11 ms·

Why I'm sending back Google Glass

101 points by davidbarker 12y ago

nathannecro 12y ago
More or less the reasons why I sent back mine as well. Fun to play with, not remotely practical.
grrowl 12y ago
An unnecessarily pedantic review of Glass. Some valid points related to its beta status (voice recognition not yet up to scratch), and some moderate warnings for potential Explorers (the earbud is proprietary and doesn't stay in the ear), some are just chances to whinge: "Glass can provide turn-by-turn driving directions, but it uses your phone's data service" (obviously), and amazingly "Google Glass Explorers climb mountains ... You don't do those things." I guess the take away is, buy gadgets to achieve things, don't buy gadgets to buy gadgets.
- danellis 12y ago
  Also, the eye contact thing: you're not supposed to use Glass while you're having a conversation with someone any more than you would pull out your phone and look at it in the middle of a conversation. The fact that it's there and convenient isn't an excuse for being rude.
  - cookiecaper 12y ago
    But it's probably substantially more difficult to maintain eye contact when a section of your eye is covered by a fixed HUD, even if you're trying.
  - leoc 12y ago
    Taking Glass off to talk to people then putting it back on again all day would be burdensome, especially if you have prescription lenses fitted in it.
    - Navarr 12y ago
      I think his point was don't turn it on and look at it? Notifications don't turn the screen on, only an active application would have the screen on. Most of the time it's off, such as when you're talking to someone
      - leoc 12y ago
        Duh, you're right of course.
- goblin89 12y ago
  My takeaway is the opposite—you buy Glass to buy Glass. A wearable computer with 1 hour battery life isn't practical, any your expectations won't be met, but you can be closer to the future so that you invent appropriately. Think problem-oriented vs. idea/tool-oriented mindset, illustrated by Alan Kay in his talk The Future Doesn't Have to Be Incremental: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o#t=1096 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o#t=1096. As you surround yourself with tools of the future, you can think of problems and solutions no one else sees (problem-finding as opposed to -solving).
vacri 12y ago
This reviewer wants 'magic', not 'tech'. It's a terrible review. I mean, seriously, "this micro device is too large and must be made smaller, but Beethoven's 9th sounds tinny on it"? Obviously has zero clue about acoustics. This reviewer is inventing reasons to give the device a failing mark after getting to play with it for a few weeks. Glass has it's problems, a couple of which are mentioned in the article, but overall the article is just terrible.
- Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
  Likely, he was just trying to fill out 7,8,9, and 10 to make it a top ten list. The first six were at least informative for someone looking for drawbacks or specific questions. Some of those may be more obvious to the tech group but not to non-techies.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Well, the point he opens with is just him being rude, nothing to do with the limitations of the Glass itself. What's he's actually asking for in that very first point is a way to view content on Glass without the other person in the conversation realising that you're tuning them out. As someone else commented, this is the same as pulling out your smartphone and playing with it instead of conversing. The conspicuousness point is also trueish, but overblown. The sunglass clip-ons do reduce the visibility of the unusual headwear, they just don't eliminate it. From experience with our set at work, people out in public react considerably less when the sunglasses are clipped on. It's not going to fool someone you're in a direct conversation with, but you get fewer odd looks. Obviously this is with one of the subtle charcoal colours, and not the day-glo varieties. I would argue that you shouldn't be fooling someone you're in a direct conversation with anyway. If you want to do that, there are other tools for single-party recordings. So we're down to 4.5 points out of 10. Not accounting for uneven ears, sure. Battery life, sure. Bulk, maybe. Voice recognition? It's actually pretty good, for voice recognition. It just doesn't have the same capabilities as a human (no tech does, hence my original comment). We got a set straight from the US, it was responding happily to my broad, middle-Australian accent, and it would still recognise a colleague with a very strong French accent who passed by me saying "OK Glass, google porn" ("drive-by" commands are a different problem...), all with no particular calibration done. Voice recognition doesn't work with background noise? Even humans have trouble with that. So no, it's a bad review all around, for both techies and naifs. It sets expectations for naifs that are impossible to achieve, despite there a few real issues being described. I personally don't think Glass is ready for the public yet, but this article offers a lot of misdirection on why.
erso 12y ago
A well-written, real-world review of Glass. I enjoyed it.
visarga 12y ago
After reading the pros and cons, I am tempted to buy one when it comes out as a consumer product with a sane price tag. It might be interesting to combine gglass with learning and exploration activities, museum tours, or just to make videos form first person POV.
- huskyr 12y ago
  I'm wondering if GG might be in the same league as the Segway: not a complete failure or a big hit, but a niche product for very specific things (like the city sightseeing tours done on Segways).
yeukhon 12y ago
I also don't think this review is giving GG a chance to survive, despite listing up and down in each point. This device was not invented to keep in your pocket. When mobile phone first came out, it was giant and you had to carry it by hand. No one expect it to be small. > Point 1 (eye contacts) God. I am not sure how you would do that unless you (1) shoot some light beam into your eyes, or (2) have glass cover up your eyes like in Star Wars. That's not a valid point to ask for refund. > Point 2 (not a good listener) Fair point but speech recognition's problems are known and are hard to fix. Not good enough reason to return - no AI with speech recognition today is capable of fixing all those problems in an open environment. > Point 3 (batter) That's a good point. But it should be expected, somewhat, given its tiny size and the amount of computation it has to do plus wifi and bluetooth connection. > Point 4 (Bulk, not pocket friendly) As I've said above, god, this is the one of the least valid reasons to ask for refund. > Point 5 (frame doesn't hide Glass!) This is also a ridiculous reason to ask for refund. The point of clip-on shade isn't to hide Glass. It's so that you can use glass even when it's sunny outside. Or because people want to look cool. > Point 6 (Tilted photos) Okay fair point. Technical stuff to be addressed. > Point 7 (Directions drawbacks) Fair point. Technical stuff to be addressed. Driving while using Glass is really dangerous. but hiking with Glass without touching your phone (but enable your phone use data) is kinda cool. > Point 8 (earbuds) I agree the earbuds are pretty... hmm, not stylish. I'd like to have cordless earbuds. Like one of those for people with hearing problems. > Point 9 (advertisement stories vs reality) This is a marketing trick. I always use Facebook's Home and Paper as example. On the ad side they look amazing but in reality your fb dashboard could just fill with memes and cat pictures. Boring. > Point 10 (10. Too little, too soon) Not a valid reason to ask for refund at all. I mean this is explorer edition. Hello???? Hellllllo???? Even if this was version 100000000, you still have rooms for improvement. Future is not here yet, because future is non-stop. Tomorrow is a different future. Sorry. If I were Google, I won't refund. I don't mind taking back your Glass and give it to yeukhon for free.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  First rule of customer service: customer says he's not happy with the product? -> full refund, record as many reasons why as possible, figure out which ones hold water, fix them then re-approach former customer as beta tester. For now he's done something you apparently did not do, which was to buy the thing and give it a work-out. Of course, Google and customer service are rarely used in an affirmative sentence of any kind but still, that's how you're supposed to deal with this.
suprgeek 12y ago
Tried Glass. My mini review: 1) Huge potential - something like this will be the next "iPhone" 2) Headaches - 2-3 hrs of intermittent usage would give me a headache without fail 3) Battery Life... BATTERY LIFE 4) Surprisingly hostile reactions in some places (restaurants etc) 5) Novelty wears off fast then what? Returned with thanks to friend kind enough to lend it to me. Not something I would buy until 1) Price is in the 2-300$ range 2) Battery life is 5x 3) At least one Killer app
- onion2k 12y ago
  4 isn't particularly surprising. People rightly believe that they have the right to decide who records them. A stranger walking in with a camera when they're in an intimate/family/business situation feels incredibly intrusive. If you walked in with your phone held out in front of you as if you were recording you'd get the same reaction.
  - frou_dh 12y ago
    Such reactions are wonderfully captured in Surveillance Camera Man 1-6: http://www.youtube.com/user/SurveillantCameraMan http://www.youtube.com/user/SurveillantCameraMan
    - xd 12y ago
      Interesting experiment, but for the most part I wouldn't expect google glass users to walk up to strangers and record them directly like this.
    - netcan 12y ago
      I disagree. That's an example of strange unsolicited attention from a stranger is perceived as hostile. He could have been pointing a picture of the Virgin Mary at them and gotten a similar reaction.
    - Aoyagi 12y ago
      It's nice to see that expecting any kind of privacy in the US is silly, especially considering the channel has been on for over a year.
molmalo 12y ago
One thing I can't understand is: If most people use wired headsets, with their phones, iPods, MP3 Players.... why can't Google Glass use a wire, so you can have a much bigger battery in your pocket, and a much thinner frame in you head? I think that's their biggest error with their current design. If you can only use this device for a very short time, it's going to be a failure.
- mattlutze 12y ago
  I'd not buy one with a wire. If the current Glass is conspicuous without one, imagine how much more it will be when there's a wire running awkwardly down from your glasses. Plus, I can't count how many times I'm out in the world with an earbud in and the cable gets snagged on something. The first time that happened with the Glass and the quick-release didn't let go, there goes my glasses and Glass, leaving me blind and out hundreds/thousands of dollars. Like many, I imagine if I were to buy one it would be with corrective lenses, which means then I would have to carry a second pair of normal glasses with me so I can put the Glass away when I'm indoors -- while it may be alright to put your headphones in when you're outside on the street, I'm not 16 anymore and can't get away with looking like I've got my earbud in sitting at my desk or having lunch with a colleague. A cord would solve a problem with old technology. The point of this is to do things a new way.
- eps 12y ago
  Their biggest error by a very large margin is adding a camera to the device.
  - cookiecaper 12y ago
    Aren't many of Glass's most interesting functions dependent on a camera? I don't really think Glass makes people more recordable, it just makes that recordability more obvious, and therefore makes people less comfortable. Maybe it'd be a good thing to cope with the reality that we're always under watch these days.
    - throwaway7767 12y ago
SoftwareMaven 12y ago
Is GG the eyewear equivalent of an Apple Newton? If so, will Google learn enough from it to make the next go at it successful? More important, will Google's management team tolerate a second attempt if this one fails?
- rimantas 12y ago
  The most important: does Google Glass indeed solve some problem many have? I can see it's appeal in some limited use cases, but not as a mass product.
  - codeulike 12y ago
    Walk down a busy street in London: about 70% of people are walking along while looking down and fiddling with their phones. That's the use case.
bcardarella 12y ago
TIL: Computerworld is still a thing.
RegW 12y ago
> It can't do GPS without using your phone's cellular data or a mobile hotspot. This isn't just a GG problem. This is general Google problem, and something that seems to be growing. Until a year ago I had an old Nokia E5 that could tell you where you were and give you directions to anywhere without being "online". Now I have an Android which refuses to let me use the GPS in anyway unless I am connected to be big G and have given them permission to track me.
- Adirael 12y ago
  Aren't there any offline GPS apps for Android? I use one on iOS. It was 25€ and works without WiFi or Data enabled. Without the AGPS it takes a while to see satellites but it works.
  - throwaway7767 12y ago
    There's OsmAnd for offline navigation with android, it's very good. You can even get it through F-Droid if you prefer not to use the google apps.
  - jablan 12y ago
    There are. Even Google Maps work when offline (you can cache maps). No navigation, of course, just GPS.
  - Aoyagi 12y ago
    I thought HERE was coming to Android.
  - RegW 12y ago
    You're right. I'm being lazy and should look beyond the pre-installed apps. Perhaps, Big G are actually trying to encourage some diversity in the market by only pre-installing apps that people are wary of using :-)
- poopsintub 12y ago
  Once I find a destination on Android, I'm able to disconnect and GPS turn-by-turn will work fine.
mkevac 12y ago
How it is possible to send something back to store if you have already used the device? It seems strange. You were wearing it, it possibly have scratches, bacteria from your skin, etc.
- ygra 12y ago
  At least in Germany (possibly also EU) when ordering something (excluding software, movies, food) online or via mail (i.e. not buying in a store) you have the right to send it back within two weeks without having to give a reason. This is to counteract the problem that you can try out a device in the store where you might buy it, but you cannot when ordering online. In any case, usage marks, like scratches, etc. just mean that you may not get a full refund. Some retailers allow for longer periods; e.g. Amazon allows for a month instead of just two weeks.
  - rohanprabhu 12y ago
    This is off-topic, but the sensibility of EU provisions always amazes me. In other countries, it is pretty much up to the companies to offer such relief to the consumer as a response to competition, but there really is no such requirement, which makes monopolistic industries much worse.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
I can see Android Wear taking off and Google Glass quickly being forgotten about. The Moto 360 watch looks great, and the Android Wear software is pretty nice. I can get my notifications without taking out my phone and I don't have to wear something that looks ridiculous. It doesn't provide the 'hands free' experience of Glass but I've yet to see any software really take advantage of that other than in niche areas.
netcan 12y ago
I suspect that Glass and other 'wearable comupters' might be a case where it needs 'more power.' 10-100X improvements in battery, data, latency, storage, etc. If it gets to the point that it just records everything. You can go back and rematch your conversation with Aron or read a transcript of your meeting with the design team.
Aoyagi 12y ago
"They do nothing to hide the fact you're wearing Google Glass" So... does that mean the man would like to have a "spy" camera that also probably happens to send who knows what to a company with less than good privacy behaviour history? (no, I'm not saying that Google is harvesting all data so they can one day set up the New World Order).
- poopsintub 12y ago
  It's a picky review for a beta. He complains about the angle of the photos in one sentence, then tells you his ears are un-level. It's hard to please the Glassicapped.
etfb 12y ago
This is a dangerous article. I was nodding and saying "I knew it!" so often, I got a sore neck.
sreyaNotfilc 12y ago
Well, with all the griping about the Glass from this guy, he should have known that this is purely a prototype. The goal was not to be perfect but put the Glass in the wild. Yes it will run hot, or take tilted pictures, etc. But that's the point. And really, this rant actually helps Google more than it hurts them.
hyp0 12y ago
low tech alternative: Glass appeals to me because it takes up less room. e.g. in a tent, you don't always have room to hold a device out far enough for your eyes to focus on it. Eventually I realized that reading glasses ($5, available everywhere) also change your focal distance - and as a bonus, increases your display size, without increasing device size, nor battery usage (which larger displays do). But I think google's strategy is right: get a foothold before the technology is ready. Then, when devices are smaller, it will all be there. Their big deficiency is that they haven't found any real users yet... My advice is simple, and something that engineers find impossible to do: remove the cool feature of a camera. Bang, privacy concerns gone, but still a revolutionarily useful product in other ways. And before long, people will accept they never really had privacy, so you can put it back. Note: I expect this is what Apple will do.
nogridbag 12y ago
I think Glass will be a success eventually - just not how most of us intended it to be. I used Glass for a month before returning it, but am regretting it slightly. As it stands right now, it's still a beta device with tons of software and hardware issues which somewhat limit its usefulness even for the most basic things like making a phone call. Though this article is true for the most part, I think it's missing the major downside of Glass. Glass is only useful for certain tasks mainly where our hands are not free and we're away from our computers. For most of us, Glass is pretty much useless throughout the day. As a developer, there is nothing Glass can do while coding that a second monitor couldn't do better. When I joined the explorer program, I thought I would constantly be using Glass. I found Glass most useful while driving (responding to texts and hangout messages but NOT for directions* ) and I intended to use it while cooking. But since driving with Glass is a grey area and I didn't want a hassle with the police, that pretty much limited my use of glass to cooking or occasionally hiking as long as you don't mind getting the unit all sweaty. I don't think Glass belongs in public at all (restaurants, bars, etc). It serves no function besides being creepy, though it does occasionally help nerdy people meet woman as it's a great ice breaker (seriously). * None of these reviews ever mention that the Glass display is only active for a second or two when directions is activated. This is surely to save on batteries. But it's simply no where near as useful as a normal GPS which is always on.

101 points by davidbarker 12y ago

More or less the reasons why I sent back mine as well. Fun to play with, not remotely practical.

An unnecessarily pedantic review of Glass. Some valid points related to its beta status (voice recognition not yet up to scratch), and some moderate warnings for potential Explorers (the earbud is proprietary and doesn't stay in the ear), some are just chances to whinge: "Glass can provide turn-by-turn driving directions, but it uses your phone's data service" (obviously), and amazingly "Google Glass Explorers climb mountains ... You don't do those things." I guess the take away is, buy gadgets to achieve things, don't buy gadgets to buy gadgets.

danellis 12y ago
Also, the eye contact thing: you're not supposed to use Glass while you're having a conversation with someone any more than you would pull out your phone and look at it in the middle of a conversation. The fact that it's there and convenient isn't an excuse for being rude.
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  But it's probably substantially more difficult to maintain eye contact when a section of your eye is covered by a fixed HUD, even if you're trying.
- leoc 12y ago
  Taking Glass off to talk to people then putting it back on again all day would be burdensome, especially if you have prescription lenses fitted in it.
  - Navarr 12y ago
    I think his point was don't turn it on and look at it? Notifications don't turn the screen on, only an active application would have the screen on. Most of the time it's off, such as when you're talking to someone
    - leoc 12y ago
      Duh, you're right of course.
goblin89 12y ago
My takeaway is the opposite—you buy Glass to buy Glass. A wearable computer with 1 hour battery life isn't practical, any your expectations won't be met, but you can be closer to the future so that you invent appropriately. Think problem-oriented vs. idea/tool-oriented mindset, illustrated by Alan Kay in his talk The Future Doesn't Have to Be Incremental: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o#t=1096 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o#t=1096. As you surround yourself with tools of the future, you can think of problems and solutions no one else sees (problem-finding as opposed to -solving).

vacri 12y ago

This reviewer wants 'magic', not 'tech'. It's a terrible review. I mean, seriously, "this micro device is too large and must be made smaller, but Beethoven's 9th sounds tinny on it"? Obviously has zero clue about acoustics. This reviewer is inventing reasons to give the device a failing mark after getting to play with it for a few weeks. Glass has it's problems, a couple of which are mentioned in the article, but overall the article is just terrible.

Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
Likely, he was just trying to fill out 7,8,9, and 10 to make it a top ten list. The first six were at least informative for someone looking for drawbacks or specific questions. Some of those may be more obvious to the tech group but not to non-techies.
- vacri 12y ago
  Well, the point he opens with is just him being rude, nothing to do with the limitations of the Glass itself. What's he's actually asking for in that very first point is a way to view content on Glass without the other person in the conversation realising that you're tuning them out. As someone else commented, this is the same as pulling out your smartphone and playing with it instead of conversing. The conspicuousness point is also trueish, but overblown. The sunglass clip-ons do reduce the visibility of the unusual headwear, they just don't eliminate it. From experience with our set at work, people out in public react considerably less when the sunglasses are clipped on. It's not going to fool someone you're in a direct conversation with, but you get fewer odd looks. Obviously this is with one of the subtle charcoal colours, and not the day-glo varieties. I would argue that you shouldn't be fooling someone you're in a direct conversation with anyway. If you want to do that, there are other tools for single-party recordings. So we're down to 4.5 points out of 10. Not accounting for uneven ears, sure. Battery life, sure. Bulk, maybe. Voice recognition? It's actually pretty good, for voice recognition. It just doesn't have the same capabilities as a human (no tech does, hence my original comment). We got a set straight from the US, it was responding happily to my broad, middle-Australian accent, and it would still recognise a colleague with a very strong French accent who passed by me saying "OK Glass, google porn" ("drive-by" commands are a different problem...), all with no particular calibration done. Voice recognition doesn't work with background noise? Even humans have trouble with that. So no, it's a bad review all around, for both techies and naifs. It sets expectations for naifs that are impossible to achieve, despite there a few real issues being described. I personally don't think Glass is ready for the public yet, but this article offers a lot of misdirection on why.

erso 12y ago

A well-written, real-world review of Glass. I enjoyed it.

visarga 12y ago

After reading the pros and cons, I am tempted to buy one when it comes out as a consumer product with a sane price tag. It might be interesting to combine gglass with learning and exploration activities, museum tours, or just to make videos form first person POV.

huskyr 12y ago
I'm wondering if GG might be in the same league as the Segway: not a complete failure or a big hit, but a niche product for very specific things (like the city sightseeing tours done on Segways).

yeukhon 12y ago

I also don't think this review is giving GG a chance to survive, despite listing up and down in each point. This device was not invented to keep in your pocket. When mobile phone first came out, it was giant and you had to carry it by hand. No one expect it to be small. > Point 1 (eye contacts) God. I am not sure how you would do that unless you (1) shoot some light beam into your eyes, or (2) have glass cover up your eyes like in Star Wars. That's not a valid point to ask for refund. > Point 2 (not a good listener) Fair point but speech recognition's problems are known and are hard to fix. Not good enough reason to return - no AI with speech recognition today is capable of fixing all those problems in an open environment. > Point 3 (batter) That's a good point. But it should be expected, somewhat, given its tiny size and the amount of computation it has to do plus wifi and bluetooth connection. > Point 4 (Bulk, not pocket friendly) As I've said above, god, this is the one of the least valid reasons to ask for refund. > Point 5 (frame doesn't hide Glass!) This is also a ridiculous reason to ask for refund. The point of clip-on shade isn't to hide Glass. It's so that you can use glass even when it's sunny outside. Or because people want to look cool. > Point 6 (Tilted photos) Okay fair point. Technical stuff to be addressed. > Point 7 (Directions drawbacks) Fair point. Technical stuff to be addressed. Driving while using Glass is really dangerous. but hiking with Glass without touching your phone (but enable your phone use data) is kinda cool. > Point 8 (earbuds) I agree the earbuds are pretty... hmm, not stylish. I'd like to have cordless earbuds. Like one of those for people with hearing problems. > Point 9 (advertisement stories vs reality) This is a marketing trick. I always use Facebook's Home and Paper as example. On the ad side they look amazing but in reality your fb dashboard could just fill with memes and cat pictures. Boring. > Point 10 (10. Too little, too soon) Not a valid reason to ask for refund at all. I mean this is explorer edition. Hello???? Hellllllo???? Even if this was version 100000000, you still have rooms for improvement. Future is not here yet, because future is non-stop. Tomorrow is a different future. Sorry. If I were Google, I won't refund. I don't mind taking back your Glass and give it to yeukhon for free.

jacquesm 12y ago
First rule of customer service: customer says he's not happy with the product? -> full refund, record as many reasons why as possible, figure out which ones hold water, fix them then re-approach former customer as beta tester. For now he's done something you apparently did not do, which was to buy the thing and give it a work-out. Of course, Google and customer service are rarely used in an affirmative sentence of any kind but still, that's how you're supposed to deal with this.

suprgeek 12y ago

Tried Glass. My mini review: 1) Huge potential - something like this will be the next "iPhone" 2) Headaches - 2-3 hrs of intermittent usage would give me a headache without fail 3) Battery Life... BATTERY LIFE 4) Surprisingly hostile reactions in some places (restaurants etc) 5) Novelty wears off fast then what? Returned with thanks to friend kind enough to lend it to me. Not something I would buy until 1) Price is in the 2-300$ range 2) Battery life is 5x 3) At least one Killer app

onion2k 12y ago
4 isn't particularly surprising. People rightly believe that they have the right to decide who records them. A stranger walking in with a camera when they're in an intimate/family/business situation feels incredibly intrusive. If you walked in with your phone held out in front of you as if you were recording you'd get the same reaction.
- frou_dh 12y ago
  Such reactions are wonderfully captured in Surveillance Camera Man 1-6: http://www.youtube.com/user/SurveillantCameraMan http://www.youtube.com/user/SurveillantCameraMan
  - xd 12y ago
    Interesting experiment, but for the most part I wouldn't expect google glass users to walk up to strangers and record them directly like this.
  - netcan 12y ago
    I disagree. That's an example of strange unsolicited attention from a stranger is perceived as hostile. He could have been pointing a picture of the Virgin Mary at them and gotten a similar reaction.
  - Aoyagi 12y ago
    It's nice to see that expecting any kind of privacy in the US is silly, especially considering the channel has been on for over a year.

molmalo 12y ago

One thing I can't understand is: If most people use wired headsets, with their phones, iPods, MP3 Players.... why can't Google Glass use a wire, so you can have a much bigger battery in your pocket, and a much thinner frame in you head? I think that's their biggest error with their current design. If you can only use this device for a very short time, it's going to be a failure.

mattlutze 12y ago
I'd not buy one with a wire. If the current Glass is conspicuous without one, imagine how much more it will be when there's a wire running awkwardly down from your glasses. Plus, I can't count how many times I'm out in the world with an earbud in and the cable gets snagged on something. The first time that happened with the Glass and the quick-release didn't let go, there goes my glasses and Glass, leaving me blind and out hundreds/thousands of dollars. Like many, I imagine if I were to buy one it would be with corrective lenses, which means then I would have to carry a second pair of normal glasses with me so I can put the Glass away when I'm indoors -- while it may be alright to put your headphones in when you're outside on the street, I'm not 16 anymore and can't get away with looking like I've got my earbud in sitting at my desk or having lunch with a colleague. A cord would solve a problem with old technology. The point of this is to do things a new way.
eps 12y ago
Their biggest error by a very large margin is adding a camera to the device.
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  Aren't many of Glass's most interesting functions dependent on a camera? I don't really think Glass makes people more recordable, it just makes that recordability more obvious, and therefore makes people less comfortable. Maybe it'd be a good thing to cope with the reality that we're always under watch these days.
  - throwaway7767 12y ago

SoftwareMaven 12y ago

Is GG the eyewear equivalent of an Apple Newton? If so, will Google learn enough from it to make the next go at it successful? More important, will Google's management team tolerate a second attempt if this one fails?

rimantas 12y ago
The most important: does Google Glass indeed solve some problem many have? I can see it's appeal in some limited use cases, but not as a mass product.
- codeulike 12y ago
  Walk down a busy street in London: about 70% of people are walking along while looking down and fiddling with their phones. That's the use case.

bcardarella 12y ago

TIL: Computerworld is still a thing.

RegW 12y ago

> It can't do GPS without using your phone's cellular data or a mobile hotspot. This isn't just a GG problem. This is general Google problem, and something that seems to be growing. Until a year ago I had an old Nokia E5 that could tell you where you were and give you directions to anywhere without being "online". Now I have an Android which refuses to let me use the GPS in anyway unless I am connected to be big G and have given them permission to track me.

Adirael 12y ago
Aren't there any offline GPS apps for Android? I use one on iOS. It was 25€ and works without WiFi or Data enabled. Without the AGPS it takes a while to see satellites but it works.
- throwaway7767 12y ago
  There's OsmAnd for offline navigation with android, it's very good. You can even get it through F-Droid if you prefer not to use the google apps.
- jablan 12y ago
  There are. Even Google Maps work when offline (you can cache maps). No navigation, of course, just GPS.
- Aoyagi 12y ago
  I thought HERE was coming to Android.
- RegW 12y ago
  You're right. I'm being lazy and should look beyond the pre-installed apps. Perhaps, Big G are actually trying to encourage some diversity in the market by only pre-installing apps that people are wary of using :-)
poopsintub 12y ago
Once I find a destination on Android, I'm able to disconnect and GPS turn-by-turn will work fine.

mkevac 12y ago

How it is possible to send something back to store if you have already used the device? It seems strange. You were wearing it, it possibly have scratches, bacteria from your skin, etc.

ygra 12y ago
At least in Germany (possibly also EU) when ordering something (excluding software, movies, food) online or via mail (i.e. not buying in a store) you have the right to send it back within two weeks without having to give a reason. This is to counteract the problem that you can try out a device in the store where you might buy it, but you cannot when ordering online. In any case, usage marks, like scratches, etc. just mean that you may not get a full refund. Some retailers allow for longer periods; e.g. Amazon allows for a month instead of just two weeks.
- rohanprabhu 12y ago
  This is off-topic, but the sensibility of EU provisions always amazes me. In other countries, it is pretty much up to the companies to offer such relief to the consumer as a response to competition, but there really is no such requirement, which makes monopolistic industries much worse.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

I can see Android Wear taking off and Google Glass quickly being forgotten about. The Moto 360 watch looks great, and the Android Wear software is pretty nice. I can get my notifications without taking out my phone and I don't have to wear something that looks ridiculous. It doesn't provide the 'hands free' experience of Glass but I've yet to see any software really take advantage of that other than in niche areas.

netcan 12y ago

I suspect that Glass and other 'wearable comupters' might be a case where it needs 'more power.' 10-100X improvements in battery, data, latency, storage, etc. If it gets to the point that it just records everything. You can go back and rematch your conversation with Aron or read a transcript of your meeting with the design team.

Aoyagi 12y ago

"They do nothing to hide the fact you're wearing Google Glass" So... does that mean the man would like to have a "spy" camera that also probably happens to send who knows what to a company with less than good privacy behaviour history? (no, I'm not saying that Google is harvesting all data so they can one day set up the New World Order).

poopsintub 12y ago
It's a picky review for a beta. He complains about the angle of the photos in one sentence, then tells you his ears are un-level. It's hard to please the Glassicapped.

etfb 12y ago

This is a dangerous article. I was nodding and saying "I knew it!" so often, I got a sore neck.

sreyaNotfilc 12y ago

Well, with all the griping about the Glass from this guy, he should have known that this is purely a prototype. The goal was not to be perfect but put the Glass in the wild. Yes it will run hot, or take tilted pictures, etc. But that's the point. And really, this rant actually helps Google more than it hurts them.

hyp0 12y ago

low tech alternative: Glass appeals to me because it takes up less room. e.g. in a tent, you don't always have room to hold a device out far enough for your eyes to focus on it. Eventually I realized that reading glasses ($5, available everywhere) also change your focal distance - and as a bonus, increases your display size, without increasing device size, nor battery usage (which larger displays do). But I think google's strategy is right: get a foothold before the technology is ready. Then, when devices are smaller, it will all be there. Their big deficiency is that they haven't found any real users yet... My advice is simple, and something that engineers find impossible to do: remove the cool feature of a camera. Bang, privacy concerns gone, but still a revolutionarily useful product in other ways. And before long, people will accept they never really had privacy, so you can put it back. Note: I expect this is what Apple will do.

nogridbag 12y ago

I think Glass will be a success eventually - just not how most of us intended it to be. I used Glass for a month before returning it, but am regretting it slightly. As it stands right now, it's still a beta device with tons of software and hardware issues which somewhat limit its usefulness even for the most basic things like making a phone call. Though this article is true for the most part, I think it's missing the major downside of Glass. Glass is only useful for certain tasks mainly where our hands are not free and we're away from our computers. For most of us, Glass is pretty much useless throughout the day. As a developer, there is nothing Glass can do while coding that a second monitor couldn't do better. When I joined the explorer program, I thought I would constantly be using Glass. I found Glass most useful while driving (responding to texts and hangout messages but NOT for directions* ) and I intended to use it while cooking. But since driving with Glass is a grey area and I didn't want a hassle with the police, that pretty much limited my use of glass to cooking or occasionally hiking as long as you don't mind getting the unit all sweaty. I don't think Glass belongs in public at all (restaurants, bars, etc). It serves no function besides being creepy, though it does occasionally help nerdy people meet woman as it's a great ice breaker (seriously). * None of these reviews ever mention that the Glass display is only active for a second or two when directions is activated. This is surely to save on batteries. But it's simply no where near as useful as a normal GPS which is always on.