So my Twitter feed has basically turned into a parade of white cardboard boxes this week. You know the ones. Google's been shipping the first batch of Glass units out to Explorers, and every single person who won the #ifihadglass lottery last year (or, lets be honest, every person who could just afford the $1500 and didnt mind looking like a cyborg lifeguard) is now posting the same unboxing photo. Same angle. Same smug little "guess what came in the mail today" caption. Im starting to recognize the packaging better than I recognize some of these people's actual faces.
I did not get picked. I did not apply, technically, because I didnt think Id win, but Ill admit it stings a little watching people I went to college with casually strolling around wearing a $1500 computer on their face like its a normal Tuesday. One guy I follow works in software but as far as I can tell has never shipped anything more ambitious than a WordPress plugin, and hes out here with a titanium band around his skull taking photos of his lunch. Its fine. Im fine.
Heres my actual complaint though, and it isnt really about the money (ok, its a little about the money): the whole thing feels backwards. Glass is supposed to be this glimpse of the future, right, hands-free computing, contextual info floating in your peripheral vision, all that. But the rollout is basically an invite-only party for people who already have disposable income and a Twitter following worth bragging to. Thats not really how you find out if something actually works for regular people. Thats how you generate a few hundred blog posts that all say some version of "its weird but I think I love it" without anyone mentioning that the battery apparently dies if you look at it wrong.
And look, I still want one. I complain about it and then two minutes later Im on the Google site reading the Explorer FAQ for the fourth time this month like the price is going to have changed. Its a dumb, ugly, genuinely uncomfortable-looking piece of hardware and I would put it on my face in a heartbeat if someone handed it to me for free. Ive stopped pretending Im above wanting gadgets just because Im annoyed at how theyre being distributed. Those are two different feelings and I dont need to resolve them.
Small tangent, but this is also the week Best Buy started taking preorders for the Galaxy S4, which is a much less glamorous story but honestly probably matters more to more people. Im not a Samsung fan really, TouchWiz makes me want to throw the phone across the room within about ten minutes of setup, but the screen size alone might get me to switch off my iPhone when my contract's up. Thats a boring sentence to write on a blog in 2013 I know. Everyone's writing "should I switch to Android" posts right now. Im not going to pretend mine is more insightful than the other five hundred out there, Im just noting it happened the same week as the Glass boxes and nobody's covering it because a rectangle phone with a bigger screen isnt as fun to photograph as a robot headband.
Anyway. If anyone reading this actually has Glass and wants to let a stranger from the internet try it on for ten minutes at a coffee shop, my email is right there in the sidebar. I will bring my own coffee. I will not be weird about it, or at least not weirder than the several hundred people already tweeting photos of their own reflections in bathroom mirrors wearing the thing. Setting a low bar for myself here and I plan to clear it easily.
Back to actual work now, which today involves fighting with a client's WordPress theme that somebody hand-edited directly on the server without version control, which is its own kind of horror story I might write up later this week if I dont lose my mind first.