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Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

This is why Glass failed IMHO. Google spent a bunch of time on the hardware, but just wiffed it with obvious demo software. Then they just put it out in the world "hey developers, figure out what to do with this, because we can't be bothered".

Instead of a new computing paradigm, it turned into a very expensive head-mounted camera and not much else. Something GoPro had nailed at 1/10th the price point and without the creepy factor.

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Glass was a testbed that got overhyped thanks to executive meddling. I see no such thing with This, nor with Soli or Ara.

These are all ATAP projects revealed during a DEVELOPERS conference, so that there can be a collaboration in getting the software in place before general market release.

The overhype is why Google stopped doing device announcements at IO, because all the oversized tech blogs would grab the tickets just to be there to oh and ah at the new device, but not come up with new code and uses for the tech showed. Rather they would often pan what was clearly meant to be early prototypes as if they were the finished product.

Google, and to some degree Microsoft, is doing things the old PARC way. Create stuff, show it off, and if they can't find a use for it maybe someone else will.

Apple on the other hand sit on things until they have a use for it, and if they never find a use for it nobody else gets to see it and find a use for it.

In the end the PARC way of doing gave the world things like Ethernet and the GUI. Personally i prefer this way to the Apple "take my ball and go" approach.

But the press sadly love the coy ones, as they are so much easier to write clickbait about.

The problem with this theory of course is that Google basically doesn't do finished products, things sit in beta for half a decade and maybe they'll bother to take that label off the product or kill it or suddenly charge 4000% or whatever.

Google needs a clearer product pipeline, right now there's "we're not showing this to the public", "arbitrarily special people who are mostly press can see it" and "it's out in the wild". That's too flat for the public and doesn't really engage the developer part of the pipeline.

I/O is a public event, it's broadcast worldwide, live. It's the most consumer-level/press-level developer event I've ever seen outside of WWDC.

I've also heard the idea of glass was about demoing AND getting the public conversation started about wearables so that when they have a product ready, the dialogue has been running.

That's even worse! Now the dialog centers around creepy voyeurism. Google has single-handedly salted the market so nobody can enter it. It will take a decade at least before somebody tries again.

After the Glass fiasco, I'll be thinking twice before buying/taking Google's variant of FUD seriously. That was a waste of over 1.5K for me. Too bad there is no accountability (oh wait ... all the Google fans would just say I should have known it was unproven tech and I was an explorer .. blah blah blah).

I haven't been dissuaded from buying all unproven tech gear thankfully! Preordered the Apple Watch (as I have had wonderful experiences with the iPad on launch day and the iPhone) ... very satisfied with it.

I'm on the fence about HoloLens. While I have full faith in Apple and zero in Google, Microsoft is in the middle. The tech is extremely compelling but I Microsoft is known for incremental improvements .. I'd rather not get stuck with gen 1/demo hardware when a lot better stuff may be around the corner.

Isn't that an awfully expensive way to generate public interest?

I see his point though, just like the Oculus has reignited interest in VR simply by being under development, Glass could have done the same thing for wearables. There's maybe a dozen consumer level VR projects out in the world right now, and the same could have been said for Glass.

Just imagine how cool it is going to be if this product is combined together with Oculus VR. It will be a (video) game-changer.

Glass was just a demo/research product, the tech isn't there yet to support something like Glass. Give it a few years.

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