It seems like it's aiming to be a laptop replacement. Wearing it outside would probably be the equivalent of walking down the street holding a laptop in front of you.
I think people are vastly underestimating how cool it will look. Will people mock you? Some people, surely. Will it look futuristic af to others? I’d say yes.
And it’s AR, so the laptop comparison doesn’t work on that level too. Superimposed directions, reviews, tourist annotations, and goofy shit like FaceTiming your holographic family or playing geolocation games seem like reason enough for a small minority of users to happily take them out onto the streets. Kinda moot for most Americans anyway, who don’t have walkable streets to take them out on.
It just occurred to me that we’ll have to litigate whether this is acceptable to wear while driving… damn screw the rest of my comment, now I’m super curious how that is gonna turn out
The question of whether it's cool or unbearably dorky really has way less to do with any objective quality about it and more to do with uptake. If Apple mostly establishes themselves in the existing VR market (i.e. mostly a niche gaming device, with very scant general purpose use by an extremely small group of nerdy folks) it will be unbearably dorky regardless of how it looks objectively. If it's somewhat popular, even if (maybe even especially if) it's only popular among well-off people, then it will be considered cool.
Good points! Though I have to wonder... does "dorky" even really exist anymore in (my PoV) American culture? Maybe it does and I just don't run into people who think like that since graduating high school.
I'd personally describe the failure case, culture wise, as closer to "creepy" or "dystopian" or "out of touch/rich". I haven't looked into their materials too much, but hopefully it's super obvious if one of the many cameras on this thing is recording. Deep down I have a strong need to think Google Glass served some purpose, did some good, was not just a shudder in the cosmos to bring false hope to the few... I still want to believe.
