After a month with Glass, I’ve got different thoughts than when I first got it. Here goes.
During the first couple of weeks, I was consumed by enthusiasm. Wow, I had the future in my face, and I could read my tweets, see my email, take photos and video, ask directions. I knew I’d never take it off, and I set out to wear it all the time.
That’s over now. Why? Mostly because I often forget to put it on in the morning. Unlike my phone, which I never leave the house without, and which is with me all the time at home, Glass doesn’t make its absence felt. Yes, it’s comfortable when I put it on, and often after I’ve left I feel bad that I don’t have it with me, but that doesn’t make me remember it the way I remember my Jawbone or my iPhone or my laptop/iPadMini.
Why? Because mostly I use Glass to chronicle my life, and I was already doing that. Glass is now an added device, not a substitute for something I already carry.
How often do I get directions on a day to day basis? Not very often, because at home I know where I’m going and how to get everywhere. When I travel, which I am doing this week, I expect to use that feature more.
How often do I use Google on a day-to-day basis? Maybe once a day, and that’s all. I’m delighted that it’s there for when I need it, but I don’t need another device to search with. That being said, I haven’t used it yet in the kitchen cooking. I use the IPad for that, and my recipe collection on Evernote.
I have taken many more photos than I used to, and most of them need a caption. So far, Glass doesn’t give me enough time to say a caption, so I wait until I get home, delete the uninteresting photos, edit, and share. This gives me an added task, especially if I have an album to share to, say, Facebook. Half the time I can’t find the Facebook app in the stream of stuff floating by my eyes on Glass, so it’s hard to post to FB. Mostly I download photos from Google+ and re-upload them to FB. Another added step.
I still have to try taking longer video, which I just learned how to do, but I don’t take very much video anyway. And the bluetooth connection to my phone only works some of the time for incoming calls.
All this being true, when I read Ron Miller’s post about returning Glass, I know I’m far from doing that. It’s dorky, it’s primitive, it’s nice but not necessary, I could have waited for the next rev, but that just isn’t me.
The best part of Glass is the people I meet through it. An amazing number of people have heard of it and are enthusiastic about it. They know it’s part of the future, and they really want to try it on. But the kind of people who want to try it are sometimes non-intuitive. For example, my former foster daughter, who dropped out of school after 8th grade, wanted to try it on and was wow’ed. She was immediately enthusiastic (she has a new baby). Yet some of my more tech savvy friends have declines, or seemed somewhat apprehensive of trying it on. Last Saturday, a waiter at the place I was eating dinner actually asked to try it on, and last night another food server questioned me with great enthusiasm.
My best anecdotal guess is that this is generational. Younger people are curious and aware; older ones are apprehensive and disinterested. (They don’t love social media either, as a group.) Reminder: this is not research; this is just observation.
For me, Glass is another way to stay active and up to date in the technology community. In a contest between wearables and the collaborative economy, I think I like wearables better:-)
