem built specifically for "luminous backlit screens", not the software ecosystem for "electronic ink displays". As I have emphasized in this article "The Benefits of E Ink Displays" that E Ink displays should be classified as paper , not the screen. So the software ecosystems of the two are not completely compatible. Now let me explain why there is a need for a software ecosystem designed specifically for E Ink displays.
The Importance of The E Ink Display Technology Software Ecosystem
The perfection of the software ecosystem is often closely related to the success or failure of the hardware. Taking mobile devices as an example, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the first-generation iPhone in 2007, he did not just announce the iPhone alone. The hardware of the iPhone was indeed a highlight to the world for that it was different from traditional button-type mobile phones. But if there was only hardware, the iPhone may not be able to sell well and quickly beat the traditional mobile phone.
What makes Jobs extraordinary is that he knows the importance of the software ecosystem. He knows that the key to real success lies in software rather than hardware. Therefore, in addition to the iPhone, he released the first generation of iOS (then called iPhone OS), an operating system specifically designed for smartphones and mobile devices. What’s more, there are App store, iTunes and a system development kit (SDK) designed for developers, which completes the software ecosystem in one go.
The latter items are extremely critical. Only with an excellent operating system specially designed for touch screens can the hardware truly exert its maximum performance; While the App store and iTunes provide a brand-new business model, giving places for excellent developers and creators to provide first-class software and works to the market and at the same time help them make profits.
And for consumers, iPhone owners can download high-quality software (App) designed specifically for the iPhone through the store, bringing convenience to their daily lives. It is such a perfect software ecosystem that makes the iPhone cross the well of death easily. Even if the iPhone is expensive, it has become the mainstream smartphone in the market and has established a model for mobile devices.
Current Status of Software Installed in E Ink Devices
At present, there are several products equipped with E Ink displays: e-Readers, note taking e-Readers, mobile phones, tablets, dual-screen mobile phones and dual-screen laptops, etc. [Note 2] The following will introduce the software status of various types of products.
E-Reader
Note taking e-Reader
Mobile, tablet, dual-screen mobile phone
Dual screen laptop
E Ink display
Most of the e-Reader products are sold by e-book platform vendors so the built-in reading software is also developed by platform vendors. Although various platform vendors have already developed reading software for Android and iOS, the reading software installed in their e-Reader is specially designed for E Ink displays.
As a result, the user interface and user experience are generally very good. The file management and transmission software in the e-Reader are generally not designed very well. It may be that the platform providers focus mainly on the e-book reading experience and ignore other parts.
In addition, the operating system of the e-Reader is generally a closed operating system (often linux-based) that makes it exclusive. Therefore, consumers must choose e-Readers according to their ebooks repositories from different platforms.
Note taking e-Readers are generally developed by hardware developers and feature a handwriting program and a stylus. Most operating systems of these products are closed systems, but they have built-in notebook software, drawing software, reading software, and file management and transmission software.
Basically, hardware developers have their own software team to design software specifically for their own E Ink products, so the built-in software is generally very user-friendly and file management is also good. (For example, the file synchronization software of Sony DPT-RP1.)
However, whether the software developed by such companies is powerful or not depends on the ability of their own software development team. If their team is not expert enough, the function of the built-in software will be simple and awkward which will consequently affect their product sales. (Unlike e-book platform vendors, they do not have an online library to back up their sales.)
This type of product has been increasing in recent years mainly due to the improvement of the refresh rate of the E Ink screen and the adjustable screen refresh rate controlled by software, making software applications that require a faster refresh rate feasible.
That is to say, apps that were only suitable for mobile devices with backlit screens can now be displayed on the E Ink screen without too much flickering or lag in use. Therefore, most of these products use open mobile operating systems (android-based operating systems), allowing users to download and install software through the operating system's built-in App store. But the problem is that those apps in the App store are not specifically designed for E Ink products. Although they can be used, the user interface and user experience are not ideal.
The operating system of this kind is basically the operating system of the desktop computer. Though equipped with two screens, the LCD or LED-backlit screen is still the main screen and the E Ink screen is only auxiliary. Therefore, the user interface and user experience of the software are still based on desktop applications, and are not optimized for E Ink screens.
The following category was added on 2022/05/23:
Display products are actually things that fit the role of an external monitor. In recent years, there are the 25.3-inch Paperlike 253 from Dasung , as well as 13.3-inch Boox Mira and 25.3-inch Boox Mira Pro. This type of product depends on what kind of computer the monitor is connected to. If it’s connected to a desktop, the main operating system is Windows or Mac; If it’s connected to a tablet, the mobile operating system will be used.
Because of the fast refresh rate, a far better CPU and no concern of battery life for such display products, the software user experience, though not refined for E Ink screen, is not bad and most of the time the fluency is sufficient. However, if the software can be designed for the characteristics of the E Ink screen, the user experience will be more perfect.
The order of the above-mentioned products is basically arranged in the order of technological evolution. The development trend of electronic ink devices should gradually change from a closed operating system to an open system, because a closed system is equivalent to forcing the consumers to choose a side, which is very inconvenient for consumers. Another drawback for a closed system is that it cannot expand additional functions by installing apps.
However, it can be seen from the above that if the E Ink device uses an open operating system, no other apps in the App Store have been designed for the E Ink screen except for the built-in software. Therefore, the user can only take his chances and see which popular app has an user interface just right for his E Ink device. But unfortunately most of the app experience is not very good.
Based on this fact, E Ink hardware developers will face a serious problem in the future: there is no strong software ecosystem to back up the hardware sales. The user interface and user experience of the apps designed for the backlit screen mobile device is not suitable for the E Ink display. A wrong user interface will destroy the user experience and may give the early public a bad first impression with the E Ink display. They may mistakenly believe that electronic paper devices are not as practical as mobile phones and tablets.
The Influence of UI on Purchase Intention
Why is user interface design so important? Taking the personal computer as an example, when the personal computer was first commercialized, the operating system for it used a Command-Line Interface (CLI), that is, an action had to be executed by inputting commands from the keyboard, and there were lines of text and commands on the screen. The most well-known operating system of this type is DOS (Disk Operating System), but because the users have to memorize the instructions, it increases the difficulty of learning. Therefore, when the personal computer was first launched, it was mainly used by companies and institutions. It is difficult to popularize the public.
In 1983, after Apple launched the first personal computer using a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and after Microsoft successively launched the Windows operating system, the user interface for personal computers has become easy for people to understand at a glance. With a mouse, actions can be performed by clicking on the icons or buttons, which lowers the threshold for public learning and improves the user experience. Since then, personal computers have really begun to popularize the public.
Software features also influence consumers' choices when purchasing hardware. For example, Mooink's reading software is capable of changing the layout of Chinese characters from horizontal direction to vertical direction (the typesetting that Chinese people are more accustomed to), and thus some people buy Mooink readers instead of other readers just because of this feature ; For another example, Kindle has the function that the dictionary entries will appear directly after the text is selected, and moreover users can add word cards easily, so people who want to learn a language may buy it for this feature.
Features of Software UI that Fits the Characteristics of E Ink Displays
In fact, to develop software specifically designed for E Ink displays, you only need to master one principle: reduce screen changes as much as possible. So there are a few things to keep in mind when designing:
- Replace scrolling with page turning.[Note 3]
- Use hidden toolbars (such as floating balls or popup menus)to keep the screen as clean as possible.
- Reduce unnecessary animations.
- The screen should be divided into blocks. It should be divided into fixed blocks, blocks with less update frequency, and blocks with high update frequency.
- Any text field supports real-time handwriting and real-time voice input (without popping up the virtual keyboard on the screen).
- Movies and animations are no longer presented in frames, but in bitmaps, and the screen change rate is reduced through algorithms in advance.
- Multi-screen design. (The future E Ink device will be like a book, with more than one screen.)
Some people will say that the current technology can adjust the screen refresh rate. As long as the refresh rate is increased, you can tolerate page scrolling better, and you can watch animations and movies. But the problem is that the original advantage of E Ink is that it does not consume power when the ink molecules are not moving. If the screen keeps scrolling or playing animations or videos, the ink molecules have to be rearranged all the time, which is also very power-consuming. (Although it is still not as power-consuming as a light-emitting backlit screen.)
In addition, there is the problem of ghosting when the refresh rate is fast, and even though the speed refresh mode is fast, the speed of molecular movement cannot be compared with the speed of light. Therefore, the purpose of user interface optimization is that even if it can be designed in this way, we still have to choose the most suitable way to design so that users can have the best experience.
For example, the design of web pages now has the so-called Responsive Web Design (RWD), which can automatically change the layout of web page content for mobile devices of different screen sizes without making the content layout messy; E ink devices should also have its own dedicated web browser that allows the content of the website to automatically become a fixed layout format, and the overflow of the text content is automatically rearranged and presented in pages and users can read in a page-turning manner rather than sliding.
In addition, just like the current browsers equipped with a reading mode, if this reading mode is applied to electronic paper display, it must be changed from sliding to page-turning, and the content can be converted into a PDF file immediately for users to directly read and make annotations on it.[Note 4]
However, it is not easy to achieve the above requirements. It is very likely that we need to develop a new algorithm to judge how to cut and rearrange the content to present the best fixed layout and maybe this should be done through artificial intelligence and deep learning.
2022/05/23 Update:At present, an e-reading community member Daniel Kao has developed a web browser called EinkBro specifically designed for E Ink screens. It provides a more comfortable and smooth browsing experience. Therefore, I recommend people who want to use the E Ink device to surf the Internet to download and use this browser. Here’s the Google Play download point: EinkBro.
Many brands of E Ink devices already have an animation filtering mechanism, which can filter out unnecessary animations in the high-quality refresh mode to reduce the flicker and ghosting of the screen. If you're a Boox user and do not know how to filter animations, you can refer to these two articles: "Boox App Optimization: Refresh Mode Setting Tips" , "Kindle App Refresh and Display Setting Guide on Boox Reader".
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| The "light table" user interface is great for E Ink devices to look something up. |
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| Any hidden menu (drop-down menu, floating ball, hidden toolbar or dock, etc.) is very suitable for E Ink display, because the characteristic of paper is that the main content should be presented in full page and the toolbars should appear only when needed. Therefore, the toolbar in this figure should be hidden and suspended. In addition, it can be seen that the picture is cut off by the border, which is the disadvantage of dealing overflow with scrolling. |
Radical improvement
The most ideal way to improve fundamentally is to directly develop an operating system for E Ink display. The operating system itself provides a software development kit with a variety of application programming interfaces (API) that developers can use directly without the need to repeatedly develop algorithms. The advantage of the operating system is that it allows hardware developers to focus on making hardware and firmware, and the software is provided via the App store (such as EinkBro) by professional software companies or developers. And users can purchase these apps from the App store according to their needs.
In such a professional division of labor, users can enjoy good software, and software developers have a good place to earn. This will encourage the birth of high-quality software and algorithms and it will also generate a positive cycle. In this way, platform booksellers do not need to spend time building their own e-Readers [Note 5]. They can focus on optimizing their own reading software under this operating system.
If the solution of developing an operating system is not feasible, another method is to directly use the Android system (such as the current operating system of Boox, Boox OS 3.2.2) and provide an E ink device filtering option in the search field in the Google Play Store. This will reduce the risk of finding incompatible apps for E ink users and thus enhance user experience. In this way, although the business model of the software ecosystem can also be constructed, it will be more troublesome for developers. It is not possible for them to use the API provided in the E ink dedicated operating system but to develop their own algorithms under the Android architecture.
Conclusion
From this year, the development of E Ink will enter a critical period. The launch of color E Ink devices will make many consumers, who originally took a wait-and-see attitude because of the previously monotone display, willing to give it a try. User experience and software ecosystem will eventually be the two keys for E Ink display to cross the well of death.
Consumers generally think that E Ink devices are just a substitute for backlit screen mobile devices. They often compare the two before spending their money. If there is no distinction between the two regarding software applications and software interfaces, it is very reasonable for them to have such a misunderstanding.
Consumers usually do not compare a mobile device to a laptop or desktop computer because these devices have different input methods, different operating systems and different application user interfaces. Therefore, the establishment of the E Ink software ecosystem is to clearly tell consumers that the E Ink device is a "smart paper", not a "luminous screen".
It is hoped that through this article, software and hardware developers of electronic ink display technology can cooperate to create a software ecosystem instead of fighting alone; it also provides some ideas for startups to develop new algorithms and killer applications, allowing the development of electronic ink display technology more complete.
Annotation
Note 1. Yuantai (元太）is a subsidiary of Taiwan's papermaking group Yongfengyu (永豐餘）.
Note 2. There are other commercial devices, which are not described here because the length of this article is too long.
Note 3. The so-called scrolling does not mean that there is a scrollbar but sliding animation. The scrollbar can still be used to remind the users that there is content overflowing the screen. When a scrollbar is designed for e-paper, scrolling it should directly update a whole page (and the scrollbar is stepped) and the content shouldn’t be cut by the border.
Note 4. Mooink is a note taking e-Reader sold by Readmoo, a platform book seller, but because its built-in reading software supports dynamic layout (ePUB format), it cannot be directly annotated with a stylus. There’s actually a separate built-in program made by its hardware developer (Linfiny) that supports handwriting and PDF annotation with a stylus. This separation of the handwriting function for PDF and ePUB often causes confusion to its users, resulting in a bad user experience. This problem can be avoided if an algorithm can be developed to instantly turn a dynamic layout into a fixed layout and integrate the two programs into one. 2022/05/23 Update:Readmoo's reading software has successively supported the handwriting capabilities of dynamic (ePUB) and fixed (PDF) layout around October last year.
Note 5. Amazon had to develop its own e-Reader at that time because few companies were making e-Readers for E Ink displays (except Sony). Amazon was indeed a farsighted company. But platform vendors who enter this market lately shouldn’t make their own e-Readers because it’s better for them to focus on optimizing their own reading software for E Ink and provide the software to the App store for open system users, who may already have their book repositories.
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