Say goodbye to Google Glass
All the Google Glass fans, your dreams may have come to an
end. Google announced last week that it was the end of their Glass explorer programme, saying "so we can focus on what's coming next." It’s too
soon to know where they will go next, but there are some lessons Google can
learn from their experiment, here’s how the search giant missed a trick or two:
The Design
Okay so Google Glass was really cool, but they never really reached the mark when it came to design of the glass, this was one of the biggest problems. For a wearable to appeal to people it pretty much needs to look really good! Google Glass was bulky, awkward and looked quite geeky, not to mention the battery pack jutting out behind your ear. Without a stylish design, Google Glass was always fighting an uphill battle.
Okay so Google Glass was really cool, but they never really reached the mark when it came to design of the glass, this was one of the biggest problems. For a wearable to appeal to people it pretty much needs to look really good! Google Glass was bulky, awkward and looked quite geeky, not to mention the battery pack jutting out behind your ear. Without a stylish design, Google Glass was always fighting an uphill battle.
The Battery
The idea of being connected all the time, wherever you go and being able to pull information off the web without the person next to you even noticing is appealing, but there’s one slight problem: battery life. There was nowhere on the Glasses to have a decent-sized battery, so owners had to spent majority of the day charging the specs instead of wearing them. Which meant unless you wanted to walk around with a USB battery charger hanging from your head, you had to take them off to power up.
The idea of being connected all the time, wherever you go and being able to pull information off the web without the person next to you even noticing is appealing, but there’s one slight problem: battery life. There was nowhere on the Glasses to have a decent-sized battery, so owners had to spent majority of the day charging the specs instead of wearing them. Which meant unless you wanted to walk around with a USB battery charger hanging from your head, you had to take them off to power up.
The Limited Apps
Google Glass launched with quite a lot of apps and some of them were actually really cool, but even after a number of years, the number never increased! Well, at least not in the same way the apps for Android and iOS did. Without a thriving eco-system and apps to make the most out of smart glasses, it’s difficult to imagine them succeeding.
Google Glass launched with quite a lot of apps and some of them were actually really cool, but even after a number of years, the number never increased! Well, at least not in the same way the apps for Android and iOS did. Without a thriving eco-system and apps to make the most out of smart glasses, it’s difficult to imagine them succeeding.
The Price tag
Okay, so we’re used to the latest tech costing a lot of money, but from the beginning Google Glass came with a hefty price tag and because it never went mainstream the prices remained high right up until the end. The people who wanted to get involved with the Google Glass explorer program needed to spend a lot of money to get hold of the wearable and at that sort of price, expectations will always be high.
Okay, so we’re used to the latest tech costing a lot of money, but from the beginning Google Glass came with a hefty price tag and because it never went mainstream the prices remained high right up until the end. The people who wanted to get involved with the Google Glass explorer program needed to spend a lot of money to get hold of the wearable and at that sort of price, expectations will always be high.
The Apple Support
Google Glass will work with Apple’s iPhone, but it’s never managed to do things quite as well as when you’re using an Android-based handset. Try using Google maps for navigation for starters and you’ll find out that when your iPhone goes to sleep, you have to unlock the phone itself, because you can’t do it with Google Glass. So it’s not the biggest issue in the world, but the experience really needed to be flawless as possible if they wanted to get iPhone fans on board.
Google Glass will work with Apple’s iPhone, but it’s never managed to do things quite as well as when you’re using an Android-based handset. Try using Google maps for navigation for starters and you’ll find out that when your iPhone goes to sleep, you have to unlock the phone itself, because you can’t do it with Google Glass. So it’s not the biggest issue in the world, but the experience really needed to be flawless as possible if they wanted to get iPhone fans on board.
Google Glass had its problems, but It represented something
special and it was the first of his kind. Being the first, it’s impossible to
expect Google to get things perfectly right on the first try. The fact that the
specs had some issues was to be expected, but the concept of a wearable
computer is still genuinely exciting.
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Written By: Christine Romans
CopyWriter at The Computer Guyz Cape Town
CopyWriter at The Computer Guyz Cape Town
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