Google Glass

[Darkflame]

Details on some price breakdowns here;
https://plus.google.com/+NedSahin/posts/BcYgC3mNHQ5

Angry, but informative.

[Darkflame]

Competition heating up;

[pogo]

Details on some price breakdowns here;
https://plus.google.com/+NedSahin/posts/BcYgC3mNHQ5

Angry, but informative.

He actually makes Teardown's case for them:

What is Google offering their customers, with Glass? Much more than one device. Glass is an experience. Exploring Glass, early, is a particularly wonderful experience. having access to the developers' kit is not only an experience but a chance for the community to start hundreds or thousands of small companies, doing things no one can even predict yet. Glass is a platform. It can be an operating room companion for a surgeon, to save lives; it can transform the lives of children with disabilities; it can help an artist create art. It is the future, and it is exciting.

Which is precisely the kind of bullshit you come up with when you've incorporated a massive markup into the RRP. It's what Apple does - except Apple are never so crude to say "the iPad is an experience". They just show you in their adverts (including iPads used in hospitals, with children, by artists - he could almost be reading the script of an iPad advert). Then charge $500 for something that costs only $300 to make.

Notably he doesn't say how much it actually costs to make; he says they're wrong but doesn't put a figure on how much the parts, manufacturing costs. It's just worth $1500 as it's "an experience". He does sound pissed which suggests Teardown got closer to the truth than they care others to know.

[Deckard]

891 quid for glass - what "proper" tech can't I buy for that money ? All 3 current consoles or a Rift and pc to run it or a SOTA 55" Samsung LED Tv - far better "experiences" in my opinion. They're fucked and they know it. They've spent millions on trying to make it cool and failed miserably in my opinion.

[Darkflame]

He doesn't give a precise figure because he doesn't know a precise figure. You can add up all his ranges though to produce your own range, but its kinda missing the point.
Even if he did know, and it was a static clear cut thing, he might not legally be able to say.

To say "teardown is close to the truth" - after this guy shows how it has to at least cost many many times what they say, and to base that on the fact that he didn't give a definitive price is just daft.

Reading the comments too, it seems some early "explorers" have got hardware revisions - Google effectively paying for two lots of hardware for some of them for the same cost. Again showing how a lot more factors into the effective cost then simple component prices.

except Apple are never so crude to say "the iPad is an experience".

This is one guy talking unofficially, not a commercial.
But, yeah, in press releases/conferences Apple spokeman say similar things all the time. Lots of companies do.
It normally gets weeded out by the time things appear on tv.

891 quid for glass - what "proper" tech can't I buy for that money ? All 3 current consoles or a Rift and pc to run it or a SOTA 55" Samsung LED Tv - far better "experiences" in my opinion. They're fucked and they know it. They've spent millions on trying to make it cool and failed miserably in my opinion.

Not the same thing.
Comparing Apples to well, Stake.

Glass can in some ways, be compared to a cell phone, but if your comparing to a home cinema setup your kinda lost the plot a bit.
Its a portable heads up display thing - designed to be useful more the "fun". It remains to be seen if it is useful enough, but aside from Ingress (and the game from Star Trek TNG), I don't think games will be a big factor in its uses.
-
Also, of course, it will go down in price - as bigger production lines get made, and google gets more confident in the % of returns they will get, as design revisions get made.
Not going to be $100 though, but it will get a lot less, Its still early days.
My bet is google will partner with other company's - probably existing spec company's.

[Darkflame]

I said, Steve, let’s sell the experience of a lifestyle. It was always about selling the experience and that was what interested Steve. If you look at Apple today everything is sold on experience.

- http://9to5mac.com/2011/06/17/former-ap ... e-to-lose/

Pretty old, I admit, but also wasn't that hard to find. And this is a exCOE, not a random guy who did unspecified work on something.
This sort of talks just pretty common.

[Deckard]

its a device that makes me uglier and i still need my phone to use it - hard sell for me - how long has it been in bets now ? wont it just be banned from most public places anyway ?

[pogo]

He doesn't give a precise figure because he doesn't know a precise figure. You can add up all his ranges though to produce your own range, but its kinda missing the point.
Even if he did know, and it was a static clear cut thing, he might not legally be able to say.

To say "teardown is close to the truth" - after this guy shows how it has to at least cost many many times what they say, and to base that on the fact that he didn't give a definitive price is just daft.

Reading the comments too, it seems some early "explorers" have got hardware revisions - Google effectively paying for two lots of hardware for some of them for the same cost. Again showing how a lot more factors into the effective cost then simple component prices.

I'm sure he does know a precise figure, or could find it out. He doesn't do so why? As the price for parts is pretty close to Teardown's figure I'm sure. It contains many off the shelf parts they were able to identify, so most of their figures are pretty solid and yes, I think they're close to the truth. Certainly closer than the $1500 the thing currently costs.

http://www.techinsights.com/teardown.com/google-glass/

Sure, Google has extra costs such as R%D, manufacturing, support. But those should only be a small part of the final cost, and many of them such as R&D you'd expect Google to pay anyway. Even if they don't once it goes on sale at it's final retail price and once volume picks up R&D and manufacturing become less and less important.

That's the real point of this. If the parts cost Google only $80 then there's no reason they can't sell it at $100 break-even, or $150 with a small mark up. They'd make little to no money on the hardware but then they're not a hardware company, they're an advertising company and the value of Glass to them is the number of geolocated eyeballs they can sell information on to advertisers.

They only don't want to admit this now as they've still got a few old developer test units they want to offload; they don't have enough supply to satisfy demand at the final RRP, and are charging $1500 so they're not overwhelmed. But sooner or later (assuming they don't abandon work on it) they'll release it at retail. And then I'd expect the price to be much closer to Teardown's costing than to the $1500 he's attempting to justify.

[Deckard]

The interesting thing will be where can you wear it as I have asked at a few places I regularly go and at my gym, cinema and 6 favourite restaurants in Bristol it will be banned so that leaves outside, maybe your work, your house and (possibly not) in your car. Great.

[pogo]

[pogo]

A Google Glass Feast

Seems a restaurant, well within their rights and quite unexceptionally, asked a diner to remove Glass before eating. The diner left rather than eat without them and wrote a 1★ review on G+; bad form but within their rights.

But then a bunch more people added their 1★ reviews below that. The problem was most weren't restaurant customers, but simply Glassholes rallying in support of another. Far less acceptable as reviews are meant to be based on posters' experiences, not hearsay and their prejudices, and the posters clearly have an overinflated sense of their own and the devices importance.

This wouldn't be so bad except Google favours G+ posts artificially in their search rankings. So a lot of these 'reviews' get listed first, despite their poor quality and reliability, and drive down the average score reported by Google.

Only happens with Glassholes as they're the only demographic/user group largely existing on G+. If Google has any sense they'll do something about it; they can't have a small group able to so screw up search results and review averages so easily, especially a group of people with such poor judgement. Problem is they might do nothing, seeing favouring Glassholes' opinions as a positive. But if this happens a few more times it might rebound back on Google and the Glassholes making them even more despised and ridiculed than they already are.

[Deckard]

A Google Glass Feast

Seems a restaurant, well within their rights and quite unexceptionally, asked a diner to remove Glass before eating. The diner left rather than eat without them and wrote a 1★ review on G+; bad form but within their rights.

But then a bunch more people added their 1★ reviews below that. The problem was most weren't restaurant customers, but simply Glassholes rallying in support of another. Far less acceptable as reviews are meant to be based on posters' experiences, not hearsay and their prejudices, and the posters clearly have an overinflated sense of their own and the devices importance.

This wouldn't be so bad except Google favours G+ posts artificially in their search rankings. So a lot of these 'reviews' get listed first, despite their poor quality and reliability, and drive down the average score reported by Google.

Only happens with Glassholes as they're the only demographic/user group largely existing on G+. If Google has any sense they'll do something about it; they can't have a small group able to so screw up search results and review averages so easily, especially a group of people with such poor judgement. Problem is they might do nothing, seeing favouring Glassholes' opinions as a positive. But if this happens a few more times it might rebound back on Google and the Glassholes making them even more despised and ridiculed than they already are.

Tbh these Glasshole evangelists are already getting on my tits

[pogo]

Not encountered them myself, but everything I see or read now seems to be negative.

Google needs to let Glass speak for itself. Get it in stores at a reasonable price, promote it based on features, make it attractive enough that enough people buy it. If enough people buy it then it will gradually become accepted; not welcomed everywhere but treated like any other piece of tech. Its userbase won't be judged by a few arrogant Glassholes that seem intent on making fools of themselves.

[pogo]

Now available in the UK for the low low price of £1000 !

[merman]

£1000 and you have to be over 18 to buy it.

BBC report says you are limited to 45 minutes video recording due to battery life. And Vue Cinemas will chuck you out anyway...