Eric Schmidt says Google Glass retail units are about another year away
It was last year at Google I/O we saw the action packed debut of Google Glass back when the device was still very much in its infancy. Little more than fancy head mounted camera chock full of potential, developers were only allowed to sign up for early access to the hardware — if they could afford the hefty $1,500 price tag that is.
Since then, we’ve been seeing Google making a strong effort to create buzz for Glass, throwing promotional contests like “If I Had Glass,” even giving headsets away to celebrities and a few everyday developers. You may remember it was last May when Google’s Sergey Brin took Glass to the Gavin Newsome Show, mentioning in the interview that he’d like to see Glass launch as early as 2013, admitting that the chances of that happening were minute.
Now that we’re well into 2013 and the birthing pangs are upon us, many are are wondering what the updated status of Google Glass retail units hitting the Google Play Store is starting to look like. The answer? Well, in an interview with BBC Radio 4, Google’s Eric Schmidt casually mentions that we’re still “probably a year-ish away” before we’ll see consumer-ready Glass. Bummer.
Of course, if you’ve been following the timeline thus far, this does make perfect sense. It’s only been the past few weeks that Google allowed developers to play with Glass at their Glass Foundry hack-a-thon events in New York and San Francisco, but nobody was actually allowed to take any units home. More recently, we’ve seen a portion of Google Glass Explorer Editions begin making their way to a few lucky developers, and I’d be willing to bet Google will make Glass available as gift to developers at this year’s Google I/O. By that time, Google Glass will be in thousands of developer’s hands, and that’s when we can finally see some real development on Glass take-off.
While Eric Schmidt is not directly involved in Google Glass, it does make perfect sense that a year from now, Glass should finally be ready for prime-time and made available to consumers. Let’s just hope that price can come down a bit by then.
[BBC Radio 4 (27:45) | via TheVerge]