by Katie Paine — I don’t get it. There, I’ve admitted it: My visionary measurement brain can’t wrap itself around why Google Glass is important. Yes, I get the concept of contextual wearable computing. And I totally buy into Shel Israel and Robert Scobel’s predictions. But from my narrow measurement perspective I can’t actually figure out how it will change the world. Or at least not yet. In the four months since my new expensive orange toy arrived, I’ve only used it about a dozen times. Every day I wish that I had invested the $1500 on a new set of sails for my boat.
The reasons are both personal and professional:
- When I was first introduced to Glass one of its early adopters confessed to wearing it 16 hours a day. I was intrigued. But then I got mine, put it on and realized that after decades of only wearing glasses to drive, I couldn’t stand the feeling of something on my face for that long. Hell I can’t even handle bangs.
- It goes through its short battery life faster than I can figure out something to do with it. Every time I decide to actually wear it for awhile, it turns out that it doesn’t have enough power to last beyond a few Google searches. So I take it off, plug it back in, and forget about it for another week.
- It needs wi-fi like humans need oxygen. The thing is useless unless you have good wi-fi available. And that means that at most conferences it won’t work, or at best will be so slow that you give up on what you’re doing and use your phone.
- It is very limited in what it can actually do beyond snapping pictures and reading a recipe. There are still far too few apps to make it truly useful. While it’s great having your Twitter stream available 24/7 (okay, maybe not so great) that doesn’t make me any more efficient or happy or satisfied.
- It’s probably unmeasurable for the foreseeable future. When Glass reads me a New York Times article or an interesting blog post, I obviously am not seeing anything that can be monetized as yet. Yes, it will tell the New York Times what stories are interesting to me, because it knows which ones I click on, but they already know that.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up on Glass just yet. But after the first quarter milestone, I’m having serious buyer’s remorse.
Great column and comments! Perhaps this is one “device’ that will not ever really see the light of consumer day. I recently heard a surgeon at a research hospital offer his opinion that this would be excellent for *his* use, and I can understand that completely. For detailed information needs while also doing work that demands precision but only after lots of training, yes. But for the average person out there? Uh, not yet. Maybe, really not ever. It sure has taken its lumps on the street here in the SF Area. Literally. It may be Another inventions whose time hasn’t come and, for most of us, won’t arrive. And that’s OK.