First day impressions of Google Glass Explorer Edition
Two weeks ago I was notified by Google Glass team that my Glass was available for me to purchase and pickup. Using their website I selected the date June 8th at 11am and the location closest to me, Venice Beach CA. The days leading up to my Glass pickup day involved me doing more and more research on how glass works and how I can use it in various capacities. A web developer friend of mine and I have been working on a few projects and getting all of our API code in place. By Friday night we just needed me to have Glass so I could enable the Mirror API and put the finishing touches on our first Glassware.
I live 30 miles from Venice so getting there at 11am on a Saturday wasn’t a problem at all. My 16 year old son Chris accompanied me as my +1 and we plugged in the address into Google maps on my iPhone and it lead the way to the building with massive binoculars outside of it. The binocular building was designed by Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry, his last project in Los Angeles until the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It’s a great looking building and pretty cool to be using it for Project Glass. We were greeted by a Googler and a valet, and we were escorted inside the main lobby of the building. After a quick ID check we met with out Glass Guide James who led us through the catacombs of the office building and out to a great looking outdoor patio area with some interesting architectural pieces on display.
We made our way into the next building where another quick ID check was done. We signed an agreement allowing our likeness to be photographed which made me kind of chuckle since that room must be one of the most pictured #throughglass locations online (next to New York and SF, the two other pickup locations). James walked me over to the selection area and had me try on a few different colors. I initially chose Charcoal, but I really liked Shale after trying a few different colors on. Sky would have been fun but would have been a $1600 mistake. After my selection we sat down at one of the stations and did the unboxing. I didn’t take any pictures of the unboxing since that’s been done to death online. Fitting for me was very quick. We had to reposition the projector arm a bit but aside from that my larger head worked out well for my Glass. James walked us through the process of turning on the device and how to interact with it. Since I’m using an iPhone some of the features currently are not available to me (Maps/Directions and Text Messages). I wasn’t disappointed, and James detected that, we talked about how this is are first gen preproduction devices. I mentioned Google wants the best experience with Android first and then work out the issues with iOS once they can focus their efforts.
With Glass on I setup WiFi using the QRcode method, paired the device with my iPhone and I was ready to start taking pics and videos. My son also tried them on before we were told that people under 18 were not allow to use Glass… I didn’t question this with the manager but I’m under the impression she meant in their facility and not outside of it. Odd, we continued the picture taking process and such.
Once we got all of my web services setup on the Glass setup site I shared a few pictures on G+ and recorded some videos. We wrapped up a bit early and took a quick tour of the building with James.
Since we in Venice we took a drive down to the beach and found a parking spot. While there we found a street performer that I video’d on Glass and a skate park where I did some more videoing.
I recorded some video while I was out that day, below is a compilation of all the videos from the day.
No more #ifihadglass now it’s on to #whatcantidowithglass and #imnottakingpicturesofyou
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