What Will Google Glass 2.0 Need To Actually Succeed?

Nerval's Lobster writes As previously rumored, Google has discontinued selling Google Glass, its augmented-reality headset... but it could be coming out with something new and (supposedly) improved. The company has placed a relentlessly positive spin on its decision: "Glass was in its infancy, and you took those very first steps and taught us how to walk," reads a posting on the Google+ page for Glass. "Well, we still have some work to do, but now we're ready to put on our big kid shoes and learn how to run." Formerly a project of the Google X research lab, Glass will now be overseen by Tony Fadell, the CEO of Google subsidiary (and Internet of Things darling) Nest; more than a few Glass users are unhappy with Google's decision. If Google's move indeed represents a quiet period before a relaunch, rather than an outright killing of the product, what can it do to ensure that Glass's second iteration proves more of a success? Besides costing less (the original Glass retailed for $1,500 from Google's online storefront), Google might want to focus on the GoPro audience, or simply explain to consumers why they actually need a pair of glasses with an embedded screen. What else could they do to make Glass 2.0 (whatever it looks like) succeed?

Comments

Observations from being a glass explorer.

[Darth Muffin]

My wife was a glass "explorer" and bought one, so I've got to try it some and watched her use it. Problems that I see are:
- Poor battery life
- Slow processor (what people really want to do with this is like augmented reality, and it's not quite got the horsepower)
- Lack of any apps that do something useful to most people that you can't do with a standard android device (just a gimmick at this point).
- Small and low-res screen, can't fit much useful info on it.
- Fragile

Honestly, the dorky looks and people freaking out because of privacy issues weren't an issue that we saw.
Most of the "explorers" are pretty mad that they spent $1500 to be abandoned. Google should at least offer a seriously discounted trade-up to the release model for them, but there is no talk of that. I doubt most explorers will buy it again.