Reading Time: 8 minutes24 hours ago I got Glass. (I guess Glass is like God, considering it’s always uppercase).

How I Got Glass

Glass opened up the application process on Twitter. I thought it was interesting that they wanted people to tweet with a hashtag, instead of posting on G+ with a hashtag.

 

So, on Feb 21 I applied

#ifihadglass I’d share everything I do and discover to google+

— sarah ware (@WareSarah) February 21, 2013

 

 

On March 27, Google Glass replied

@WareSarah You’re invited to join our #glassexplorers program. Woohoo! Make sure to follow us – we’ll DM in the coming weeks.

— Project Glass (@googleglass) March 27, 2013

 

And then on June 21, I got a message that Glass was ready.

There are 8,000 units available for pre-sale. I received one of the first 1,000. They gave out about 2,000 others, mostly to developers before pre-sale. I found it very interesting that Google employees did not have first dibs — actually, very few of them even got selected for the pre-sale. So, Google employees got no preferential treatment.

Set Up

I booked my appointment to go to Google’s San Francisco office on July 11. This was the first day that the office opened, and I was one of the first appointments. Glass has it’s own area inside the building and feels like it’s entire own entity. There’s no red, blue or yellow anywhere. Actually, the space was very sexy and apple-looking. I was greeted with Champagne, and asked to pick out my color. Very luxurious greeting.

The Glass team pampered us with cheese and champagne. In the mirror you’ll see the stand that holds the Glass to try on for color.

I was escorted to a desk where my guide would help teach me about Glass, do my fitting, and set up my account.

These people have such cool jobs!

When I sat down we went over set up. I had to call AT&T earlier to change my plan to include tethering. The only downside to this is I had been grandfathered into an unlimited plan for the past…decade…so I had to say goodbye to that plan in order to add the tethering to my account. It was a bittersweet moment…

I set up everything from my contacts (you can only choose up to 10 to be able to dial from your Glass – done purposefully to be a “speed dial” for the important people in your life – not a rolodex), to learning how to sync up a couple social networks (I only synced up Facebook there, and am having trouble right now syncing Twitter). These are the default options there are right now.

Obviously there needs to be more apps! I haven’t enabled Path yet, but I’m wondering if sharing to G+ circles might actually replace the need to use Path to share only with close friends. Or, perhaps, it might increase the amount of shares. Will be interesting to see how Glass affects those share rates, and also share rates to other social networks. Obviously my G+ is going to go through the roof.

Con: Glass connects to your gmail account

Why is this a con? Two reasons.

1. You can only choose *one* gmail account. I have 3. One personal, one very personal, and one business. I use them all for different reasons. I didn’t like having to choose just one – I want to be able to toggle between my personal and business.

2. After I chose a personal account, I wanted to change the default to my business account (which is gmail), but I can’t, even though I pay gmail, it’s not gmail.com – it’s markerly.com – this really frustrates me because I have been spending a lot of time building my network on my business account. I like G+ because it’s great for SEO and I’m starting to enjoy what’s being shared in my circles. Not being able to hook up my business account, and being forced to use my personal is something I hope that changes, but the Glass reps have no idea when this could be, if ever. I’m personally confident they’ll get business accounts hooked up eventually, though.

This is a beta product after all. It makes you think though – as far as social networking goes – we are used to being identified by a profile — not an email. G+ identifies you as your email. I wish it was separate. I can change my email at any time for a social network no problem – but G+ is permanently assigned to one email – so if I spend time building up my business G+ (which I use socially and personally), it’s never able to be merged with my personal email G+ account. I don’t like that.

Con: Connecting to the Internet

Android has an app, but for all of us iPhone users, this is how you connect to the internet so you can use Glass fully.

1- You have to actually log in to www.google.com/myglass on a computer or tablet

2- Then you have to click Network

3- Then you have to open up your network in Glass, scroll all the way to Join New Network

4- Then you have to join the network through the URL and type in the password

5- Then you have to use your Glass to look at a custom QR code that is generated

6- Then Glass connects to the wifi

Like….seriously? I can’t wait to just go to my Glass, click join network, and JOIN! If I have to type in a password, let me do it on my phone (iPhone app NEEDED!) or let me tap through a keyboard on Glass. Like I said before, it’s a beta product…more updates to come.

Pro: Auto updates

Every month, Glass will update the software. They are automatic, which I like.

My first picture through glass.

Leaving Google

When you’re wearing Google Glass everyone wants to talk to you. Justin was wearing them when we left Google, and some people thought he was Sergey, which was very funny. OH “Wait, is that, Sergey?”

People want to ask questions, and I love that. I love everyone’s curiosity with this technology.

Support

The support is great. I had a difficult time connecting to my wifi when I got home (Glass needs to be connected to wifi for a lot of the functionality to work, like, social networks) and I received very fast support through Twitter, Email, and even a phone call!

The bug was funny – if your wifi network has a special character (ie: !@, spaces, etc), the Glass will have a hard time connecting. Since ours did, I had to change our wifi password to be compatible. Would be nice to see this updated soon, maybe with an auto-update!

Ease of Use

So easy! I think there will be a bit of a learning curve for everyone, but it’s been very easy for me to get around. Swiping front, back, up, down and tapping all produce different results. For example, swiping forward will bring me up everything I’ve already done (past photo’s, search queries, etc), and swiping backwards will bring me into now and the future (ie: settings, search for something new, look up weather). Swiping down cancels things out or brings you backwards (like refreshing). Tapping brings you further into something, or allows you to share.

It doesn’t strain my eyes at all. My co-founder wears glasses, and he says his eyes feel strained, and it’s also very difficult for him to use in the sunlight. Glass comes with sunglass frames that you can put on, and I can see perfectly fine in the sun when wearing them. If the sun isn’t directly in my eyes, I can see fine without the added sunglass accessory.

Creepy?

People ask weird questions about Glass and there’s a lot of privacy concern over it. To be honest, you know if it’s on, and it’s only on like 5% of the time. 95% of the time it’s off. It turns off right away if you’re not using it, and the battery life couldn’t support constant recording. Video is defaulted to 10 seconds.

That’s my co-founder. It’s really obvious that Glass is on. So no, it’s not creepy.

Google Hangout

I love that I can do a Google Hangout with anyone through Glass. Next time I see something cool I can just Hangout with a friend and show them through my eyes!

Driving

It’s not distracting while driving. Remember, it’s off most of the time anyway. If you want to check any alerts at a red light, you can do a quick check and read any messages or alerts really quickly. See this video – it looks like a small flat screen TV.

Where it’s Going

The cool thing about Glass is it really opens your ideas to the power of technology when integrated even more seamlessly into our everyday lives. Imagine if a quick swipe could save the information of a person you just met, so you never forget their name and can always easily contact them? Or, if every landmark had photo recognition, and a quick, “OK Glass, Wiki this!” would result in historical information about whatever landmark you are looking at. Evernote integrates with Glass, and even though I haven’t used Evernote much before, I’m wondering if Glass will make it even more natural for me to take notes through Evernote.

Conclusion

Glass is exciting — and maybe it can’t tell me the nutritional information of any food I look at now — but it opens your eyes to the real possibility of that technology existing in our lifetime. My predictions are on photo recognition – having the ability to recognize items through Glass and learn more. In a decade when I’m at the grocery store and I look at artichokes, hopefully I can just say, OK Glass, give me a healthy recipe, with artichoke recipe’s as the result.

Hands free is not over-rated. It really is amazing. When you’re cooking and you’re unsure if something looks right and your hands are all messy, just do a Hangout with your friend — call them, show them and video chat hands free. I love the ease of updates as well, instead of reaching for my phone to see what an email says, a simple nod of my head will show me. I love that. And I love Glass, and I hope that more apps are developed for it soon, and I can’t wait to see how it’s used 5 years from now.

We’re watching the future now.

If I spam you with Glass photos of my dog, I apologize in advance.