Contrasting Scenarios in Google Glass Forecast
June 18, 2013
A report from services firm IHS conjures up a number best served with a grain of salt. Electronic engineering site EE Times reports, “Spurred by Google Glass, IHS Forecasts Nearly 10 Million Smart Glasses to Ship from 2012 to 2016.” The forecast looks past the public-availability launch, expected next year, and predicts the device’s trajectory after that.
Quite simply, it all depends on third-party apps. A number of developers have already paid $1,500 for the privilege of early ownership, and early tinkering. Perhaps developers will quickly create a wealth of exciting augmented-reality apps, driving a surge in popularity for the device. Perhaps these apps will change the way we interact with the world forever, and our Glasses will eventually become as essential as our smartphones are now. The rosiest numbers in the report spring from that direction.
There are other possibilities, however. Writer Julien Happich shares the predictions’ duller side:
“Under a more pessimistic scenario, IHS forecasts that only about 1 million smart glasses will be shipped through 2016. According to this outlook, applications for smart glasses will be limited to some of those already displayed by Google in its Glass marketing. These include scenarios where smart glasses become more of a wearable camera device than a true augmented reality system. In this case, smart glasses will be mainly used for recording sports and other non-casual events, like jumping out of a plane, as demonstrated at the Google I/O developer conference in 2012.”
At over $200 million in 2012, the wearable-camera market is nothing to sneeze at, but it is far from the multi-billion-dollar arena Google is after here. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between. The future of Glass is in the apps; we’ll just have to wait and see what developers come up with.
Cynthia Murrell, June 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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