Thoughts on Google Glass
daringfireball.netMat Honan's article was a valuable critique. And interesting. Gruber's reaction on the other hand...
> It’s a cool lab demo that they’re presenting as a finished product.
Google couldn't be any more clear that it is a beta and they've never once said that the current price is what it will hit the market at (or if it will hit the market, for that matter). So that's just flat out wrong.
> It is ugly and clunky and ridiculously expensive for what it does.
Again, assuming it's a mass market product and not the experiment in wearable computing it is.
> In the meantime, to me, Google Glass is the new Tablet PC.
And there it is. Glass is Microsoft's failed foray into tablet computing. He's not even sure that this form factor will be popular, yet he compares it to a technology that took off in spite of an initially poor execution. He's convinced it will succeed, I guess, when someone other than Google does it. I wonder who he has in mind.
They said they are going to release a consumer version in 2014. Perhaps something is going to drastically change but the vibe that I get is they are beta testing it so they are hammering out bugs and other rough edges not looking to drastically overhaul the hardware or software.
> Perhaps something is going to drastically change but the vibe that I get is they are beta testing it so they are hammering out bugs and other rough edges not looking to drastically overhaul the hardware or software.
I remember listening to people discuss Glass on a couple of podcasts after it was released and this is the one thing that sticks in my mind from the reviews. While Google called it a beta, the reviewers said it felt more like an alpha or an engineering sample than a beta product.
> It is ugly and clunky and ridiculously expensive for what it does. To me, that’s everything. Same thing with all existing smartwatches — the problem isn’t the idea, it’s the actual execution. There are no points for being first to market with a bad product.
This is just wrong. Google gains massive points in my book for putting something like Glass out there. They get points for showing the world a glimpse of what the future can be, and getting everyone else to think about it. The wearables revolution was started with Glass, and whether or not Glass ends up being the flagship product of the wearables market it doesn't matter. Google started it either way.
His point is that no one remembers the Tablet PC and everyone remembers the iPad. But that's a really weak argument to me. The Tablet PC didn't just fail because the form factor was 10 years too early and because the design missed the mark... but because the product was abandoned. If Google keeps up, stays hungry and keeps working through the early issues they can come out as the market leader just as easy as Apple or whomever tries to follow.
My HP tc1100 has about the same functionality as a 1st gen iPad, only with more RAM, 1/5th the battery life, resistive stylus screen, and twice the weight. That's what it means that it was "10 years too early." That said, HP was a premier tech company in its day, and the tc1100 was a tour-de force of industrial time for its time.
If Google Glass is the best one of the premier tech companies can do now, then it's clearly too early.
There is no such thing as being "too early" to market. That is how you cut your teeth, learn and get ahead. You fail when you give up on the idea (or are proven that it will never catch on... either way). However if you create a product that eventually takes off, and if you continue to iterate it and not abandon it, you can't be too early. And, if nothing else, it is 100x less risky to be too early, than too late.
> There is no such thing as being "too early" to market.
The history of the Newton disagrees with you.
It took quite a few years before someone built the product that the technology could support well (the PalmPilot).
History is littered with counterexamples. If you look at people or companies that have been refered to as "ahead of their time", it is frequently in the context of why they ultimately failed.
Tablet PCs are a case in point -- Microsoft or HP had not abandoned the tablet market. They were iterating and releasing tablets even after the iPad was released. They just didn't make the leap that Apple did to create a tablet that appealed to the masses.
Also, regarding the "riskier to be too late" comment: The book "Copycats" by Oded Shenkar makes the case that it's frequently the imitators that win the market rather than the innovators. This blog post reviews it and cites some interesting statistics from it: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/08/03/down-with-innovation-up...
"They were iterating and releasing tablets even after the iPad was released. They just didn't make the leap that Apple did to create a tablet that appealed to the masses."
I think this is a succinct refutation of the Tablet PC being a counterexample to something "ahead of their time". The lack of success of the Tablet PC wasn't because it was "too early for the technology", but it's because Microsoft and HP were developing the wrong device for the wrong market.
That said, I do tend to agree with your premise that you certainly can be "ahead of your time", and that being first to market does not always correlate with being the best to the market.
I guess I see "being early" and "building the right product" as orthogonal. Microsoft / HP built the wrong product for the wrong market, but that's not necessarily because they were too early!
I used my Fujitsu tablet every day for 4+ years. Best laptop I ever had... and the "tablet features" were amazing for note-taking and presentations. Just sayin'... some of us remember.
Agreed, but that's exactly what I've come to expect from Gruber. Rather than use Google's "physically grotesque and glaringly obtrusive" device, he's waiting on Apple's "elegant, beautiful, graceful" execution.
I disagree.
I own Glass. 99.9% of people who see me wearing them want to know more about them. They want to try them on and experience glass. And of course, I let them give Glass a whirl. They love it. Yes it's WAY too pricey but, it's still awesome. I don't find them that unattractive. I look at it like, "I'm at a sporting/concert event and I obviously want to take pictures, so I'm wearing this, which is more convenient." Once I explain that to people, they totally get why I'm wearing Glass.
Glass makes sense and it's a step in the right direction for wearable computing. At least for now.
My gripes:
It needs Bluetooth LE. I'm an iOS developer. I need Bluetooth LE to support notifications at least.
iOS is hamstrung until I can send iMessages. I don't see that changing.
Swiping through all the cards can be kind of a nuisance.
Battery life.
Google is a software company so, I imagine the more Apple opens up their notifications etc, the better Glass will get.
It needs Bluetooth LE. I'm an iOS developer. I need Bluetooth LE to support notifications at least.
Does Android even support BLE yet in a way that's accessible and standardized across hardware manufacturers? I was looking at doing some work with Bluetooth LE last year but was amazed at the lack of attention Google was putting into it. It seemed likely they were going to ignore it altogether for a while.
Android 4.3 brought about much improved BLE support [1]. Unfortunately, driver support from manufacturers is still fairly limited, and hasn't been appearing very quickly.
[1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19717902/does-android-kit...
Not sure. Like I said, I'm an iOS dev. I think the most recent version of android does?
Sure they want to know more about it because it looks completely alien to them but when they've tried it on and understand it's capabilities do a lot of those people express interest in purchasing one?
My anecdotal evidence is that I've seen lots of people try on Google Glass and while they think it is interesting none of them actually want it.
I like gadgets and various electronics, but for some reason Glass just rubs me the wrong way.
I'm not sure if it's because of the 'creep factor' or what. I guess I'm just not ready for a society always recording everything. I can't even imagine what high school would be like. One embarrassing thing happens, and 30 people have it recorded, uploaded to the internet, and commenting on it in minutes. I guess that could already happen with phones, but at least right now not everything is being recorded at every minute by every person.
If Glass use does become widespread, I have a feeling many private companies, such as restaurants, and malls will ban its use indoors, which would make it a pain to use (especially if it's connected to your prescription glasses!).
Worse... being in a social situation with someone who is wearing Glass now means that Google has identified who you are (and the NSA for that matter) and where you are, and from there it probably isn't that difficult to determine what your mood is at the time. It'll be like your own digital stalker out there, times a thousand, given that Google will just use the data to sell ads.
> being in a social situation with someone who is wearing Glass now means that Google has identified who you are (and the NSA for that matter) and where you are
What? Glass is not always recording, has no facial recognition and is no more invasive than the smartphones everyone already carries.
Yes, because obviously the originally stated intention for the device is the only use the device will ever have. The difference here is that a phone is usually in your pocket. The Glass is usually on your head, and the camera is pointed at the same thing you're currently looking at.
I can 100% guarantee the current hardware iteration will never support always on recording. It would kill the battery in 45-60 minutes. That added to the fact that almost everyone has a phone on them that can already be geolocated makes using Glass unnecessary for tracking. You could argue that Glass would be useful in taking a photo snapshot every minute but with the growth of security cameras it's estimated that in some areas people are caught on camera as many as 300 times/day. That makes Glass not all that useful.
But it doesn't now, and there is no indication that it ever will aside from people not involved with the product inventing hypotheses. Fair enough if you want to express concern about the trajectory that you envisage, but in your original post you're simply saying it does something that it doesn't.
> I guess I'm just not ready for a society always recording everything.
Society already records everything. The only change Glass brings is the first-person perspective and it frees up a hand that normally would be holding a phone.
> I guess I'm just not ready for a society always recording everything.
Surely you are aware this society has been existing for close to a decade, right?
> If Glass use does become widespread, I have a feeling many private companies, such as restaurants, and malls will ban its use indoors
People were saying the exact same thing about cell phones ten years ago.
I could imagine an 'off'/airplane mode with a visible red LED on top or something, which, in such a small device clamped to your glasses would be fairly visible, and hard to fake/hack.
Alternatively, some kind of wifi/3g blocker or jammer, could be the answer.
In some ways it might make sense to use a polite version of that, where devices would 'hear' a wifi SSID signal, or whatever, with a 'this is a private place, no creepiness, please' signal embedded in it. To stop denial of service, or only having official jamming, you could have that privacy signal location specific, with a Lat/Long GPS position, and then the whole thing signed against a central server (probably google, but a non-Profit would probably be ideal), so that people couldn't wander around with portable jammers.
Then shopping centers, schools, private homes, resturants, etc, could easily register for a code, plonk it on a jammer or other wifi router, and behold, an illusion of privacy.
If there were government regulation about devices having to obey such signals to be legal for use, then I could see it working.
Maybe this is naive of me, but I don't really look forward to a future where I walk around making sure people in my vicinity are glowing red (or green, for when I do something heroic).. I realize that having some indicator is a huge plus over having nothing but it just feels so sterile. Perhaps this is as much a reaction to always-on everything, but there's something especially off-putting about taking the concept of eye contact and making it a consumable, recordable activity. Technology thus far hasn't really encroached on or been able to imitate this face to face interaction..
> Alternatively, some kind of wifi/3g blocker or jammer, could be the answer.
I know that in much of the US these devices are illegal, wouldn't be surprised about other places.
Agree on the creep factor and all of the inevitable places it will be banned, not to mention social situations where it'll be poor etiquette.
It just seems so unnecessary, a (lousy) solution in search of a problem. For now, people wearing Glass strike me as trying too hard to be "cutting edge" or whatever. It's the world's most pathetic conversation starter.
I've never seen Glass on someone, so I can't say for sure how I'd feel, but I assume that when I'm in public, I could be recorded or photographed at any given time. I'm more worried about someone drifting into my lane on a two lane highway while they're reading a text or email (with a false sense of security provided by hands-free use).
It's quite entertaining to see Gruber struggle so much with the idea that Google has out innovated Apple. You can tell he really wishes he could say that everything about Google Glass sucks but deep inside, he knows that Google is onto something, so he ends up making a weak, half positive and half negative point about the product.
He knows deep inside that regardless of how Google Glass (and wearable glasses in general) fare in the future that Google has out innovated Apple, and he's really having a hard time coming to terms with that idea.
I read it more that he's expecting Apple to be the company that comes along with the sexy, socially-acceptable version of Google Glass that takes it mainstream. Admittedly based more on the author than his words.
And that might very well happen, but if it does, it will still be described as Apple copying Google, which probably drives Gruber crazy.
Personally, I think that the simple fact that Google came up with the idea means that Apple will never create such a product.
It’s a cool lab demo that they’re presenting as a finished product.
They do? It seems to me that they've been looking for early adopters that can provide feedback. It'll be a finished product once it's available for order on Google Play.
They've said that they are going to release the consumer version in 2014. Sure it could drastically change from what a developer could be receiving in December 2013 but odds are it is going to be stuff like the price that changes the most, not the actual hardware.
That's not really relevant. The point was that Gruber stated that Google is presenting Glass as a finished product, which is something they have never done.
Based on this website they are putting A LOT into presenting it to the public as pretty polished http://www.google.com/glass/start/
That isn't a developer website that is a website designed by marketing.
Glass uses a TI SoC, and TI doesn't make SoCs anymore, so the odds are actually quite high that the hardware will be making a change before going into mass production. It was actually a surprise when they did a feature bump in October and it was still on an OMAP.
A hardware change makes a lot of sense, besides. It's running slightly older phone hardware, but its still phone hardware. It would be silly to say that "odds are" a new phone coming out a year (or even 6 months) after the last version would be keeping the same hardware; I see no reason to assume that here. As long as you can keep power usage down (or lower) and heat down (or lower), there's no reason why you wouldn't upgrade from what's essentially a phone from 2011.
The phone manufacturers have been doing this for so long that they have the process down to an art. While I think Google could gain this ability in the future nothing they have done with hardware so far makes me believe they have the ability to drastically overhaul hardware in a short period of time. If they do radically change the Google Glass hardware so that it doesn't have the "glasshole" look or drastically improve the software I will be shocked.
It is entirely possible that I am wrong. But the look of Google Glass has barely changed since it was unveiled in the beginning of 2012. If they are truly going to try to push a consumer version of a brand new line of products you better be damn sure that when someone puts on Google Glass they instantly become attached to it. They want to know where they can get one. To do that you gotta test the hell out of it and make sure there are no sharp edges. That hardware would need to start getting into people's hands now and if they've just released a new model how much runway are they going to give between releasing the "golden master" version to their tester and getting it to market?
I've used Google Glass personally and seen dozens of people try it on around me as well. Most of the reactions are "Oh that is cool" but none want to actually buy the product. Compare that to the Occulus Rift where the people I've seen use it want to know when they will be able to buy it.
It's confusing that people at Wired found Matt Honan's Glass weird.
I also work at a news outlet (NPR), and I have a co-worker who wears Glass during the workday (not every day, but enough that I notice). I've never seen anything but polite interest.
I agree. I work at a small mobile dev shop. At least 10 people there own Glass. No one cares.
Google could probably price the glass for just a few hundred dollars, but they don't. Why? Because Glass is not yet a polished consumer product with apps/features that create a compelling reason to wear them all the time. Google is releasing them intentionally to 'thought leaders' who will critique and come up with the ideas for features that will make Glass broadly compelling to consumers. By the time Glass is released as a mass market product it will already have app store loaded with apps. Seems like a simple strategy!
What surprises me always is that people act as if Glass was the first of its kind. The tech has been around for ages and actually Glass is very poor in terms of its holographic projection technology. What is new is that Google is the first company who is really serious about this and has the guts about it flying in the face of negative publicity, not shying away from its weirdness for many people. I led an AR/VR project at Vodafone using Sony's far superior tech with local startups and the project while technically successful didn't make it past the prototype stage. All there is: Google has really high innovation reputation, they can shape the market even if it 'feels weird', that is why the article is spot on saying it 'will help grease the wheels for social acceptance'.
When I heard that Strava was on it, I instantly wanted one (and had no interest beforehand). Sports is to wearables what the spreadsheet was to the PC.
"we won’t be able to tell who’s wearing built-in-HUD-and-camera glasses and who’s just wearing regular glasses"
Oh no! I might have to get laser eye surgery and stop wearing glasses.