Google reportedly won’t release the next version of Glass until it’s ‘perfect’

Google has said repeatedly since the company graduated the project out of Google[x] that new iterations of Glass will indeed be coming at some point in the future, and that the team behind the wearable display device is still “committed to Glass.” But how is Google going to approach the product going forward?

According to an adviser to Tony Fadell (the previous Apple product executive who now oversees the project), the device is not going to get the same public experimentation treatment that the first version did, and Fadell won’t be releasing the next version of Glass until it’s “perfect.”

The news comes via a story from The New York Times, in which Nick Bilton does a great job of clarifying what Google intended the Glass project to look like, and how the release and marketing of the product didn’t exactly go as planned.

“Several people” familiar with Google’s plans say that Fadell intends on completely redesigning the product:

Several people with knowledge of Mr. Fadell’s plans for Glass said he was going to redesign the product from scratch and would not release it until it was complete. “There will be no public experimentation,” one adviser to Mr. Fadell said. “Tony is a product guy and he’s not going to release something until it’s perfect.”

While many seem to believe that the killing off of the Explorer program meant the end of Glass, it appears that Google is going to give the product at least one more chance under Fadell. As Google CFO Patrick Pichette said in the company’s Q4 earnings call, the Glass team simply ‘missed hurdles’ and needed a fresh strategy. Completely ditching public experimentation and not showing off the device until it’s actually ready for the public is a pretty drastic change of direction.

What I want to know is this: How will Google know when Glass is “perfect”?

In case you missed them, be sure to check our recent pair of posts covering the current state of Glass:

• Don’t believe the unbelievers; Google Glass is alive and well
• Don’t believe the unbelievers (Part 2); Google Glass has succeeded through Glass at Work

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