TheGlassLog: 3 Weeks In: What I hate most about Glass and What Google Should Do About It

[caption id="attachment_13117195898" align="aligncenter" width="300"] thepete.com on Google Glass's browser which was added to the Glass OS this month with an update to XE7.[/caption]

So, I've learned a lot about Glass since I first got it back on June 26, 2013. First, it's got immense potential. It's a computer that is light enough to spend hours on your face. I've warn mine for as long as eight hours, straight, without any discomfort. After the first few days of wearing it, I found that my right ear was a little itchy underneath where Glass rests on it. That itching however, went away after a few days. I've also learned just how brand new Glass is as a technology--at least to Google. See, the thing I hate the most about Glass is one particular choice Google made about how Glass interacts with us.

During my "fitting session," I explained to the really nice Google employee helping me out that I wanted my tweets fed to my eyeball. She smiled warmly and immediately explained that this was not what Glass wants to do for me, at least for now. I was so excited to have Glass, I didn't really give that much thought but over the next couple of weeks, the sentiment she expressed would haunt me, in a way.

Before that day, I had read all of Tim Stevens' coverage of Glass on Engadget.com and something he had said worried me before and after I got my own Glass. He said that after a week or so of having Glass, he was having trouble finding reasons to wear it every day.

Would I find this to be true?  Read on...



Well, two weeks in, I felt that I had not found this to be true--at least for me. I'm a gadget freak. I don't need a reason to use a gadget. However, I like to have a reason. So, living in NYC, I am always seeing things I want to take photos or videos of. So, any time I go out, it's a no-brainer to bring Glass. But when I stay at home (where I work as well as sleep), I also wanted to wear Glass and had good reason to. As I said, I wanted all of my tweets to be fed to my eyeball. All of my tweets, all of my texts, emails, breaking news, etc, I wanted delivered to me on the digital silver platter known as Google Glass. The problem is that Glass doesn't do that.

So, when you wear Glass, it doesn't take long for you to get used to the feeling of it on your head. After a time, you get your first text or other content served to Glass. You know this because Glass plays a chime. That's it. If you want to actually see the content, you have to actually tap the side of Glass. Most of the time, this causes the most recently served content to become visible on Glass's display. Sometimes, tapping just shows me the home screen (this just shows the time and the activation phrase "ok glass"). In that case, I have to swipe the touchpad on Glass forward to see the latest piece of new content.

UPDATED 8/6/13: I've since realized that if I act, quickly, in the seconds after I hear the chime of new content arriving, I can look up and see that content immediately. The thing is, if I don't look up quickly, I will just see the home screen. This means I often jerk my head up like I've just seen something shocking or have had a serious neck spasm. So, yeah, still not very acceptable. Now back to the post as originally written:

[caption id="attachment_13117195896" align="aligncenter" width="300"] What the home screen on Glass looks like. Hey, Google! Grammar much? (It should be "OK, Glass." Though I honestly can't wait to be able to use a custom phrase.)[/caption]

So, that's two motions just to see the latest text, email, etc, served to Glass.

To me, that seems like a lot of work for a person so interested in being connected to the world that he wears a computer on his face.

I mean, at least give us the option to have new content trigger the display to turn on when it arrives. What if I'm in a loud room or around loud traffic when content shows up? I might not even hear Glass's chime. Seriously, what's the point of having a display an inch from your eyeball if you have to activate it with your finger?

It's not even possible (as far as I can tell) to use your voice to activate the display after new content is served. Even if I could, I'm not a big fan of using my voice to control Glass since, it makes me self-conscious, and Gail doesn't always understand what I'm saying. "Who is Gail?" you may be asking? That's the name I gave the female voice that speaks to me from inside Glass. Gail the Google Glass Gal. I suppose I could call her Gigi for short (since her full acronym would be GtGGG) but I like Gail better. Gail is great in so many ways but she's not always good at hearing me correctly.

[caption id="attachment_13117195897" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Yeah, Gail the Google Glass Gal didn't hear me correctly when I did a search for my own website.[/caption]

Back to my point: it's almost like Google isn't trying to differentiate Glass from the, so far hypothetical, iWatch. It seems to me that the operation of either Glass or a wrist-based wearable computer would involve a similar amount of extra effort on the user's part. While that's less effort than a smart phone requires, it is still more effort than one should have to make when wearing a wearable.

Google Glass has other problems but none are as obvious as this. The good news is that it's easy for Google to fix with one of Google's monthly OS updates. All they have to do is add a card in the settings that gives us the option to allow visual notifications to be turned on.

Let's hope they make this change.

I've got plenty more to say about Glass, so please stay tuned to TheGlassLog at thepete.com. Thanks for reading!