January 30, 2014
The Google Glass Titanium Collection proves that Mountain View’s increasingly elegant design prowess translates well into the physical world. Where Glass rev. one smacked of cybernetic headgear Titanium’s “silhouette” aesthetic comes across as...

The Google Glass Titanium Collection proves that Mountain View’s increasingly elegant design prowess translates well into the physical world. Where Glass rev. one smacked of cybernetic headgear Titanium’s “silhouette” aesthetic comes across as sophisticated, if a bit restrained.

The Titanium Collection marks Google’s gradual reorientation of Glass towards mainstream consumers. They look like glasses you’d expect to find browsing through Warby Parker, and what’s more—they accommodate prescription lenses.

Google’s made Glass that much more human with these new frames, but I don’t think that they’ve done enough to make Glass desirable.

Google’s newest ad for the Titanium Collection is a stylish concept fantasy that attempts to answer the question: what do you do with Glass? You go fabric shopping with it, obviously. Also dancing.

Beneath quick cuts of attractive, creative-types being creatively attractive, the ads hints that Google still doesn’t quite know what to tell regular people about Glass. Glass Explorers  don’t need much convincing on Glass’s usefulness or whether the Titanium Collection frames are worth $225 a pop, but what about everyone else?

Glass is due for a wider consumer release sometime later this year, presumably at a more market-friendly price, and a more concrete ideas as to why normal folks should buy it. Pandering to the elite has never been how Google feeds its data addiction, but it’s got a ways to go before it can turn Glass into an info-mining accessory for the everyman.