Google Glass developers (We're still flying half-blind)

Ever since developers got their hands on Google Glass earlier this year, software coders have clamored for greater access to the programming internals of the controversial headset. Google accommodated them this week -- albeit to the sound of muted applause.

To be sure, Google's Glass Development Kit (GDK) does fill in a key puzzle piece that had been missing from Google Glass. Yet many developers are worried. They say that in the absence of more leadership or more access from Google, they're being asked to figure out the final picture on their own -- knowing that it might change by the time Glass gets mass produced.

The Glass Development Kit preview released by Google opens up many of the options that had been absent from the developer's toolbox. Previously, developers had only been able to code for Glass' limited Mirror API.

Google has relied on third-party developers who own the $1,500 headsets to further app development, while internal development at the company has focused on making sure that the new software platform functions properly. When Google first announced Glass, the hope was that a vibrant development community would emerge and create the kinds of consumer applications which would extend Google Glass' appeal beyond the technophile crowd and into the mainstream.

Given that Glass represents a major shift in wearable computing from the nerdy realm of adventurous hackers to the common consumer marketplace, Google has been cautious about giving developers too much access to the hardware too soon.

Many but not all doors open for Glass developers
The Mirror API access was a compromise that encouraged developers to build for Glass when it arrived on their doorsteps last spring, but without giving them too much power. The GDK, which Google is quick to caution is a "preview" and not the full GDK that eventually will be distributed, gives developers access to many Glass features that had been walled off -- but not all of them.

"Now all that's remaining is for Google to build an actual app store, and for developers to build better apps" with the GDK, said Jonathan Gottfried, a developer evangelist at Twilio and developer who built early Twitter apps for Glass.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they went with the Google Play Store," he said.

Brandyn White, a 27-year-old Glass developer and self-described lifelong computer hacker who founded a consulting company that specializes in how computers interpret the world through camera lenses called Dapper Vision, has been working with Google and on his own to build the kind of better apps that Gottfried described.

"As the device gets more personal, it's less about killer apps, and more about the personally awesome app."
--Brandyn White, Google Glass developer

White has focused his attention on how Glass can be used to help the visually impaired.

"For me, the most important thing is context. Take a grocery list," said White, who's also earning his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Maryland. "Glass should recognize things at the supermarket," telling you when it sees something on your list without having to actually show the list to you.

"You want it to be a non-annoying friend; you want it to add value," he said. Glass needs more of those kind of apps, he said.

White cited apps like the translation app Word Lens pictured above, which are essentially interface-free interactions filtered from the real world through Glass to the person wearing it. Like its Android and iOS siblings, Word Lens on Glass replaces large font words on signs with words in your language. But it can't translate smaller print, even though its smartphone siblings can, because the Google Glass camera doesn't zoom in enough.

It's likely that current Google Glass hardware is more of a prototype than what consumers will get sometime in 2014, when Google has said Glass will be available to purchase. Think of it as the original Chromebook prototype, or the Nexus line of Android devices: It's a hardware guideline for the final product.

Nevertheless, White said that the hardware is perfectly usable in its current state. "The hardware team has everything figured out," he said. "The software is so much harder. [The Glass software team] has to think long-term, and legacy with Android."

White said that "80 percent" of Glass code is taken straight from Android.

Glass developers left to fend for themselves
He added that the GDK is not inadequate for developers, but that it could offer so much more. That, White said, is where Glass developers are taking the lead over Google's own team.