Google Glass Kit Kat update arrives ahead of tomorrow's big sale, but removes video calling
Still need a push to drop $1,500 on Google's Glass headset when they go on sale to all US residents tomorrow? After skipping a couple of months, the team behind it is pushing a big software update …
Context & Ripple Effects
After roughly five months of developer-only access following Google's November 2013 invitation to developers, Glass is about to reach ordinary buyers: Google announced on April 10 that it would sell the headset to any US resident for $1,500 in a limited-time window opening April 15 (the limited-time US sale). The story was picked up broadly the same day — TechCrunch, CNET, 9to5Google, SlashGear and The Next Web all ran it — so the update's timing landed squarely in the pre-sale news cycle.
The Kit Kat push matters because of what it takes away rather than adds: video calling is being stripped out at the exact moment Google widens the buyer pool. Shipping a feature removal hours before a consumer-facing sale reads as a team still pruning the product's core promise while charging full price.
First-order effects
- Buyers paying $1,500 when the sale opens April 15 get a headset without video calling, one of the functions most associated with the device's demo reel.
- Existing Glass owners lose the video calling feature immediately under the same update, before any new hardware or pricing tier exists to offset it.
Second-order effects
- Prospective buyers weighing the $1,500 price against a shrinking feature set have less reason to buy now rather than wait, which pressures Google to justify the cost through software cadence alone.
- Developers who built experiences around Glass video calling see their work orphaned by the removal, raising the bar for what Google must promise third parties to keep the Explorer-era developer base engaged.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, consumer wearables will mature through rolling updates and feature retractions rather than finished launches — meaning early adopters effectively fund an ongoing beta, and 'launch' becomes a marketing event detached from product completeness.
- A consumer market priced at four figures but served by pruned software invites scrutiny of whether head-worn devices can sustain mainstream demand, pushing vendors toward narrower professional use cases where specific features justify the cost.
The trend: Consumer wearables are reaching buyers through staged invite-to-open-sale rollouts in which over-the-air updates, not launch day, determine what the product actually does.