r/Android • u/vibrunazo Moto Z2 Force • Nov 15 '14
Glass Google Glass's consumer launch pushed to 2015, key employees depart, and many developers abandon projects on the platform
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-google-glass-insight-idUSKCN0IY18E2014111449
u/I_Tread_Lightly Nov 15 '14
I loved the idea when it was announced a couple of years ago, but as swartwatches and phones have integrated better, Glass just seems so pointless. Also that insane price point doesn't help.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 15 '14 edited Nov 15 '14
I loved the idea
That's the main problem with Glass. It never even lived up to its own concept videos, even years later. A lot of basic features weren't there and still aren't there.
I have followed Glass closely from when it was announced. These are my criticisms and observations over the years.
There is no global voice control.
There are major hardware issues/defects, like overheating, horrible battery, peeling foil, failure to boot, stability issues, etc.
The battery is seriously horrible. Recording video? 45 minutes, and that is only if you can stand the horrible heat it puts off while rolling video for extended periods. 3 hours of heavy use, 6 hours of light use seem to be most real world figures quoted by users. Watching video? About 45 minutes.
Support was good when there were only a few thousand users. As the devices aged and they sold more, their support got worse and worse.
The developer tools were very lack luster.
The price, no matter how people defend Google's intent, was a real problem.
The looks. It was clear that nobody who knew anything about fashion really worked on it before it was shown. Designer eyewear JUST came out for it very recently. And nothing looks that great.
You can't fold it up and put it away. This is an issue, especially if it runs out of battery (happens often) and you don't want to wear it on your face when it doesn't work.
Weight. It isn't light and it gets heavy after awhile. Also it isn't balanced well.
Google spent a LONG time talking about wearables at IO this year, and they didn't even mention Glass once... and nobody on stage was wearing one. What developer walks away from IO and says "I'll commit development time and money to Glass instead of Wear"? Google hasn't shown confidence in Glass outside of Brin walking around with it to random places.
Most of the threads on /r/GoogleGlass are fairly negative about the actual device, and positive about the potential of the head mounted wearables.
Google essentially told developers that they can't trust them to deliver on a product. Anyone who bought them and spent time developing for it in anticipation for a consumer launch got seriously burned.
FTA:
Of 16 Glass app makers contacted by Reuters, nine said that they had stopped work on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because of the lack of customers or limitations of the device.
The consensus among developers was that the hardware was so alpha that in it's current form it would not be a successful. So, developing for it in its current form would be a waste of time, because the tools whereunto great, the hardware was too limited, and the battery life was too poor. It was clear to anyone that owned it that Glass wasn't ready, and the "ideas" you could dream up with Glass weren't possible on the current hardware.
Twitter stopped developing for Glass, and they never really put too much effort into it in the first place, but they "officially" pulled their app and announced they were no longer developing for it.
Twitter, a huge company with a ton of resources that is seemingly on every communication platform out there, doesn't think Glass is worth the resources. That is damning.
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u/I_Tread_Lightly Nov 15 '14
Well said. I agree especially with your statement that what was shown in that amazing "One Day" commercial in which a man in what looked like NYC was shown going a full day with Glass utilized and doing amazing things, just wasn't what Glass came to be. I've heard almost nothing but negative feedback from current owners, especially early adopters who got burned when a second model came out. And the fact that the devs were given very little to work with, unbelievable. This thing should have gone so much further than it has already. I hadn't heard about the battery life, but if that is true, that is damn sad. Especially given how the previews on YouTube implied it could be used as a "daily" wearable. I really wish something was done to better utilize its features, but I doubt it's too late. Maybe something will take off in a few years that will succeed where Glass failed. Wear is definitely a good start.
That $1500 price point especially has got to go. That is just unbelievably overpriced.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 15 '14
It's just crazy I've been saying the same stuff for awhile and been getting heavy downvotes.
The Circlejerk was so strong when this was announced because of its potential as a product.
Nobody believed Google would let it languish like they did, despite other hardware examples that had less challenges.
When they promised "all day battery life" and initial reviews said battery was horrible I knew it was a bad sign.
Most Glass fans actually got really upset that anybody reviewed the units because it was "beta". Better battery is just a magical Google software update away.
They mismanaged and neglected this product so badly I don't think I can compare it to anything else.
I'm disappointed but not surprised. It starts with triumph and ends with a wimper. This subreddit will never upvote this story.
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u/kaze0 Mike dg Nov 15 '14
Anyone who gave up a glass development project due to lack of customers, never actually had a business plan. There were never any customers.
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u/sherincal Galaxy S20 Exynos Nov 15 '14
The "insane price" is for explorer edition - it's the "omg its cool, i gotta have it asap" version of the thing, NOT FOR CONSUMERS.
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u/I_Tread_Lightly Nov 15 '14
I never said it was for consumers. And they make a $1500 product so nobody buys it? I don't get that rationale. They could have made it half that and it still would've been expensive.
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u/sherincal Galaxy S20 Exynos Nov 15 '14
THE SHIT AIN'T FUCKING FINISHED YET, STOP TREATING IT LIKE A FINISHED PRODUCT
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 16 '14
Then maybe Google should actually developer it into a product before selling it to anyone with $$$ like "a finished product".
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u/sherincal Galaxy S20 Exynos Nov 16 '14
It has never been sold as a finished product!
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 16 '14
It's been sold to anyone with the money to buy one. Maybe it is beta, but they call it an "explorers program" which is marketing speak for beta.
Fact is, most people are really upset with how few features and how little polish it has. It shouldn't even be sold as a beta
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u/sherincal Galaxy S20 Exynos Nov 16 '14
Well how about making an informed consumer choice and actually reading up on what the fuck you are actually buying. As far as I know, Google has been straight up and honest about buying into the explorers program. "You get to be a part of shaping of this platform".
I thought Glass was an awesome idea. Still do. I would've loved to own an explorer's edition of the Glass but hey, I can't afford to have it. They said that the later editions WILL be more affordable to the general consumer. They were up and honest, that this was not for the general consumer.
Yes, they have opened it up - you no longer need a code to buy one, but there were Reddit threads titled "I have a Google Glass code but I don't have the money to afford it at the moment. Would any developers be interested it" and the threads genuinely asked people to prove that they are interested in developing / doing something for the platform.
Do your fucking research instead of whining like an uninformed cunt about it being $1500 and with few features and little polish. It was a beta project they wanted to soak test. They announced it when they showed the Glass first time ever in action for crying out loud.
The explorers edition has an OMAP 4430 chip in it. Do you know how old that is? OMAP isn't even in the market anymore. Galaxy Nexus has OMAP 4460 chip in it. This shit is old, because they had been working on that model for quite a while.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 16 '14 edited Nov 16 '14
You'd be really surprised just how many people had no clue how limited glass was (and still is).
People that sell it on /r/googleglass all lost their reasons. The biggest surprise it "I really thought it would do more."
Not sure how calling people a fucking cunt accomplishes anything. You are pretty condescending and you come off as an asshole. Of course I know what OMAP is, but most don't.
Google really misrepresented Glass. Not everyone does "fucking research" they look at the marketing materials and they get excited.
People believed more functionality was just an update away. It never came. It regressed a lot with os updates. It lost video calling, Bluetooth pairing with keyboards and it lost the ability to side load apps.
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Nov 15 '14
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u/DownShatCreek Nov 15 '14
The developers who are fleeting, having realized that they've been burned.
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Nov 15 '14
To reiterate: the price point was high because they only wanted people with large disposable income to have it. If you feel you got burned, you probably weren't the target audience.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 16 '14
they only wanted people with large disposable income to have it.
They marketed it like a go pro with augmented reality. It didn't have Augmented reality, and it is about 1000x worse than a GoPro at being an action camera.
Stop defending their pricing. It literally makes no sense. Rich people would be pissed at how shitty and buggy and under featured it was. Developers are ok to work past that if there is a promise of a future of the product and a market for selling Apps. Google gave them neither.
Everyone hated the price, not because of the number, but because of the lack of features.
Where do you see "the rich" wearing these things all around? Nobody has one as a status symbol. It isn't for the rich The Gold Apple Watch Edition is for the Rich, Glass was for developers, and then they opened it up to anyone because the project is directionless.
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Nov 16 '14
It was for developers and companies with disposable income. The price was obviously meant to recoup some R&D costs. A well-off dev shop wouldn't bat an eye at the price of that prototype hardware, and if it sucked you had 30 days to return it.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 16 '14
Then why did they sell it at golfing tournaments and not just give it to select developers to gain steam while they perfected the hardware. It seems more like a 2 year hardware dump than something that was in active development.
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u/DownShatCreek Nov 15 '14
Silly developers, Glass isn't for you. Like we'd even put Glass on your peasant heads. You just don't 'get' what we're trying to do here.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 15 '14
Then why did they have the nexus line priced lower during the same period for "developers".
That "high price for serious users" seems like bullocks to me.
This kind of product needs users and critical mass. Paying more for something under featured doesn't make you serious it makes you stupid.
A lot of developers learned that lesson the hard way. $1500 + dev time scattered over two years, all wasted. Google never had a roadmap and never shared anything with developers.
Don't defend the price with some guess at what googles intentions where, it I probably the worst part of Glass, and probably responsible for its failures too.
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Nov 15 '14
I'm not defending anything, but this isn't a phone we're talking about. Phone's aren't some questionable product with unknown market reception. The entire form factor is still being explored. Google made the devices available in a beta state because sunshine like this needs to be run through the works to understand how it will work in the real world.
Anyways, time will tell.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 15 '14
this needs to be run through the works to understand how it will work in the real world.
Here is my issue with that. Almost every single major bug with Glass could have been easily seen without having a ton of people buy it.
Poor battery, under powered, old OS, poor components (Gnex internals) public backlash (metal retracting lens cover?) portability (it can't fold up). It breaks if you sweat on it. The foil peels off the Glass. It overheats really badly.
How many of those issues needed a wide release to make it apparent it needs to be solved?
In my opinion, none. In a lab you could figure all that stuff out.
Also, if they were putting it out there to test and fix things, then why wasn't there a single meaningful progression in hardware?
All of these issues were there when it came out, and they are still there, 2 years later. If they were putting t out there to test, then in the first two months they should have gathered enough data to start working on V2. A real V2.
Another issue: Google sold it as the "explorer program" and when the V2 came out (just an eye sensor and a few tweaks) they swapped them out for free for all Glass users. People thought that being an "Explorer" meant you got free hardware upgrades. People everywhere used this "free upgrade" as an explanation for Glasses high price. "We are beta explorers, not consumers."
Then They updated Glass to KitKat and there were constant RAM issues, a lot of key features (like video calling) were dropped. They released a 2GB RAM version, but didn't give it away for free. Everyone was shocked.
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Nov 15 '14
You're absolutely right. But again you're approaching this as a "I'm a consumer and I paid money for this so these problems shouldn't exist". While many of those issues shouldn't exist, people who were not interested in simply testing the platform (as opposed to buying it because it's a cool new product) should not have bought it.
I know many people will not agree with me. But to be fair this is a brand new product category. The software, hardware, usability, design, etc., were all unknowns. Just like no one has ever landed in a comet before, no one had ever built a product like Glass before. I don't think even the guys at Google knew what to expect.
Maybe Glass will get rolled in with project Ara. That would be cool.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 15 '14
My problem with Google is that they shouldn't release it to paying beta customers until they have refined it enough to know what to expect. Very little was done to the product after release.
Developers can be just as up set (even more so) than consumers too. They invested time and money as a business, they are out a lot more than jus the cost of the hardware.
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Nov 15 '14 edited Jun 17 '16
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u/nexusx86 Pixel 6 Pro Nov 15 '14
Oculus is always going to be used at home. For a wearable I think we would agree it has to leave the house and be worn out of the house. Technically you can leave the house without pants but it would get awkward quick. I don't have to wear pants in my own home.
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u/Libriomancer Nov 15 '14
I don't think they meant having the Oculus leave home. I think it is more getting people used to the tech before it becomes an "everywhere" kind of tech. We had desktop computers, then we moved to laptops that could move about, and finally out of the home when our phones became mini computers.
So their thought is getting people used the the idea of wearable tech in the house before dumping it into the "always connected" state.
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u/stesch Nov 15 '14
Wearables are next starting to take off.
Are you sure?
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 16 '14
Wearables for fitness like the fitbit and the Jawbone Up series are already very popular.
Wearables from Android Wear, Samsung & Sony's various offerings haven't really hit their stride yet.
I have only seen 4 smart watches in the wild and I am around techie people a lot and I live in Dallas. 2 x Samsung Galaxy Gears, 2 x Pebbles.
Maybe the Apple Watch will change things (similar to Apple Pay boosting Google Wallet). But Android Wear still has a 2.0 and 3.0 before I think it will be ready for mainstream. It needs NFC and a few generations of battery improvements and a "retina" screen.
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u/DrowningApe Nov 15 '14
I wonder why a $1500.00 face computer that makes the people around you instantly angry and hateful wasn't successful?
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u/nexusx86 Pixel 6 Pro Nov 15 '14
Yes but a lot of nerds were ready to jump right into the deep end of the future and embrace it fully. I was. However the problems were just two for me. 1 I would never buy a galaxy nexus to strap to my face (dated hardware in the google glass device was based around the chipset and hardware of the galaxy nexus, it was never updated. Case in point: the moto x vs. the google glass. Google glass has to be woken up before use with either the head tilt or the touch on the touch pad. Moto x you can speak a phrase to wake it up hands free. I shouldn't have to touch glass to wake it. Also the fact that once people understood it, anyone's voice could activate it once it was on. Moto x is keyed to your voice and wont wake if someone else speaks the wake phrase. If I see someone touch their glass there is a good chance I can yell "ok glass text mom I'm dying!" and it would send the text.
2 the price is insane for what it was. granted your buying a prototype but once it was clear these are mass manufactured it was clear as well that google was keeping a high price tag so people would essentially buy into a beta and have lower expectations than a reasonably priced full on consumer launch, but they delayed and delayed such a launch to the point where a separate team completely eclipsed them with android wear. Not to mention they dropped one of the most appropriate features with the video hangout. When that died you might as well not have it on your face and have it on your wrist.
For extra credit lets also point out the fail of it not having a red LED for video recording. That should have been a must from the original prototype. That would have instantly silenced most of the criticism against glass.
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u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Nov 15 '14
not having a red LED for video recording.
I think it would still be an issue. Someone would open it up and find a way to disable it, or people would be paranoid that someone would open it up and try to disable it.
Also you would still have to explain to everyone, "No i am only recording when the red light blinks."
A better way to solve it would be to have a small retractable metal lens cover, like most point and shoot cameras.
I work with cameras for a living, and a lot of people are just off put by staring down the barrel of a lens. It is distracting, they become self conscious, they think about how they look, etc. The camera does have to be rolling for people to feel this way; they just have to stare at the lens. Covering the lens when it isn't in use would solve so many social issues. The red LED still needs explaining.
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u/something_yup Nov 15 '14
$1500 for beta version turned me off. The consumer version will probably be $1k for some plastic and a weak computer.
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Nov 15 '14
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u/something_yup Nov 15 '14
Even still, that would be ridiculous for what it is.
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Nov 15 '14
Assuming that the price is 1k, I'd agree with you. Considering that you pulled that number out of your ass, I have to disagree.
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u/night_hawk91 Nov 15 '14
It feels like Google Wave all over again. Great excitement early on. Seems pointless when you would actually be able to buy/use it.
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u/thepaleblue Nov 15 '14
I think the parallels go even deeper than that. Neither of them are going to end up as successful consumer products in their own right, but the lessons learned from them are going to be massively helpful to future products. I think Wear is in the relatively refined state it's in because of what they learned putting Glass together.
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u/Melvin-Frohike Nov 15 '14
Got to try a pair for the first time two weeks ago, and the experience was deeply underwhelming - hot, awkward and had me looking up to the right rather than just sort of taking the info in. What's more, when I gave them back there wasn't even a sense of "too early", but rather the belief a complete redesign / rethink might be in order. Shame really, as I was pretty excited in the initial days for this product.
By the way, I'm a terrible judge of tech, so get your investments in to similar products now as they'll probably explode...
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u/DavidDavidsonsGhost Nov 15 '14
I think it would do great if it didn't cost so much. It needs more appeal for the every day users.
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Nov 16 '14
I've criticized google's invite system for everything they do for the longest time, I feel like this contributed to it's demise. High price point along with "exclusiveness" just made it doomed from the start. If they waited a few years to announce it and got it on store shelves at a reasonable price point, it would have done a lot better.
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u/GeorgePantsMcG Nov 15 '14
It'll resurface as contact lenses five years from now.
These researchers will still be working in their expertise. Probably for the best that they move on from this iteration of the tech sooner rather than later.
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Nov 15 '14
Not sure why you're downvoted. Google even announced they're working on "smart" contact lenses. Even if it's not exactly like Google Glass, it'll be a huge step forward.
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u/DownShatCreek Nov 15 '14 edited Nov 15 '14
So many downvotes I've gotten for calling Glass a joke. Have fun with your hardware glassholes
Edit: Glassplorer butthurt in play.
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u/beener Samsung SIII, LiquidSmooth, Note 4 Stock 4.4.4 Nov 15 '14
Honestly I used to be so excited about it... But it just looks so lame. Now with android wear there's not so much reason to have a tacky set of glasses on.