Why I'm sending back Google Glass

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9248434/Why_I_m_sending_back_Google_Glass

by r0h1n • 12 years ago

8 16 12 years ago

ctdonath• 12 years ago

Glass is at the stage tablets were at when the Newton arrived: the concept thrills the imagination, but the hardware is so far behind (despite the laudable attempt) expectations that odds are it will fade into oblivion until significant factors (battery capacity vs size, processing power, significant FOV coverage) are improved 100x and the "right" UI/UX is designed (which will look staggeringly obvious after it's invented).

cjensen• 12 years ago

Guy pays for a beta, finds out it's not perfect, and wants his money back? That's really not reasonable.

Ensorceled• 12 years ago

Well, there you go, the first problem is ... "Pays for a beta". Why does Google need to have people pay to be their beta test group?

ant_sz• 12 years ago

I am really looking forward to something like the Oculus but combines the virtual world with the real one, not something like Glass,

frobozz• 12 years ago

Like Spaceglasses? https://www.spaceglasses.com/

rememberlenny• 12 years ago

Another write up on the same topic.

http://blog.rememberlenny.com/2014/01/05/i-return-ed-my-goog...

efnx• 12 years ago

I'm waiting for my fully AR capable RayBans. :) Virtual Light was a cool book.

praeivis• 12 years ago

Finally somebody with guts to acknowledge reality.

Zigurd• 12 years ago

I have Glass and I have been looking for use cases. The set of real use cases is probably narrower than Google would like, but it's there. You have to be using your hands, and you have to need information without using your hands to access it.

That's interesting, and it is potentially high-value. But it isn't the set of use cases for a consumer product.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

From your description of the qualifications for the use cases, I can immediately think of several consumer markets, with the right content. There's a chicken-and-egg problem of content and adoption, though.

LandoCalrissian• 12 years ago

One of my friends had one and I got to use it for a few days and I largely agree with the article. It's really a solution look for a problem at this point. It's interesting too that the API has been available for a while now, yet there haven't really been any huge ideas that have really come from that.

I like that Google is trying, but as it stands right now the hardware limitations are just too real. This is by no means a consumer ready product at this point.

ToastyMallows• 12 years ago

I feel like the section about crooked pictures is disingenuous. The picture in the article is crooked by about 30 degrees clockwise, but then the next picture below, still taken with Glass, is almost perfectly straight. There's no way his ears are that misaligned to take a picture that's rotated by 30 degrees.

ChikkaChiChi• 12 years ago

Glass is infinitely more useful when you don't have to worry about battery life. I rigged up a Leopow Moonstone to mine and suddenly found myself using it a ton more.

That being said, I looked like a Borg.

Methusalah2• 12 years ago

Lots of exaggeration and subsequent backtracking to bring that exaggeration back to reality. But even having not used glass already it's pretty easy to find fault with his points:

1. Eye Contact - Just don't look at glass while you're talking to people. Problem solved. Why did he begin the article with this again?

2. Not a good listener - Probably the strongest reason in the article. Not really a surprise having used voice recognition on my phone, but this will definitely cause problems.

3. Battery death - You knew this before you bought it. Everyone knew this. Google was completely open about this. Meh.

4. Too big and bulky - He complains that it's too big for a shirt pocket and then shows it inside a shirt pocket. It looks kind of silly there, but having somewhat unsightly bulges is par for the course for anyone fond of carrying gadgets around (the kind of person who'd be interested in an early version of Glass). Basically a non-issue. Also, there's no way it's too big for a purse.

5. Conspicuous - Another issue he knew from the start. There have been numerous articles on the topic and most people have come to the conclusion that other people would get used to it.

6. Tilted photos - As others have pointed out, lots of exaggeration here. It's easy enough to fix via software regardless.

7. Direction drawbacks - You need a data connection to use google's navigation services? No shit. Moving on.

8. The earbud - It's just an option on the rare occasion that you somehow need slightly better sound for glass. You already have your phone with you, why would you need to use glass to listen to music?

9. Explorer envy - That's a problem with him, not glass.

10. Too little, too soon - Yeah, he wasn't a good candidate. There's a reason it's only intended for developers hoping to get a head start at this point.

Pretty disappointing article.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

Your arguments seem to boil down to saying that the things that he found intolerable are all true, but some other people find them tolerable. That's not very interesting.

Pretty disappointing comment.

Methusalah2• 12 years ago

That isn't an accurate summary of my comment. I'm arguing that this article isn't revealing anything unexpected about the nature of the device and is only a list of reasons why the author made a poor purchasing decision by ignoring readily available information about the device he was purchasing.

Why I'm sending back Google Glass

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