TheGlassLog: Twitter for #Glass needs work: I am mostly seeing Tweets from @WarrenEllis (and like 3 other people)

So, yeah, for some reason, when I have the Twitter service for Glass enabled, I get Tweets posted by just a handful of people. For some stranger reason, most of the tweets I get are from British comic book writer Warren Ellis. Having his Tweets delivered to my eyeball can be a mixed blessing. >_<</p>

So, there are two Twitter services* for Glass. One is officially sanctioned and visible on each Glass-user’s myglass page on Google. Then, there is an unofficial service you can use called “Social Sharing for Glass” from Jon Gottfried. Though, I think it used to be called “GlassTweet” but was changed due to Google demanding no one use “Glass” in the title of their product. Regardless, neither Gottfried’s nor the officially sanctioned service work very well. This may not be the fault of the devs, but the limitations of the current Glass OS. I’m coming at this from a user’s perspective, so I can’t comment on what is definitely going on behind the scenes.



Please read/skip to the end if you just want a way to Tweet from Glass.

OPTION #1: The Officially Sanctioned Twitter for Glass

This is the card you’ll find after enabling the officially sanctioned Twitter for Glass service.

All you have to do to try this out is go to your myglass page and enable the service. In anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or so, you’ll start seeing tweets pop up in on your bookshelf (aka your stream*). But here’s the first problem I ran into with the official Twitter service. I don’t get every tweet in my Twitterstream. I get tweets from just a handful of people and most of the tweets I get are from writer Warren Ellis.

See above right, for what a Tweet from Warren Ellis looks like.

The thing about mostly getting Warren Ellis’ Tweets delivered to my eyeball is that I also get his retweets. These can be as colorful as Ellis’ own Tweets. Again, a mixed blessing when we’re talking eyeball-based delivery.

I don’t understand what the official service is doing so, I don’t understand why it’s only grabbing from a handful of people I follow. I don’t know if this works this way for everyone, or what. I’m just explaining that this is what happens with me.

Now, if you want to post a photo to Twitter, you can do that. But if you want to say anything with it, you’re out of luck. For some reason, I can’t get the caption to stick. The way you share a photo is simple. You swipe to the photo on your bookshelf. Tap the touchpad once and you’ll see a “share” graphic appear over the photo. Tap the touchpad again and you’ll see your share cards–these are all the circles on Google+ or services elsewhere you can share your photo with. Swipe forward until you see the above Twitter card and tap. Before you tap, decide if you want to include a caption. This is because once you tap the Twitter card, you’ll have seconds to tap again if you want the opportunity to speak your caption. Once you do tap again, you’ll see the mic icon appear. Once you do, start speaking. Not that it will matter since the caption won’t be included when it reaches your Twitter stream. At least, it never is when I do it.

I should also mention that any mentions of you (aka @ replies) and DMs (Direct Messages) do arrive on your bookshelf/in your stream just fine. That is, unless the sender types in an Asian alphabet. SIGH.

Apparently, Glass (or some network in between Glass and Twitter) doesn’t support Asian characters. This is a serious bummer since I’m a huge Japanophile and have been studying Japanese for quite a few years.

OPTION #2: Jon Gottfried’s Social Sharing for Glass

This is the card you’ll see once you enable the “Social Sharing for Glass” service.

I found this service where I have found most of the services I use, via glass-apps.org, which is a directory of Glass Apps. The only directory of Glass Apps that I know of. I’d love to hear about others as the blog attached to this directory isn’t super active leading me to believe that the directory may not be updated promptly.

Now, Social Sharing for Glass doesn’t deliver tweets to you but does allow you to post tweets. Unfortunately, I’ve not much to say about this service as it has the same problems as the official client. Photos make it to Twitter, but captions don’t.

I think this is because Google has included the code to allow caption-recording/transcribing but both Twitter services don’t utilize that code.

Getting Tweets on Glass Without using a Twitter Service

There’s a private “Glass-owners-only” forum, in which I found a really obvious solution for the problem of getting your Tweets on Glass–that is to go into your Twitter settings and then into the “Mobile” section and enter your cell phone number. This has to be the cell phone number of the Android phone you’ve linked Glass to. My understanding is that you then have to activate mobile notifications for each individual Twitter user from whom you’d like to get tweets texted to you. This sounds like a lot of work to me, but I’m a freak and follow way too many people.

Tweeting from Glass Without using a Twitter Service

There are two ways to post Tweets and both require you to create a recipe on the automation website IFTTT.com.

First, you can “install” the non-Google-sanctioned Blogger service for Glass by Christopher Bartholomew which you can get from myglassapps.org. Once enabled, you will find a Blogger card on your bookshelf.

This is the card you’ll see after you enable the Blogger service for Glass. I see a name change in its future, too.

Tap it once and swipe forward until you see the word “pin”.

Tap the touchpad. This will make this card permanently available on the other side of the home screen when you swipe. To access it, just go to the home screen and swipe backward (or “eye-to-ear” as the Google fitting people explain). Then tap the card and tap again when you see the word “Reply” appear. Then speak your tweet. You’re not technically replying to anything, it’s just easier for the dev to create a service that uses the existing code already in Glass’ OS. It treats your “reply” like a new message and posts it to your Blogger blog. The words you’ve just spoken will be in the body of the Blogger post. You will get a confirmation card from the Blogger service. If you want your spoken tweet to be a proper post your Blogger blog, then you can tap this card and tap again once you see “reply” appear. From there, you speak your post title.

Before doing all that, log into IFTTT.com and create a recipe that will look for new posts on your Blogger blog and then cross post them to Twitter. You’ll need to make sure that the recipe pastes the body of the post into the Tweet and not the title of the post.

The Glass Feed card–your usericon should hopefully vary

Second, there is the Glass Feed service (not to be mistaken with the Glass Feeds service, which is something different). Glass Feed, from Arthur van Hoff, is kind of ingenious. It creates a feed out of what ever you share with it. In fact, you set it up the exact same way you set up the Blogger service (minus the extra step of being able to add a title to the RSS feed item–the caption you speak becomes the title). You also have to finish by logging into IFTTTT.com and creating a recipe. This time, however it has to look for new entries in the RSS feed address you will get when you sign up with the Glass Feed service.

And voila. As of early August, 2013, this is how you get and send Tweets from and to Glass.

I have just discovered Friends+Me but have not had a chance to try it out yet. It promises to “share Google+ to anywhere.” Not quite. Look past their slogan and it’s easy to discover that they will only allow you to cross post to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. That’s hardly “anywhere” but it will get the job done if you don’t mind posting to G+ first.

*Please remember, I don’t refer to Glass “apps” but call them services, instead. Unless I am referring to what are called “native apps,” which are installed and run locally, on Glass, itself. I have not written about native apps, just yet. What Google is calling an “app” runs on a server someplace. I also refer to a “bookshelf” rather than calling it a “stream” when I refer to where you find all of your content on Glass. Read more here.

Thanks so much for reading TheGlassLog at thepete.com! Next time I’ll be writing about the terrible New York Times service for Glass! Read past posts in TheGlassLog!

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