Comment by cocktailpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cocktailpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

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cocktailpeanuts

Google Glass failed not because it wasn't ready. It WAS ready product-wise AND technology-wise. It failed because it was just a bad product. Nobody likes to be video recorded without knowing, and nobody likes to make other people uncomfortable.

If Google Glass had instead launched WITHOUT the live streaming and all the features that violate people's privacy, it may still be around, no matter how bad it looked.

What excited people about Google Glass was NOT being able to record others without them knowing, but how it could potentially provide value by augmenting reality.

Likewise, I'm sure Magic Leap should be "ready" at this point. If they are not, it means they still haven't found their MVP, which is a bad sign. I have never seen a piece of technology that succeeded by launching 100% refined. All successful technology launch as something that's not quite perfect but even with the limited performance provides value to small set of audience. And this includes even Apple.

> It WAS ready product-wise AND technology-wise.

Having regularly used one at work - this is either very much not true or the "ready" product was just a bad product.

It was a barely useful product that managed to underwhelm at everything it did.

It was an extremely cool idea, but they should have never tried to promote it as a sellable product.

> Having regularly used one at work - this is either very much not true or the "ready" product was just a bad product.

Maybe you didn't read the part where I said "it was just a bad product".

Not necessarily. One could imagine that with far superior voice interaction technology and display (rather than a tiny screen in the corner of your vision and cruddy voice interaction), that would open up Google Glass to substantially more compelling product uses.

Can you explain what your comment "Not necessarily" was in response to? Because I agree with what you say and not sure what you're disagreeing to.

"Google Glass failed not because it wasn't ready. It WAS ready product-wise AND technology-wise"

Agreed.

Too many companies worry they don't have enough use cases covered and can't forget "key" functionality, leaving them with a bloated and directionless product. Better to keep it simple and work up. Just nail the first use case enough for the innovators to adopt it.

Google Glass never attempted augmented reality though right? And if it did, it would really need a camera to do it.

I'm not sure there is much left after you take away the features you call "privacy invading"

> Google Glass never attempted augmented reality though right?

I don't know what you're talking about here. Is this a rhetorical question? AR was exactly what excited the nerds about Google Glass. But Google lost its way along the way and decided they will also become GoPro.

There's a huge difference between having a camera and sharing the content you took from the camera.

I didn't see this reply for 3 days so the conversation is probably over, but I think they never actually showed AR promos for the Glass (not at all like Hololens for example). The nerds being excited about it seemed to be excited for AR on Glass was just them jumping ahead to the assumed conclusion rather than what they were showing with the tech (which was more "video chat and phone notifications anywhere" even in their ukulele-music-backed promo videos)

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