E Ink ModePrivacy, permissions
and your phone.
These notes describe the downloadable E Ink Mode / E-Ink Ultra 1.5.2 Android APK. They explain this build’s behavior; they are not an independent security audit or a guarantee about every Android device.
What stays on your device
The current APK does not declare Android’s internet permission and does not include an account system, advertising or app analytics. Its preferences and scratchpad notes are stored locally. Notes are not uploaded by the app. Exporting a note is a separate action you choose; other apps you export to have their own data practices.
Uninstalling removes local app data, including notes. Export anything you want to keep before uninstalling.
Why it requests sensitive access
- Write Secure Settings: supported color-correction, transition-scale and display-setting changes. Granted through Shizuku or Android developer tools.
- Accessibility: app-window/package and scroll events for app rules and pacing. This build’s service configuration sets window-content retrieval and key-event filtering to false.
- Display over other apps: visual paper texture, warmth, residue and optional floating note controls.
- Notifications and foreground service: visible session controls, Emergency Reset and short-lived widget commands.
- Optional system-setting access: the refresh-rate cap. Optional vibration supports haptics. Boot access attempts recovery without silently reactivating effects.
- Shizuku authorization: intermediate muted colors use a separate privileged helper. Only authorize apps you trust. Shizuku has its own distribution and documentation.
What changes during a session
Colors may become muted or grayscale. Optional layers can tint or texture your display. Android transitions may change speed if you choose that setting. App rules can suspend effects in selected apps. The app does not change brightness or automatic brightness.
Overlays and residue are simulations. They do not turn the display into physical E Ink, capture previous screens, or promise e-reader battery savings.
Use Turn off & restore or Emergency Reset, and check the result before force-stopping or uninstalling. Android cannot guarantee cleanup after either. Recovery of privileged colors may require reconnecting Shizuku.
Grain, battery and OLED
Grain shifts at most once per minute while visible. Residue uses a bounded trace cache and varies between clearing cycles. Automatic clearing can wait up to 1,000 interaction bursts, or you can clear manually. No screen-capture permission or continuous capture stream was added.
Unchanged settings no longer redraw the paper, screen-off cancels periodic checks, and widget action animations settle rather than looping. Battery overhead has not been measured on physical phones. Pale overlays can raise dark OLED pixels and increase display power. Occasional grain movement is not guaranteed burn-in prevention; simulated clearing is not an OLED panel refresh. Avoid prolonged high-brightness static content.
Android reserves some system surfaces: opaque status and navigation bars may remain untextured even though the overlay requests full available display bounds.
Website data
This website has no added analytics, advertising scripts or sign-up forms. A browser-local preference remembers whether you paused decorative animations. Fonts and page assets are served from this site. Site hosting still processes normal network requests and may maintain operational logs under the hosting provider’s policies. Links to Google, Android documentation and Shizuku take you to external sites with their own policies.
Early-access status
The current APK is a developer-signed testing build using an Android debug certificate, not a Play Store production release. Automated checks do not substitute for independent review. Support for Android 10+ is the design target; actual display-control behavior differs by device, Android build and manufacturer.