Google will only sell Glass in the US for the next few years

Sep 20, 2013 18:01 GMT  ·  By

Google is planning to launch Glass for the general public sometime next year. For now, the device is still very expensive and only meant for developers and a few other people, picked by Google. But even if the company will start selling Glass in the US next year, at a reasonable price, it won't be coming to anywhere outside of the US anytime soon.

Any expansion is years away, Google argues. It has a good reason for it too, as Glass relies heavily on voice recognition and commands.

The quality of the input method is perhaps the most important part of any computer. That's why keyboards and mice haven't changed in decades and that's why touchscreen devices took off only when touch input became fast and reliable enough.

But Google's voice recognition system can only handle US English at a reasonable level and, until the quality of the voice recognition for other languages matches the one for English, Google won't launch Glass for those languages.

The decision makes sense, but it may be a mistake. Because, if Glass catches on, there will be many, many imitators. None of them will be as good as Glass, at first, but it won't matter.

Just as Google proved with Android, it doesn't matter if you're first or even if you're better. It matters that you are available. The iPhone, along with iOS, created the modern smartphone. It took years for Google and other phone makers to catch up, and some Apple purists would argue that Android still hasn't caught up.

But the fact that they were getting a phone that wasn't as good as the iPhone with an operating system that wasn't as polished as iOS didn't matter to most people who couldn't afford an iPhone anyway. Google Glass isn't exactly in the same position, but things could play out similarly. If there is a need for a wearable computer and Google won't fulfill it, others will put out Glass clones that aren't as good but which will sell well nonetheless.