Google’s native apps, on the other hand, were pretty great. I loved Glass for (very basic) rapid-fire email replies. The navigation stuff was aces. And the Google Now for your face is incredible — its ambient location awareness, combined with previous Google searches, means extremely relevant notifications come to your attention in a way they just can’t on a smartphone, unless you wear your smartphone on your face. If you want to know what Glass is really, really good at, it’s Google Now for your face.
You are so going to love Google Now for your face.
I’m so bored.
Glass is still very limited. Aside from directions, it’s more novelty than utility. The really cool stuff remains on the horizon, which means I got tired of it before I’d had it for even a year.
It took a long time before Google truly opened it up to third party developers. Once it did, things got interesting again. The Strava cycling app, for example, really shows off the promise of Glass by combining location tracking with updates that let you keep your eyes on the road and hands on the handlebars. So too does AllTheCooks, which lets you create and follow recipes without taking your eyes and hands away from sharp knives and hot ovens. There’s another app that will translate signs just by looking at them. What a world.
Which is to say, I’m really, really excited about where Glass is going. I’m less excited about where it is.
The inadvertent Android
Did I mention I swapped to Android because of Glass? That was weird and unexpected, but it happened.
I’ve been an iOS guy since the first iPhone, which I bought with my own hard-earned dollars the day it shipped. And although I’ve gone full time Android a few times in the past, mostly to stay current, it’s never taken. But I started lugging around a Nexus 4 when I began wearing Glass regularly because tethering to my iPhone didn’t work well. (Glass needs to hook up to a phone to take advantage of its internet connection when there is no Wi-Fi.) So everywhere I went, I had two phones in my pocket.
An aside: Few things will make you feel like quite so big an asshole as stepping out in public with Glass and two smartphones.
I gradually noticed I was pulling the Nexus out of my pocket far more often that I was reaching for the iPhone. That was especially true after I started running iOS 7. That’s not a knock on iOS as much as it is a testament to how much Google has improved its mobile operating system. For sheer brutal efficiency, Android is ace.
But moreover, Glass changed the way I think about phones.
Phones are the worst.
Glass kind of made me hate my phone — or any phone. It made me realize how much they have captured our attention. Phones separate us from our lives in all sorts of ways. Here we are together, looking at little screens, interacting (at best) with people who aren’t here. Looking at our hands instead of each other. Documenting instead of experiencing.
Glass sold me on the concept of getting in and getting out. Glass helped me appreciate what a monster I have become, tethered to the thing in my pocket. I’m too absent. Can yet another device make me more present? Or is it just going to be another distraction? Another way to stare off and away from the things actually in front of us, out into the electronic ether? I honestly have no idea.
Glass is normal. Kind of. One day.
Glass, and the other things like it, won’t always be ugly and awkward. At some point, it’s going to be invisibly indistinguishable from a pair of glasses or sunglasses. Meanwhile, Google is going to continue getting better and better at figuring out what to send you, based on where you are and when you’re there, and what you’ve done in the past. Third-party developers will create amazing new apps, things we haven’t thought of. Its form will encourage new functions, new ideas, new realities.
And here’s the thing I am utterly convinced of: Google Glass and its ilk are coming. They are racing toward us, ready to change society, again. You can make fun of Glass, and the assholes (like me) who wear it. But here’s what I know: The future is on its way, and it is going to be on your face. We need to think about it and be ready for it in a way we weren’t with smartphones. Because while you (and I) may make fun of glassholes today, come tomorrow we’re all going to be right there with them, or at least very close by. Wearables are where we’re going. Let’s be ready.