I appreciate each of your comments and I hope PB reads and follows every one of your suggestions. As a philosopher and designer, I think Pocketbook has come closest to properly implementing e-ink, which I regard as one of the most important inventions of the last 500 years.

Most critical to me is your excellent point that one’s correspondence–arguably the most important thing one can read–should be readable on an e-reader. And that you began your point with a wish for an email client. Here’s why:

E-ink device manufacturers have overlooked for years the simple, extremely fruitful fact that e-ink e-readers can and should also be *e-writers*. After 30 long years, we writers still need a replacement for the typewriter, which the personal computer never really has been. Why? Because refreshing screens disturb not just the eyes but thought and emotion as well–an uncomfortable set of conditions for writing, to say the least. Only e-ink is neutral like paper and ink in that, once inked, the screen *holds still*. Writing on a device that thus leaves the writer undisturbed subtly yet radically affects what gets written–and every action taken on the basis of what is written–for the better. McCluhan is still dead-on: the medium is the message.

I do *not* need WYSIWYG or color screens with video-capable refresh rates. Just a text editor with its basic cut/copy/paste/save features. These, after all, were what made nearly everyone abandon typewriters for computers despite the sharp drop in image quality. It’s time to even the score in favor of the creators of all that we read, of whom there are exponentially more than there were 30 years ago. This means making an e-ink device writable out-of-the-box using a proper external keyboard for touch-tying. The keyboard should be connectable by USB, not just bluetooth, so no other batteries or chargers are required and existing keyboards will work.

E-ink may seem like it is exploding in the market but in fact is performing poorly compared to its *viral* potential. It will achieve this only when people can, like cellphones, use the device in a *circuit* not only to download and consume content, but also produce and deliver it back to the network independently of personal computers.

Hmm. Maybe e-ink will achieve its viral potential when makers implement it as the best screen technology for a new kind of personal computer limited–for now–to the most essential applications: fileviewing, note-taking and line-drawing, word processing, browsing, and email. Which reminds me of something Larry Ellis envisioned years ago: the NC (network computer. It’s funny that whenever anybody gets close to realizing that idea, like today’s netbooks and the iPad, amazing things happen for them in the market. Too bad, due to the screen, you can’t use those devices without acquiring low-level Attention Deficit Disorder. Here’s hoping that PB appreciates what it has in its hot little hands.

Thanks for writing and reading,
Andrew