With surprisingly little fanfare, Google has gone ahead and opened up Google Glass sales to anyone and everyone in the US, indefinitely. If you’ve got $1,500 and the desire, Google is down to sell you a pair of robo-glasses until they run out of stock.
But before we go and call this the “public launch” of Google Glass, note that Google still refers to this as part of the “Explorer Program”. In other words: this is still a test project, and Google seemingly still isn’t 100% sold on keeping Glass around.
To quote’em directly:
We’re still in the Explorer Program while we continue to improve our hardware and software, but starting today anyone in the US can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand:
Note that veeeery last sentence. “As long as we have it on hand” seems like a way for Google to comfortably seat themselves right atop the fence, saying “we may very well not make any more of these. Unless we do.”
For most of Glass’ lifespan, being able to snag a pair of Google’s robo-lenses required either being invited into the program by Google or having a friend kickdown an invite. A few weeks back, however, Google briefly opened up sales of Glass to the public for one day — now, it seems, they want to see how Glass sells if it’s first-come, first-serve, sans time limits.
If you find yourself smack dab in that venn diagram overlap between “Wants Glass” and “Still hasn’t managed to get Glass”, now’s your time.
