We tried Microsoft HoloLens: This is going to be much bigger than Google Glass
We just tried the company's new hologram gadget HoloLens. — It was a demonstration that was equal parts really awesome and really weird. — We were struck right away by how different this device is from Google Glass.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft has been building toward this moment all year: in January it unveiled the Windows Holographic interface and HoloLens headset, followed quickly by Wired's first hands-on with the holographic goggles. This Business Insider try is the second wave of press access, and its framing matters — reviewers are explicitly measuring HoloLens against Google Glass rather than treating it as a curiosity.
The comparison cuts both ways: the same month, TechCrunch showed how early it still is by building an actual app on the headset, and a year later Ars Technica's verdict was that the device is amazing but now needs great software to go with it — the gap between impressive demos and shipped use cases is the story's through-line.
First-order effects
- Microsoft gets the press narrative it wants out of the demo tour: HoloLens positioned as a full augmented-reality computer, categorically different from Google Glass's notification eyewear, which lowers the bar it must clear in buyers' minds.
Second-order effects
- Google inherits an unfavorable benchmark — every subsequent HoloLens write-up uses Glass as the cautionary foil, forcing Google's wearable effort to be judged against hardware that does far more.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, AR headsets will be won or lost on the software ecosystem rather than the optics: Ars Technica's follow-up that the hardware 'now needs great software' previews the industry's recurring failure mode of shipping impressive headsets without killer apps.
The trend: Augmented reality is moving from novelty wearables toward full holographic computing platforms, where the decisive battleground shifts from hardware demos to the developer software layer.