Google Glass hands-on: Not a good device for consumers

It's bad enough when journalists write about a product without having it. She has it, but she's not using it, and then she's writing sweeping articles about it's long-term future.

Because the more people say "it will never succeed with consumers", the fewer people will go into Gold Rush mentality (at least for now), and the more opportunity there will be for folks like me (and, I hope, other HN types).

I couldn't be more confident that some variation of this -- whether it's Google Glass or Apple Eyeball or whatever -- is going to really, seriously, emphatically, be a multi-billion-dollar market.

So keep going VentureBeat and others. Keep telling the world it's just a nerd toy or a fad or whatever. More time and more opportunity for the rest of us ;)

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

Last two things there? Both of them of them? It's you being a terrible person. Stop blaming technology for letting you be awful and blame yourself for being awful.

Honestly, it's all fun and games till the average consumer has the ability to buy it. The rest is just speculation.

So I wonder if a good litmus test for this sort of review might be to find/replace Glass with iPad and see if any of the criticism doesn't apply. Very little in the article seems to pass the test, so even though I tend to agree with the sentiments, I'm not sure most consumers will feel the same.

> "And some overzealous Emily Post type (probably at an old-timey print rag) will write a much-mocked op-ed about the slight but growing disconnection between people."

A few paragraphs later...

>"...it’s not enhancing your life. It’s robbing you of the joy of actually experiencing your life. You’ll realize it the first time you step in dog shit or have your girlfriend get mad at you for not listening to her or lose your kid in a store."

Still mad about not having Reader available to do their work.

Last night I saw the "Great Gatsby" and thought, like the book, it captured the timelessness of the story in that it would not feel any different in a modern setting, despite being written 80 years ago. But I kept thinking..."this is just like today, except no one is checking their phones"

The only evidence I need that it sucks (in its current form) is that

1) Robert Scoble loves it. 2) Robert Scoble thinks he looks good wearing it.

You can't buy taste.

Same with cell phones. And computers. And books. And your car. And Legos. And art. And music.

Wait. But we like books and creative things, right?

This is the sort of vacuous statement that irks me. "Well duh" is an obvious response, but it goes deeper. This can be applied to doing anything you enjoy, but it's wielded most frequently against new things, in a "get off my lawn" / rose-tinted glasses way.

Sure. New things get used for things you don't approve of. Easy art reproduction brought about the proliferation of porn and the commoditization of art in general. The printing press brought about the end of scribes, and is used to spread Christian, Buddhist, atheist, communist, anarchist, and democratic propaganda.

But new things also get used for things you do approve of. Like porn, art in every room, and spreading propaganda for your latest cause.

Can we please get an ounce of information, instead of vague new-thing-hate?

No it won't. Give it a few years, maybe.

For example, you already have Google Maps to guide you around your city with turn-by-turn audio navigation. That tool doesn’t get any better when it’s smack-dab against your eyeball.

I don't see why a manual for an airplane mechanic is better smack-dab against his eyeball but a map in one's line of sight is not better for a person navigating.

Her claims that Glass distract you from reality are counter to Google's thesis that Glass frees you from the distraction of staring at your phone. Both claims could be true, but I haven't seen much evidence regarding Glass.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226604

Very human eye has focus, Google just think din't about that.

I would love something as lens in the future than glass in the present. I would prefer glass for calls but not video calls.

This pretty much sums up this "review" for me. It's not a hands-on article so much as a reaction to her husband's device usage habits. May as well be about cell phones.

> On the other hand, for myriad kinds of workers, I can see Glass being an extraordinarily helpful, hands-free tool. Imagine working on an airplane engine and having the manual right in front of you or using it to photograph and catalog new species during a deep-sea diving expedition.

Imagine being someone who has to fix his sink, so he has to bust out a manual and figure out the sink at the same time... oh wait, turns out this nugget doesn't only apply to professional contexts.

Consumer-applications ← not just playing casual games and updating social media about what you had for dinner.

I can see Glass being excellent for some things, while maybe not being ideal for most of the things that you do. Imagine that you are in a foreign country and don't speak the language and you want to talk to someone; do you bust out your smart phone and let the other person spell out the words, then have them played back to you or you read it yourself? Or do you simply talk to that person and see the subtitles pop up as you go? The latter one is clearly superior, IMO.

This is like a review of cellphones from the 80's, "Stuff like this will never be used by anyone else than really busy professionals. It doesn't even fit in your pocket!"

EDIT: A lot of the time I really only need my smart phone for special purposes. Things like finding my way around places I haven't been is much easier with google maps than with a physical map and/or asking directions. Other than that? Well, surfing the web and listening to music, the former being a way to kill time and the latter something that my iPod Nano does better. Yet, smart phones are here to stay for most people.