Photo: Michael Jarrott

I haven’t used Glass in a month

Or: How Google still wins by getting it wrong

“… No, Google is good at knowing what technology wants.”

I was sitting at a dinner table in the city a few weeks ago discussing Google, when my friend Edward made that statement.

For the last few months I’d been fascinated with Google’s latest efforts in natural-language interfaces; enough that I was almost ready to jump ship to Android to try them out. Apple’s high design has always held sway over me, but I felt they had been lagging behind on the information services front. Siri and iCloud left a lot to be desired—especially for users with most of their digital identity locked away on Google’s servers. I had my eye on an HTC One for a while, but hadn’t pulled the trigger yet for reasons that Edward’s comment finally made me realise.

My anxiety started with a Nexus 7. I bought it in February to test the waters before switching phones, and develop on. As a slave to Apple products for the last few years, I had been spoiled by a very human approach to devices. And though the Nexus 7 matched up to Apple’s counterpart on paper, the experience was in no way comparable. I played around with it for a while, but now it only gets attention when I need to do device testing.

I was disappointed, but I wasn’t sure why. All of Google’s pitches for it had made sense. The lower cost and tighter integration with their services made it seem like a no brainer. But that didn’t matter; I couldn’t stand using it.

A few months later… Glass

Ever since their first teaser video two years ago I had been obsessed with the idea of Glass, Google’s first foray into wearable computing. So when they announced the application to beta test I immediately applied, and a month later I received a message from Google informing me I had been accepted.

After committing to purchasing I was practically frothing at the mouth, waiting for my fitting day. All my free time was spent prototyping applications, and I brought the device up in conversation constantly (thanks to all my friends for putting up with me all those months).