Messaging
Messaging is an area of huge promise with
Glass, but one that's a bit clumsy right now. When you receive an email or a
text message, you will hear a chime. To view the message, just tilt your head
up. You will only see the first few lines of the message, which is a bit
unfortunate, but it's enough to know if you want to see more. If desired, it
need two taps: one to bring up the menu, another to select "Read
More." From there, it's another tap and a few swipes if you want to have
the email read to you. You can also reply, reply to all, save or bookmark the
message.
Messaging
is an area of huge promise with Glass, but one that's a bit clumsy right now.
An ideal use-case for this is getting
emails read to you while in the car and then replying back by voice.
Unfortunately, because it takes 2 taps and 2 swipes just to get to the
"Read Aloud" option, which is not something you should do while
driving. Whether you're sitting on the train, it would be better to be able to
read the entire email just by tilting your head up and down to scroll. The
technology is in there, and hopefully Google will enable it eventually.
Also it’s worth noting that you can’t
compose a new email. And, all answers must be done with voice ... and all will
have the text "Sent through Glass" inserted on the bottom, whether
you like it or not. Speech-to-text is acceptable, but not good enough for
anything other than a quick response. For example, it struggled to distinguish
between things like "was" and "wasn't", which can obviously
cause some accidental consequences, and complicated place names are a bit
hit-or-miss. (Glass understands "Schenectady" is quite good, but
"Azerbaijan" was heard as "our body John").
If you speak slowly, clearly and avoid
grammatical contractions, you have the opportunity to send the correct email.
Should Glass hear you incorrectly, you have to cancel the whole message and
start over. So let's keep those responses short.
Search
Google allows you to search for things, and
indeed you can do the same thing through Glass. But, with a low screen
resolution you are limited in what you can get. Basically you get the "I'm
feeling lucky" results for any queries, which may or may not be what
you're looking for and, even if it is, may or may not contain any actual information
you want.
Google
allows you to search for things, and indeed you can do the same thing through
Glass.
For example, say "Google
Engadget" and you will find a description of Engadget - but not the page
itself or indeed any gadget news. But, say "Google Paul Allen", you
will have the results of his Wikipedia. Glass will even read the first sentence
for you: "According to Wikipedia, Paul Gardner Allen is an American
investor...". Then, you can swipe through a few pages of information about
him, including photos.
So, Google is erratically useful through
Glass. Anything stick to Wikipedia are great, as well as questions about the
operation and simple conversion, but anything more complicated can lead to
disappointment.
Hangouts
Video calling from a smartphone or tablet,
where you need to hold that device up in front of your face, is a
far-from-compelling experience that we generally avoid for anything longer than
a quick "hello". With a Glass, we actually found it quite
fascinating. Now you can look and see the face of the person (or people) that
you are talking to floating out in space.
Of course, they will not see your face,
which can be good or bad depending on what you are looking at - and how you
feel about your face. We had a lot of fun trying impromptu Hangouts while
walking through busy crowds or riding a motorcycle, and it definitely makes for
a great way to show someone something if they're not able to be there in
person. It's easy to envision touring a museum with someone who's stuck at
home. It's also easy to envision museums will not enjoy one such scenario.
However, its usefulness is heavily
dependent on the quality of the connection. You will need to stabilize the LTE
signal to have a hope of transmitting decent-quality video and audio without
terrible lag. WiFi is obviously a better choice if available.
Applications
The New York Times app is the most notable
to be released to the public so far. It is very limited, making updates to
Glass about every hour, more frequently if there's breaking news. Tap on any
news and Glass will read its title and first sentence for you. That's it. There
is no "Want to know more?" prompt or any other way to see the whole
story.
We are extremely excited to see what
appears next, because the potential here is really huge. At this time, we will
be pleased to post images directly to Twitter and Facebook.
Camera
The camera pointing out the front of Glass
is a 5-megapixel unit capable of recording 720p video. Resulting photos range
from very good to very poor, largely depending on the amount of light
available. In a bright sunny day, Glass can take some very good pictures,
bright colors, accuracy and good contrast. In normal light, shots are
acceptable, but of course they fall into the "normal-cameraphone"
quality, with muddy colors and the result is often slightly blurry. In low
light conditions, shots may be a mess. No Ultrapixels here.
The
camera pointing out the front of Glass is a 5-megapixel unit capable of
recording 720p video
Another useful thing is that the camera waits
a few seconds after you press the button to take the picture. In theory this
could mean that you miss some incredibly fast-paced moment, but it gives you
time to take your hands off the glass and stable before the shutter fires.
Annoyingly, though, the way the shutter button pokes out of the top of the
frame, you're more likely than not to take a picture when you set Glass down
upside-down. We have dozens of upside-down photos clogging our storage.
After the picture is taken, it is presented
to you in a few seconds, which is a useful feature because there is no
viewfinder and the angle of the picture won't line up exactly with where you're
looking. If Glass is not perfectly placed in your face, there's a good chance
the picture will be at an angle, meaning you may need to cock your head one way
or the other.
The same may be true for video recording,
but here you have real-time view of what is being recorded. The quality is
usually quite good, depends primarily on the amount of light available. You
must be careful to maintain stability while walking, but in general we can
record smooth video without too much trouble. The biggest problem? Be sure not
to nod when talking to someone.
