As announced earlier, Google Glass will be on for a one-day sale today with the much awaited Android KitKat called as XE16 update to be rolled out soon along with a slew of other features but video calling is held back.
The Android 4.4 KitKat gives users the advantage of longer battery life and developers the ability to build apps using the Android SDK besides the Glass SDK. Though the regular Glass updates were held back in March, Google has come up with thoughtful move by rolling out Android KitKat.
After some of its features received a cold welcome, Google is gradually killing those features, as a result of which video calling is going to be disabled.
The company has noted in its Google+ post, “We hold ourselves to high standards for the features that we build, and video calls aren’t living up to these standards. Explorers have told us so directly, and fewer than 10% of them use video calls”
The post also says that the feature will come back when the experience gets better.
The other new features include Photo Bundles which organizes photos, videos and other posts in bundles where you can see all of them in a single place on the timeline; Photo Replies which allows users to reply to conversations with a photo; and more.
Google has noted “Photo sharing has been really popular amongst our Explorers” which explains why there are new ways of photo sharing being introduced. There’s also an easy way to send general feedback about Glass to Google.
The company has made it easy to access the most used voice commands by sorting the commands based on the frequency of use so that users can find the commands faster from the touch menu.
The Glass will have the same price tag of $1500 as it had when it was sold last year, this time open to anyone over 18 who wants to be a Glass Explorer.
