Google plants a new walled garden with Glassware

Google plants a new walled garden with Glassware

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If you're a big fan of the (mostly) open Android experience, watch closely as Google does the exact opposite with their new Glassware review program.

Google Glass requires a cautious approach. You've got a limited display area with a limited resolution, and there's only so much information the user can handle in short bursts. Google knows that the key to providing a great Glass experience is to control the ecosystem, and the only way to do that is to control what developers are allowed to display with their Glassware apps. This creates a unique situation that is very good for users, but very bad for developers.

The review process for Mirror API-based Glassware was opened up this week. This is different from the native Glassware apps that are coming with the Glass XE10 update later this month. These are apps written within the original guidelines Google set when Glass was launched to the explorer program. To recap, Mirror API apps are mostly call-and-response or data delivery services. If you want something that delivers the score of your favorite sports team or if you want a heads-up display for your favorite recipe while you work in the kitchen, Mirror API is great. Mirror is very simple, very clean, and incredibly easy to use.

There have been several apps in trial phases that we've seen become unofficially available, but starting today Google has created a review process where these apps will be officially installable through MyGlass. This review process includes a stringent set of rules regarding the kind of content shown and how many API calls you can make in a given period. For example, Google has banned displaying ads or profiting in any way from displaying information through Glass. If you're developing a Mirror API-based Glassware app, you're doing so for free - at least for now.

Google also has some rules regarding how you display your content. We've already seen the company ban one app for displaying porn, but that's another issue entirely. Google's launch checklist includes a number of best practices for formatting, but also warnings to use images instead of text wherever possible and limits on how web-based control panels should be set up for apps.

Essentially, Mirror API-based Glassware will all look and work the same, just with different content as you choose to have it shown to you.

In order to have a Mirror API-based Glassware app that people can install, you must follow these rules. You submit your app to the team through a webform, and await feedback from the developer team. If the team needs you to make changes to your app, you can either make them and bend your app to their specifications or you can move on. Google is the gatekeeper, in a way that they have never been for the immensely successful Google Play Store. It's not hard to imagine that such stringent policies will also exist for the native Glassware, but only time will tell how true that actually is.

Now read: The best Google Glass apps

news by October 04, 2013 at 11:12PM