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Why Google Glass Broke

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Google Glass Broke

#2
Personally I think it was the camera that killed it. That, and the fact that google put out an unfinished product without providing plethora of resources and apps for it, to get people excited, hoping the community would finish it for them... That, and the fact that people started calling Google Glass users "glassholes".

Re: Why Google Glass Broke

#3
I'm not convinced it broke any more than the newton or the palm pilot broke. It's just too early. palm pilots, newtons, and other PDAs were around for 13+ years and were considered "for geeks only". It wasn't until iPhone that PDAs finally became popular with the masses.

Personal HUDs or Google Glass etc will go through the same steps. Something, maybe not totally similar but something with a camera, a HUD, augmented reality, and hands free controls will happen someday and will become as mainstream as smartphones are today. It might be 5, 10, or 15 years down the road.

Re: Why Google Glass Broke

#5
post #3

I'm not convinced it broke any more than the newton or the palm pilot broke. It's just too early. palm pilots, newtons, and other PDAs were around for 13+ years and were considered "for geeks only". It wasn't until iPhone that PDAs finally became popular with the masses. Personal HUDs or Google Glass etc will go through the same steps. Something, maybe not totally similar but something with a camera, a HUD, augmented…

We got a few at my old workplace, and the tone of this article really annoyed me because you had to be wilfully ignorant to think that Glass was a finished, polished product. The whole point of 'Explorers' was explicitly stated as being for finding the kinks in the system outside the lab. The people who claimed it 'worst product ever' were moronic linkbaiters.

One of the problems it did have that I thought was a problem for adoption was that it didn't handle being lent out very well. If you calibrated it for yourself, it was pretty responsive, but hand it over to someone else, and it was out of whack in didn't really respond. I lost count of the number of times I'd show someone something cool, hand it over to them to try, and have it not work on them because the calibration wasn't suitable. Understandably, this left them with the opinion "this is shit".

It was a marvellous bit of well-made kit, had a couple of problems, and as you say, was in the first generation of it's kind.

Re: Why Google Glass Broke

#6
because you could not use it without taking your eyes off what you were already doing? To be honest, it was too intrusive for both user and those not using it.

I will be more than happy the day my phone/watch/etc can talk to me in conversational format and know when it should. Should being, would it interrupt my doing something more important or not.

Re: Why Google Glass Broke

#7
post #3

I'm not convinced it broke any more than the newton or the palm pilot broke. It's just too early. palm pilots, newtons, and other PDAs were around for 13+ years and were considered "for geeks only". It wasn't until iPhone that PDAs finally became popular with the masses. Personal HUDs or Google Glass etc will go through the same steps. Something, maybe not totally similar but something with a camera, a HUD, augmented…

I thought the Palm was a great little PDA. I had a Palm Tx tethered to a (yellow cased-forgot brand) GPS. The setup relly worked well for me. I remember being at a Goodguy's closing sale at 9 p.m., and debating on buying 300 units of Halo 2 for $5 each. Drove to library, got a signal, found a price and happily went back and bought the games. At the time, I couldn't figure out why more people didn't carry around a wifi PDA? I wasen't a tech guy back at that time. I guess it's all in the marketing? It's funny--at that time--I felt for the first time I had a tool I could use to hedge the competition. Jump to a few years later, everyone is on the same playing field.

Re: Why Google Glass Broke

#9
Is it gone? My English is not the best but I would interpret the google plus status they are reffering to not as closing down but as "Hey we move to our own offices, beta is over, no new beta devices. We tell you when the final release will be available for purchase."

https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc

Re: Why Google Glass Broke

#10
post #9

Is it gone? My English is not the best but I would interpret the google plus status they are reffering to not as closing down but as "Hey we move to our own offices, beta is over, no new beta devices. We tell you when the final release will be available for purchase." https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc

"beta is over, no new devices" means no devices will available and the next sentence "we'll tell you" seems to imply never or a very in-the-future date.

TLDR; It's an euphemism for closing up shop

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