Why Google glass is preferred to iWatch – Forbes outlook

By Haydn Shugnessy

Google was out demonstrating potential apps for Google Glasstoday and the first thing that strikes you is just how real time we are becoming.

These were all real-time information apps, like we need more of it!

The second, is how misplaced Google’s faith is in Google Glass. It is not about the content.

If I look at the biggest change to my working day it is the probability of getting hijacked on one of the real-time channels – Skype, Facebook IM, Twitter DM, Google chat.

I’m not saying I fear it but it’s a change – people used to phone and a call can be ignored but, when people do the interrupt on social channels it’s kinda hard to say no. And suddenly there they are.

Look as well at how information is shared. It’s not unusual on Forbes for a post to get more Tweets than readers early on in its life.

Google Glass will give you more of this instant information. A demo of a New York Times app showed breaking news from the paper of record, as you would expect, updated hourly – but why not continuously. A Path integration would push a notification when a friend shares a photograph. Other apps had the same real time, instant flavor.

OK, so my first question is, why wear them just to speed up my interaction with information? I have no doubt eventually I have to go down that road but I want to delay it.

For me Glass is important because it frees me from the computer and laptop screen. I have bad posture because I look down all day with my hands and shoulders up. A good ergonomic posture is to look directly ahead but few people do – Google Glass can help.

I may not have to buy another screen and real estate in my office is tight. For office, read hotel room, airplane, underground, and occasionally home. So how big is this new screen I can carry around everywhere – same size as my reading glasses. Small enough to go into my overcoat.

In all these instances if Google can liberate my field of view and give me a portable high resolution screen, I will buy Glass. If it can display information off my mobile phone, too, all the better.

Thinking back to the iPhone – I was an early buyer – the breakthrough in the design was simple to people my age – a screen we could actually see without squinting.

Google’s suggestion that real time information will be the major selling point is not necessarily wide of the mark. We are being pushed in the direction of instant information, action and response. But I have tools for that. What I don’t have is a ubiquitous display that I can take everywhere and keep in my pocket when I don’t need it.

The history of technology innovation can often be about something as simple as this – miniaturization. Remember when Jobs thought about the iPhone, he said one of Apple’s core skills – gleaned no doubt from Sonywhich made it a mantra – was miniaturization. That’s why he gave the project a green light.

For me that’s the genius of Glass, right now. A miniaturized display. And that’s why I’d go for Glass and not for the mythical iWatch, a step back to the small screen that the iPhone drew us away from. High res viewing in a case that fits in my pocket. Priceless.