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The AirFoil Speaker app has existed for ages but the direct AirTunes connection that Apple appear to have a problem with was only added a month ago. It seems much more likely that it took a month for Apple to notice that it had slipped through than this is evidence of Apple clearing the decks before an iOS release.

If you stay in Metro then loads of functionality is missing that’s taken for granted on a desktop OS. That wouldn’t be a huge problem except that MS appear to be pushing Metro as the one, true way for software development. That’s a distinctly worrying trend.

Agreed, Metro maybe a good alternative to iOS/Android but it sure as hell isn’t a replacement for the desktop UI.

Got to disagree, I see very few people actually walking around wearing bluetooth headsets. Plenty of people use them in cars where they serve a purpose but I think most of the mainstream still think it’s a bit weird to wear them in other places.

I need to get a life because I don’t want a wall of tinted glass between me and the person I’m talking to? That’s ridiculous!

I’d think most people would notice the difference between someone just holding a phone and actively pointing it at someone or something. If the camera is built into glasses there would be no way to tell the difference.

I wasn’t talking about now the technology works, I was talking about constantly getting messages coming in distracts people from the conversation they’re actually having in real life. When I’m talking with someone I want their attention to be focused on me and not split between our conversation and whatever messages they’ve got coming in via email, Facebook, Twitter or whatever. With phones the problem is rather self-limiting because it’s blatantly obvious but with Google Glasses people would just appear constantly distracted.

To an extent yes; if I’m going to have a real, in-depth conversation with someone seeing their eyes is essential.

Got to agree, the philosophy behind Metro is very similar to the philosophy behind the iPad and iOS. Radically simplifed UIs, full-screen only, restricted multitasking, OS quiting of apps and so on are all part of iOS’s playbook. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that Metro is any more advanced than iOS or Android.

My bet is slowly if we’re talking about the mainstream. It’s one thing to be interested enough to watch a video about them, it’s a very different thing to actually buy them and wear them out in public. I think the sheer geek factor is going to put a lot of people off.

What they really need is a “killer app”, something that has widespread appeal that can’t be done any other way. So far I haven’t seen that in Google’s demos. Messaging, navigation and occasional AR can all be done well enough on smartphones that I doubt many people are going to want the glasses.

Good point, if it’s social unacceptable to keep pulling out your phone to check your messages how is getting them delivered to your glasses any different.

That’s just not true, two thumb typing works fine for me and I’ve got average size man’s hands.

Would you prefer “display that has imperceptible pixels at a normal viewing distance”? To me “Retina Display” is just a shorthand for that definition and I’m quite happy to call other displays retina (eg. 720p smartphones and 40" 1080p TVs).

I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned landscape use yet as it seemed like the biggest argument against simply making the screen longer. It’ll be interesting to see what Apple comes up with. I can’t see them stretching the landscape keyboard horizontally so maybe it won’t cover the full width of the screen.

To be fair, when Apple reverses course they often do it in such a way that they workaround the problems that they were concerned about. For example when they introduced third-party multitasking they did it in a way that addressed the concerns about battery life that they had stated previously.

The 9to5 Mac article has a mockup comparing the current and rumoured longer display and the longer display looks fine to me.

I don’t think the “home row” or notifications bar are important enough to be on screen all the time. I want the apps to make use of the extra space themselves and that means there is going to be a transition period while apps are updated. During the transition period it makes a lot more sense to me to use black bars than to put something on screen that you then need to take away once apps are updated.

The article says 3.95" not 4" which comes out to 330ppi. This probably means that the display is staying exactly the same as the existing Retina display and is just getting longer.

Exactly what I was thinking! 5 rows of icons on screen is a lot of stuff packed into a relatively small space. They could well take the iPad approach of spreading the icons out a bit more.