Google announces apps for Glass

Google announced today at the I/O developer conference in California that the first wave of apps, aside from the few that had already been announced, are here.

Google Glass is a first-generation beta product. The way Google would like you to think of it is like the original iPhone: a totally new platform that won't really come into its own until developers can release apps for it. Remember that the original iPhone could do very little; it had email and maps and text messaging and a camera and a web browser, but it didn't have apps until the iPhone 3G, the second phone in the iPhone line. That was when the App Store launched, and that was when other companies stopped making fun of the iPhone and started copying it.

The first wave of apps includes apps from Evernote, CNN, Facebook, and Elle. Facebook is perhaps the most important; until now, Glass was limited to sharing photos, videos, and notes with Google services like Google+. But now you can upload what you see right to Facebook, and give captions or status updates with voice commands and dictation.

CNN's works a bit more like Google Now, the service that guesses what you want to know before you ask. But instead of telling you when your Amazon package will arrive or when your commuting train will leave, it lets you tell it what kind of information you want and when. So you can tell it to give you stock news in the morning, or sports news at lunchtime, that kind of thing.

We've still yet to really see what Glass can do; Google is relying on developers to turn the platform into something people really want, rather than a novelty. These apps are a nice little start, though nothing too surprising yet.


/Popsci.Com/