With a whirlwind of announcements at its Google I/O developers conference this week, Google's vast suite of social products is finally starting to look like it was created by a single company and not cobbled together via a series of haphazard acquisitions. Here are the highlights of what's changed:

Hangouts: Google Messaging, Unmessy At Last

According to a statement from Nikhyl Singhal, Google's head honcho of real-time communications, Google Voice will be folded into Hangouts too (Yay!), though there's no word on when.

Google+ Gets A Lot Of Love

Messaging may have been the messiest area of Google's social services, but Google+ is the big umbrella that covers them all. Amidst the company's epic 3-hour-plus Google I/O keynote yesterday, Google+ guru Vic Gundotra announced approximately one million updates to Google+, the social network that the company launched two years ago. Okay, he pegged the number at 41… but that's almost a million.

The updates are extensive. As a regular Google+ user, it's actually difficult to get a sense for what changed, since the redesign looks and feels right in stride with Google's recent overall changes in user interfaces that runs from Google+ to Google Glass to Google Now and Android. So here's a list of some of the most notable of the 41 updates:

• A multi-column layout. This can be toggled off, if you're still into the Blogger single-column-era.
• Photos and videos get even bigger. Google is really into making media massive - and we would be too if the average person knew how to share properly high-res photos.
• New animations. Things are flipping and sliding all over the place in there.
• A third dimension. You can scroll up and down through your social stream, but Google wants you to be able to scroll in too. Now you can take a deeper dive on a given Google+ post -or is it a Card? I think we're suppose to call everything Cards now -- via related hashtags, which will lead you to more content of interest. It will also take you further down the Google+ rabbit hole, of course.
• Lots of treats for photographers. Google+ has a thriving community of awesome photogs, and Google is keen to do right by them. Photos in Google+ now have all sorts of cool bells and whistles. A few I'm particularly stoked about include "auto highlight," which de-emphasizes duplicate and blurry pics, automatically picking the best shot out of a batch. I've yet to test this extensively, but since I have a habit of bracketing (taking multiple shots at different exposures) - even on my phone - choosing the best photo of a set can be a major timesuck. This feature could help there. Another feature, "Auto Awesome," can stitch together shots in a series to make a playful Photobooth-esque picture or even a Vine-like animated gif.

For a full breakdown of Google's social updates, hit the company's official blog post or just cruise around in Google+ for a while. The  the social network has been the butt of many a joke over the last few years, and we're happy to see Google take the time to spruce things up a little.

 

Photos by Nick Statt for ReadWrite. 

I am a pioneer (ahem, Explorer) tasked with testing the developer edition of Google Glass, arguably technology's biggest quantum leap forward since the advent of the tablet. The start of Google I/O today will no doubt bring a critical mass of Glass wearers into San Francisco, making its social implications more relevant than ever — especially come happy hour.

But since hardware benchmarks, unboxings and rigorous teardowns are so 2012, I to set out to review Google Glass with one noble (if amorous) goal. I wanted to wear the device on a full-fledged, real-life, real-stakes date and see what happened. 

This is that story.

Glasshole examined

Whose Idea Was This, Anyway?

Sure, a romantic evening on the town wearing a Star Trek-remixed smartphone on your face might ward off your average weirdo, but I like to live well beyond the doldrums of social custom. Which is to say that my editors suggested the idea and I blame them for everything. They may have been joking - I'm not actually sure. Everything began innocently enough on our weekly over-caffeinated Skype call. The rest is history, especially the bivalves. 

This is how it goes: I propose that a cute girl of interest (her name is Rebecca) accompany me to dinner and drinks... and mention my one wearable, Bluetooth-enabled caveat. As it turns out, she's game for the experiment, curious about Google Glass and accepts my invite. Cue nerd panic.

Google Glass On The Half-Shell

My frantic pre-date self pep-talk logic goes like this:

• Glass is more interesting than it is obnoxious.
• My natural charm, good looks and modesty will provide a diversion.
• Working theory: Glass will actually prove less obtrusive than a smartphone in a social setting.
• Okay maybe in a distinct minority, but I think Glass looks super rad. 
• Date has some warning and is partially familiar with Glass. Date has expressed positive possible romantic interest in prior social scenarios sans Glass.

Oysters, not through Glass

Pre-date risks, social, romantic and otherwise:

• I own the only Google Glass in Portland (at the time of shipping, anyway). Here, it makes for a lot of awkward, enthusiastic and inescapable extended social interactions.
• Date is a suspected technophobe.
• Date could take privacy concerns very seriously and literally flip table, walk out of restaurant.
• Date may think I am surreptitiously taking photographs of her (true) and get creeped out.
• Normal date risks (bad hair days, epic failure) amplified by social risk of full documentation via Internet.

A Date With A Glasshole, Documented In Realtime

For dinner, we agreed on an authentic cajun place/oyster bar in North Portland with stiff drinks and plenty of exits.

Paying really close attention

Taylor: Do you generally like technology? How do you use your mobile devices?
Rebecca: Sure, I like technology. That said, I'm not crazy in love with it. I do use my iPhone 5 almost constantly. I listen to podcasts and stream music all day at work. I text up a storm every 15 minutes... at least. I check my email, Instagram and Facebook every hour or so.

T: What's the first you heard about this whole Google Glass thing?
R: I first heard about it about five months ago. I thought it would be a great for people who need to be available all of the time for work. But I knew it [wasn't] for me.

T: So what do you do for work? 
R: I am a vintage dealer and leather craftsman.
T: That's pretty old school. You make like... non-virtual 3D objects? Whoa.

T: Were you nervous at all when I told you that we were going on a formal "date" with me wearing Glass and I was going to write a story about it?
R: I wouldn't say nervous. A little apprehensive, but overall excited and curious.
T: A lot of people probably would have been weirded out. If I wasn't already a major weirdo, I would have been weirded out. Cheers to that!

A toast #throughglass

#Glassgumbo

The Full-Disclosure Glasshole Date Debrief

A day after the date, I check in to see how she thinks things went. You know, for the story. At some point she called Glass a "breakup-inducing cyborg face device," so I was a little nervous about this part, I admit.

T: So, like, why did you agree to do that? Was it weird?
R: It was kind of weird. But the face that Glass was attached to is so damn charming. And it was promising oysters and tequila. Who could resist?

T: Fair enough. Flattery will get you everywhere.
R: I was also curious to see the general public's first reaction to it. People looked for any excuse to come up and talk to you about it. It was the first thing our server asked us, remember? "I've gotta ask: What's up with that glass visor thing?" Everyone sitting near us was staring. You might as well have been wearing a huge squirrel costume.
T: Next time I will wear my huge squirrel costume. That's more of a date 2.0 thing, I think.

T: Squirrels aside, do you think there are rules around technology and date etiquette?
R: There are most definitely unspoken rules around dating and phones. And, yes, I tend to obliviously violate them.
T: Okay so maybe I got mad at you for texting back and forth with a friend while we waited for our entree. Was that hypocritical?
R: Well, yeah... at least a little. You were also on your Android phone too. We were both on our phones on that date - not just on Glass. I have pictures to prove it.
T: Oh. Er... my bad.

Oystahhhs

R: There are rules. No phones on fancy date night. It's a time to connect with a person that's important to you.
T: Oh, so you're saying that I'm important to you? The truth comes out! Maybe this was all a ruse to get you to say that you liked me?
R: [Possibly creeped-out silence]

T: So, uh, let's get down to brass tacks. Do you think Google Glass is going to turn us all into zombie cyborgs who don't care about other humans? There are apps for virtual kissing, you know.
R: I think Google Glass is going to turn the people who are already predisposed to being zombie cyborgs into zombie cyborgs. I think it's easy to own and use Glass with respect and class to the people around you. It really depends on the person wearing them.

T: What about how I used Glass during our date? Was it distracting or rude?
R: I thought you were super classy. You only talked to it (to send texts) when you needed to. And I love that you could take candid pictures of our experience, that part was great. But in the back of my mind I worried I didn't have your full attention.
T: You did... I swear!
R: But the fact of the matter is there was a thing on your face that also had that attention. I had trouble seeing my way around it, literally. A phone in a bag wouldn't get checked [until] the date is over. Not that mine was in a bag...

T: How much did you enjoy our landmark social experiment on a scale of 1 (total catastrophe) to 10 (impromptu marriage in Vegas)?
R: I'd give the outing a 7. I definitely wouldn't want you to wear it to my birthday dinner or anything. But it was a fun to see other people react to a thing that they really didn't understand... especially during Happy Hour.

T: So how did you think the end of the date went? Did Glass affect that?
R: You mean when I lifted Glass from your face and with one careful motion slid it into its specialty Japanese microfiber case with a hardshell bottom?
T: You had me at "microfiber".

T: So, um, do you want to get drinks this weekend?
R: I would love to go on another date with you. But will Glass be coming?

That Wasn't So Bad, Now Was It?

I have to admit: The world beyond Glass does have its perks.

All photos by Rebecca Barron and Taylor Hatmaker.

If there's one thing anyone who's worn Google's zany augmented-reality eyewear can agree on, it's that people are really curious about it.

I've been wearing Glass for about four days now, so I have a pretty solid grasp on the essentials of wearing and using it.

I've also gotten a perspective on navigating the strange new social waters that wearing on a computer on your face throws you into headlong. So let's start with the basics and work our way out.

Q: What is Google Glass?
Google Glass is a project born out of Google[x], the company's "moonshot lab" for top-secret projects. Announced formally last year at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Google Glass is a wearable computing device. It looks like a futuristic visor worn like eyeglasses and it mimics many functions of a smartphone.

Q: What can Glass do?
Right now, Glass can take photos and videos, get turn-by-turn directions, send and receive texts, make and receive calls, send and receive email, execute Google searches, and share photos and videos via Google+, Google's social network. With Google Now, a service that tries to predict things you might otherwise search for, Glass suggests nearby locations of interest (brunch spots, for example) and provides a weather forecast. Glass also has some additional capabilities through third-party apps known as "Glassware", and more of those are popping up every day.

Q: How did you get it?
I attended Google I/O 2012 as press, so I pre-ordered Google Glass then. And yes, I paid $1,500. What can I say? I'm a dyed-in-the-wool early adopter.

Q: What does it feel like?
Once you get used to it, not much. If you wear eyeglasses, it probably feels like that, but maybe even less obtrusive. I tend to forget Glass is there until it announces a new text or event with a quiet chime in my right ear.

Q: What does that sound like? Does everyone else hear the chime?
No, Glass uses a bone-conductive speaker technology, similar to some hearing aids, so only you hear it.

Q: What do you see?
The display on Glass appears above your right eye. It looks like a tiny translucent rectangular screen. In bright sun, the background is almost invisible but the rest of the time it has a grayish background when it isn't displaying content like photos and videos.

Q: How do you interact with Glass?
The right side of the device is touch-sensitive. You scroll through the interface by swiping a finger forward or back and tapping to select. A downward swipe dismisses whatever is on the screen. It works somewhat like a "Back" button in a browser. You can wake Glass up either by tapping once on the side or by nodding your head upward. You can navigate the interface through touch alone, but many actions require voice interaction as well. Commands beginning with "OK Glass" execute a series of core functions. And since there isn't any typing, any kind of reply (text, email, etc.) requires voice dictation.

Q: How good is the voice recognition?
Really good. Without ambient noise, my messages rarely have any crossed signals. (Glass even recognized the word "hella" in a text I sent on Sunday. Whoa.) Still, longer messages are ill-advised, because if you mess up you have to start over altogether.

Q: What other Glass apps are out there?
With the New York Times app for Glass, you'll see headlines pop up periodically and you can choose to have Glass read an excerpt of a story aloud. With the Path app, you can share photos beyond Google+ to your social network on Path. As announced at the SXSW 2013 conference in Austin, Texas, earlier this year, an Evernote app for taking notes and annotating photos is on the way soon. Beyond the Google-promoted apps for Glass, other developers have cooked up plenty of cool stuff, which can be found in "Glassware" directories. There are apps for reading Reddit, the news-discussion site, and for posting messages to Twitter.

Q: Can you really take pictures and video of people without them noticing?
Totally. There is a button that lets you snap a quick photo with Glass. From my experience, no one ever notices the gesture or hears the noise, which is louder in your ear than for anyone around you. People can see the Glass display light up, but that's the best warning they're going to get. You can also say "OK Glass, take a picture," which is a little more obvious.

Q: How does it get online?
Glass can connect to any Wi-Fi network or tether to a smartphone's mobile network via Bluetooth. It can't connect to 3G or 4G wireless networks except through a smartphone or mobile-hotspot device.

Q: How do people react?
Like you have a new puppy. Almost everyone I've encountered has asked me a million questions and wanted to wear it. Granted, I live in Portland, Oregon, where people are generally pretty open and chatty. Most people here have never seen Glass before in person and they're excited and curious.

Q: What software is Glass running?
Glass runs a very modified version of Android 4.0, Google's mobile operating system for smartphones and tablets. Unlike traditional Android, the user interface is all about "cards" which you can select and interact with, primarily by scrolling through them to the left or right.

Q: When can I get it?
Google has stated that it intends to get a non-developer version of Glass out to the public by the end of 2013 for less than $1,500.

Our starter Q&A covers the basics of Google Glass, but we're curious — what else are you dying to know?

After a nearly year-long wait, Google Glass #961 made it into my early-adopter open arms on Friday morning. I live in Portland, and while I could have flown down to the Bay Area for the full Glass indoctrination, I instead opted to go it alone and see what strange and serendipitous experiences might result for a lone technophile-turned-cyborg in the Pacific Northwest.

Here, that story begins — with an unboxing of course.

I ordered the "Cotton" color of Glass. At the time of ordering the bright blue and tangerine colors were sold out, but white was my first choice anyway. 

When it arrived, the black outer packaging was about to fall off... a bit disconcerting considering Glass is a $1500 device. 

"XE" Explorer Edition logo, for pre-orders from last year's Google I/O

Glass came with sparse instructions, but at least there were a few arrows.

The front of the device, and what you'll be looking through. 

The 5-megapixel, 720p camera sits on an adjustable arm.

Google Glass is surprisingly lightweight, even more so than I'd expected.

The device charges via a micro-USB, included in the box.

Google Glass uses bone conduction technology so that what the wearer hears is amplified considerably.

The black and white micro-USB and microfiber pouch (with a hard case bottom) were nice luxury touches. 

Glass packs 12 gigabytes of memory for all the photos and videos you'll be taking.

Looking through Glass really does feel like glancing up at a tiny TV screen. The image is reflected from the outside. 

Much more is on the way for our Google Glass coverage. After I finally got the thing on my face, I wore Glass for 48 hours straight (excepting a few moments and sleep of course — no Scoble-style showering here).

Let's just say that it's been a really interesting weekend. Google's evolution of the smartphone has surprised me more times than I can count, so stay tuned.

If you've got a lot of selfies, your tapping finger is in for a major workout. Today, Instagram pushed version 3.5 of its app to the iOS App Store and Google Play — and it's a big one for brands and users alike. 

Instagram 3.5 adds the ability to tag other Instagrammers in the photos you take. Unlike Facebook, where photo tagging has been routine for years, Instagram devotees have relied on a bare-bones system of @tags in the comments section below photos to give other users the heads-up that a given image is relevant to them.

I asked an Instagram rep if the new tagging feature is a play for making more money off mobile use — a revenue stream Facebook has square in its crosshairs. The company denies it: "At this time Instagram isn’t focused on monetization. [Instagram] rolled out this new feature because it was a missing piece to let people tell their stories... and to make it easier to add people and things to photos."

According to Instagram's business blog:

Photos of You also gives people a new way to explore photos of your business or brand. People can now add their favorite band to their concert photos from last night, the clothing brand they’re currently wearing or the coffee roaster who brews their morning cup of coffee. As a business or brand, Photos of You gives you a new way to curate and share the photos that best showcase your brand your brand[sic] as documented by your biggest fans.

Instagram's Biggest Update In, Well, As Long As We Can Remember 

Instagram hasn't made many major overhauls to its winning formula since launching in October 2010. Over the course of the last year, the app has trickled in a few new photo filters, a map view and a web interface, but not too much has changed — even after the great Instagram ToS debacle of last December.

Considering the level of loyalty that the company enjoys — particularly when compared to peers like its oft-disdained parent company — not tinkering with its recipe is smart. But, happily, so is this update.

Since version 3.5 was a simultaneous launch across platforms, Android and iPhone users eager to get their tag on can download the new app now. Update 3.5 also boasts improvements to image quality for photos uploaded on Android 4.0 and above (a relief for any Instagrammers who wonder why those Android photos never look quite right). 

Once you've got it downloaded, a pop-up will point to the new section, which lives on the far-right profile button (click the little image that looks like a driver's license).

In the profile view, you'll be greeted with a very Facebook-like silhouette of a person, again on the far right. This "photos of you" section compiles exactly that, though it will remain private until May 16 to give you time to pick your best selfie angles and curate accordingly. 

Why Brands Should Be Taking Notes

While other recent feature tweaks haven't shaken things up too much for Instagram, version 3.5 has all the trappings of a game-changer. Users will be pleased to have photos taken of them heaped into one neat little memory pile, while brands should be thrilled with their higher visibility on the young advertising platform. With photo tagging enabled, Instagram's platform should provide some unique perspectives on brand reach and the demographics of who is engaging and why. 

Plenty of brands have launched heavy-handed hashtag campaigns in an effort to figure out what makes Instagram users — ahem, potential customers — tick. Now, with the tagging feature, Instagram users will have a natural incentive to tag not just the "who", but the "what" and "where," too. Which should, in turn, spur more businesses to rev up their Instagramming.

But just remember, brands: Keep it real. An awkward hashtag is a fate worse than a grainy, Hefe-filtered selfie.

Today, Google's Googliest project makes the leap from Android to iOS. Google Now, announced last June at the company's I/O 2012 conference, is part smart search and part personal assistant — but don't call it Siri. The service will make its debut on iOS through an update to Google's core Search app, available in the App Store.

According to Google's blog post on the release, "Today, with the launch of Google Now on iPhone and iPad, your smartphone will become even smarter. Google Now is about giving you just the right information at just the right time. Together, Google Now and voice search will make your day run a little smoother."

Google Now for iOS will be nearly identical to the Android release, though it won't enjoy the same deep integration as it does on Google's own mobile platform. That means no homescreen widget, of course, and no "swipe up" gesture for instant, fluid access. The iOS version will also be missing a few of the cards you'd find on Android: For now, cards for boarding passes, nearby events, Fandago and Zillow will remain an Android exclusive.  

A 20% Project That Took Off

We spoke with Google's Baris Gultekin, co-creator of Google Now, about the product's migration to that other platform. According to Gultekin, Google Now is the latest product home run with humble beginnings as a year-long 20% project (Google encourages employees to dedicate 20% of their time to a pet project that interests them).

"In the early days it was all about keywords," Gultekin explains. "With Google Now, you don't even have to search. We're really interested in having computers do all the hard work." 

For Google Now, the heavy lifting comes easy. A smart search app on steroids, it provides instant access to a spread of useful information, delivered via "cards". The cards are wholly dependent on context. As Gultekin puts it, "The product is different given the situation you're in." You might see a card for commute traffic around rush hour, or a card for your flight reservation the morning before you head to the airport.

Google Now Is Google, Now

Google Now is an umbrella project of sorts, tying Google's vast web of products together. Naturally, the product is also right at home on Google Glass, the company's futuristic eyewear that also aims to make this whole business of carrying the Internet less interruptive.

Google is betting big on Google Now, so it will be interesting to see if the service takes off in Apple's ecosystem. Google iOS ports like Google Maps are wildly popular, but will iPhone users take notice of Google Now? 

From its perfect morsels of context-dependent info to its uncanny knack for knowing what you needed to know before you knew you needed to know it, Google Now is a powerful tool — and a fun one.

Try it out today in the App Store and have fun pitting it against Siri in voice-powered search time trials.

You know you want to.

Facebook has just acquired Parse, a popular suite of tools for mobile and Web app developers. The acquisition will serve Facebook's mobile mission well, encouraging developers to build apps tied into the social network while easing the barriers to entry.

Already, Parse has attracted interest from familiar names like Sesame Workshop, which makes a Cookie Monster app, and Carnival Cruises, which used Parse's cross-platform tools to build its Ship Mate app.

The acquisition suggests that Facebook wants brands like these to go beyond building Facebook pages and running ads to creating mobile experiences which generate activity on Facebook users' profiles and news feeds. 

With this buy, rumored to be worth around $85 million, Facebook dives headlong into the nascent game of providing the technical underpinnings for apps, also known as the back end. Parse's peers in this emerging mini-industry are companies like Stackmob, Kinvey, and Cocoafish, the latter of which Appcelerator acquired last year.

Parse has an enthusiastic community of developers—and for good reason. The developer platform subtracts some of the nastier requirements of building apps, like server maintenance—ick! Instead, it lets app builders concentrate their energy around what matters - namely, developing an awesome user interface, or front end. 

We spoke with former Hipmunk mobile developer and user-experience guru Danilo Campos about what the acquisition means for developers loyal to Parse. 

"I hope the incentives are aligned such that Facebook wins when developers win," Campos said. "It's easy to get antsy when a [big company] buys up a gem. But I think Parse's leadership is damn smart and if anything can navigate these waters for the best outcome, it's them."

Facebook refused to comment on the deal's terms beyond saying that "this is an acquisition - not a talent deal." Facebook has bought some design- and mobile-oriented companies primarily to hire their talent while abandoning their products. That's not the case here: Parse and Facebook says current products will be supported.

According to Facebook's blog:

Today, we’re making it even easier to build mobile apps with Facebook Platform by by announcing that we have entered into an agreement to acquire Parse, a cloud-based platform that provides scalable cross-platform services and tools for developers. By making Parse a part of Facebook Platform, we want to enable developers to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices.

It remains to be seen if Parse, under Facebook's wing, will maintain or extend support for competing social platforms like Twitter. Still, Facebook didn't seem keen on messing with the Parse's existing well-loved products and services.

Apple reported its first profit decline in over a decade and bluntly admitted that its growth is slowing. It was, indeed, a strange but not wholly unexpected change of pace for the wildly successful Cupertino company.

Despite that bad news, the stock market barely hiccupped. As of writing, Apple shares were virtually unchanged in after-hours trading from their close of $406.13 — a level roughly 42% below their peak just seven months ago. Which means that these diminished expectations are, for now, Apple's new normal.

The Humbling Of Apple

In the January-March quarter, Apple generated $43.6 billion in revenue with a profit of $9.5 billion, compared to $39.2 billion and $11.6 billion a year ago. Profits might be down by a not-insignificant 18%, but the numbers still beat out quarterly estimates of between $41 and $43 billion in revenue. For next quarter, Apple set the bar low, with an expected $33.5 to $35.5 billion in revenue.

Apple also set new records for March quarter sales of the iPhone and iPad, for what it's worth.

While Apple quarterly calls — like Apple launch events, Apple ads and the Apple ethos — tend to err on the side of smug, today's tone was muted. As Apple's boomtown empire of the last decade begins to look like a gilded age, CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer maintained a cautious optimism. Cook expressed frustration over Apple's ongoing stock swoon and noted that 2012's "exceptional success" makes year-to-year comparisons "difficult." 

Other notable numbers from this quarter:

• 37.4 million iPhones sold, up from 35.1 million during Q2 2012
• 19.5 million iPads sold, up from 11.8 million a year ago
• iPad sales more than doubled in China and Japan
• Mac sales contracted, with just under 4 million sold - a slight dip from a year ago
• 5.6 million iPods sold (down from 2012's numbers), but Apple commands 70% of the MP3 player market
• Apple made $5.2 billion from retail stores and expects to open 30 new stores this year
• The company holds $144.7 billion in cash (up from $137 billion in December 2012)

Still, Apple Is Apple

Of course, even at its humblest, Apple couldn't resist an opportunity to tout iOS as a more secure ecosystem than Android, which has fallen victim to some high profile malware incidents in the last year.

As for what's next — and how the company will continue to grow — Cook cited the strength of Apple's ecosystem and "exciting new product categories" for the company's bright outlook. Cook also turned an eye to untapped overseas markets, which could play a major role if the company plans for another growth spurt: "China has an unusual number of potential firsttime smartphone owners," Cook said. "That's not lost on us."

Similarly, Cook touted the possibility of "an exciting new product category," although of course without even hinting at details or a timeframe. So feel free to believe that he meant the iWatch, or an iTV, or, well, iAnything.

Apple also boosted its dividend by 15% and announced a new stock buyback program that aims to return $100 billion to shareholders by 2015, in part by taking some existing Apple shares out of circulation to boost stockholders' holdings.

It ain't easy being Apple - for once, anyway.

Today, Apple will report its fiscal Q2 2013 earnings today at 2 p.m. PDT. Analysts widely expect the Cupertino company to post its first year-over-year decline in earnings in the last decade. But has Apple really begun its fall from grace, or is the house that Jobs built just falling short of its own impossible standards?

Here's why Apple has been missing the mark in 2013.

Growing Pains

Apple has fallen victim to its own success, plain and simple. The company's been on top for so long, we just don't remember things being any other way. Apple's market and mind share are the stuff of legend, but they may show signs of waning for the first time in… well, ever in Internet years. While any other company in the universe would be perfectly content being the world's former most valuable corporate entity, for Apple and its stockholders, that won't cut it. 

Last quarter, in spite of a $13.1 billion profit, an unhappy market punished the company for failing to meet revenue expectations with a 10% share price plummet - AAPL's biggest nosedive in years. As Q2 wraps, Apple investors and acolytes alike are still itching to hit the panic button. Arguably it's not because Apple's near-future profitability poses any real cause for alarm - perhaps we just don't remember how this whole thing goes for companies that aren't Apple?

No New Tricks Up Its Sleeve?

Really, what could the company that brought little white earbuds into ubiquity wow us with next? The iPad Mini, Apple's latest mobile device, is an exercise in practicality, a version of a revolutionary device with its ambition, processing power and pixel density scaled back (and its price slashed). 

At this juncture in consumer tech, consumers are pleased to see their gadgets polished and iterated, but they still love to have their minds blown. Look at Google tinkering away just over the Silicon fence. Between its hefty price tag and its unparalleled geek factor, Google Glass is the quintessential early adopter device, yet Google's flashy cyborg eyewear has captured the imagination of the mainstream. That used to be Apple's job. 

Unfortunately, reinventing the wheel isn't easy - even for Apple, a company with a track record of doing exactly that.

The Competition Gains Ground

Competitors like Samsung are gaining increasing traction with a decidedly un-Apple approach and a heterogenous army of Android devices like the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S4, the follow-up to last year's homerun Galaxy S3.  Meanwhile, Apple is wasting more time than ever looking over its shoulder, building the fortifications of the Mac and iOS walled gardens higher than ever.

In the U.S. last quarter, Apple remained top dog with 38% of smartphone market share versus Samsung's 21%, but globally the story is quite different, with Apple trailing by most metrics. With Apple shares trading at 40% less than September 2012's booming highs, the company is at low tide for the moment.

On today's call, Jobs successor Tim Cook might have to pull a literal rabbit out of his proverbial hat to exceed expectations. From its products to its profits, Apple likes to think of itself as an exception to every industry rule - and usually it is. Unfortunately for Cook and company, Apple just might be exceptional to a fault.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Apple's Q2 2013 earnings report, which we'll be reporting here at ReadWrite as it unfolds.

Time and again, Mark Zuckerberg has made it perfectly clear: "We're not going to build a phone." Zuck's most recent pronouncement came at Facebook's 2012 fourth-quarter earnings call.

(See also Facebook's Zuckerberg: We're Not Going To Build A Phone.) 

On Thursday, just two months later, Facebook is widely expected to announce an Android device in partnership with HTC at an event at its Menlo Park headquarters. The phone - yes, the Facebook phone - is expected to run a modified but not fully skinned version of Android, retooled to revolve around the little blue "f" that has come so far. At least that what the leaks seem to reveal.  If we're getting into semantics, you could say Facebook isn't building the Facebook phone - HTC is. 

So, How Did We Get Here?

Want to review the many times Zuck has denied rumors of an official Facebook phone? Here's a refresher:

November 3, 2010:

• "First of all, we're not a hardware company. Second of all, our goal is not to sell anything physical; our goal is to make it so that everything can be social."
• "It would be pretty silly for us to go after a strategy that focused on selling a small number of phones. We don't sell hardware. That's just not what we do." 

September 11th, 2012:

• “That’s always been the wrong strategy for us,” he explained. “It’s a juicy thing to say we’re building a phone, which is why people want to write about it. But it’s so clearly the wrong strategy for us.”

January 30, 2013:

• "People keep on asking if we're going to build a phone," said Zuckerberg. "We're not going to build a phone."

In retrospect, it seems the denials around "building" a phone seems to have left the door open for hardware partners. It's not like we thought Hacker Way was going to turn into Foxconn or anything, but assuming Thursday's event turns out as expected, that Zuck sure is one literal fellow.

But What About The Other Four Facebook Phones?

The real funny thing? If Facebook launches a phone, it won't be the first Facebook phone at all - it'll be the fifth. 

Facebook Phones 1 and 2: Back in Februrary 2011 at Mobile World Congress, HTC unveiled a pair of phones with a curious twist: a physical button dedicated to launching the Android Facebook app. The HTC Status (a.k.a. the ChaCha) and the HTC Salsa were mid-range devices with largely unimpressive specs.

Facebook Phones 3 and 4: That April, a company called INQ announced the INQ Cloud Touch and the INQ Cloud Q - two semi-smartphones that would run a version of Android 2.2 interwoven with Facebook's Social Graph API. The Cloud Touch made it to shelves in the UK; INQ abandoned plans to manufacture the Cloud Q early in 2012.

Of all of the "Facebook phones" to date, the HTC Status enjoyed the most success, but that's not saying much. I reviewed it at the time - It was well built, with a funny little curve to the casing, social widgets everywhere and a tiny blue Facebook button on the bottom right. There was something likable about the Status - it was a playful little device, thoughtfully designed - but who was it for?

The Status went on sale - and then went on sale again - and ultimately just sort of faded away. Now you can get one for a penny on Amazon.

A New Mobile Era For Facebook?

But times have changed and the stakes have gotten a lot higher. After some major mobile fumbles (its slowness to the iPad, building in HTML5, etc.), Facebook now calls itself a mobile company, and really wants to mean it. 

In September of 2011, Facebook's Android app had 66 million monthly active users. By November 2012, that number had tripled. Facebook consumers one quarter of the total time people spend on mobile apps. In the fourth quarter of 2012, 23% of Facebook's total ad revenue was pumped into its coffers via mobile - up from 0%.

Facebook obviously gets the importance of mobile now. But it's still not clear why a new Facebook phone is a good idea. The company is as cozy as can be on Android and iOS already, and Facebook would be lucky to sell even "a small number" of these new phones, just as Zuck warned back in 2010. Even if the new Facebook software presented unique monetization opportunities, the revenue would barely be a drop in Facebook's ever-growing bucket.

So why bother? I guess we'll find out on Thursday. 

All photos by Taylor Hatmaker.

At SXSW 2013, Google took the wraps off of a new set of apps for the augmented reality visors that will soon be taking our faces by storm. Google didn't release any video of the proceedings, so I shot my own. Enjoy.

Watch a demo video of thew new New York Times app, which allows you to skim headlines and listen to stories read aloud, and the Skitch image sharing app, which syncs with Evernote.

Google Glass New York Times App Demo

Google Glass Skitch App Demo

All images and video by Taylor Hatmaker

As it turns out, the man who wants to build a sovereign ocean community off the coast of California is really down to earth.

Tuesday at South by Southwest (SXSW), serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and noted libertarian Peter Thiel took the stage to talk about… well, I wasn't really sure. But when the guy who co-founded PayPal, got in on the ground floor of Facebook, offers kids $100,000 to skip college and wants to build a crazy offshore island society talks, I listen. And I'm glad I did. 

Thiel's presentation defined a unique insider's view on the tech industry.

Why Facebook Said "No" To Yahoo's $1 Billion In 2006

It seems unimaginable now, but back in 2006, Yahoo almost bought Facebook. In a meeting to discuss the possibility, Thiel describes how when he, Mark Zuckerberg and board member James Breyer entered the negotiation room, the young(er) Zuckerberg declared that the meeting wouldn't take more than 10 minutes. When Yahoo put a $1 billion offer on the table, Zuckerberg barely humored the idea of selling.

"Full disclosure, I think that both Breyer and myself thought that we should take the money and run," Thiel recalls. "I was a little bit worried about it. The one partial rationalization I was able to come up with for not taking the money was that I looked at the history - two other companies were offered a billion dollars [by Yahoo] and had been turned down: It was eBay and Google."

"The argument that Zuckerberg finally came down on was that there were all these new things that we were going to build at Facebook. [Yahoo] had no definite idea about the future - they did not properly value things that did not yet exist. They were therefore undervaluing the business."

Back then, the founder of Facebook said that he had no idea what he'd do with the money, Thiel recounts how Zuckerberg shrugged and said he'd probably just start another social networking site.

"The companies that are not profitable are actually companies that have a lot of ideas of what to do with money, " Thiel said. "The most successful businesses are the ones that don't sell."

The American Dream Is Dissolving

"We're still maybe in an Indian Summer of indeterminate optimism. In an indeterminate world, all you focus on are processes." According to Thiel, Steve Jobs's calculated multiyear plan after the 2007 crash is the exact flipside of an indeterminate business model - and a explanation for the success Apple still enjoys.

Thiel claims that startup culture and the investment world are locked into a "hermitically sealed loop" - but the era of suspended disbelief, of the strange safety of a bright-yet-amorphous future, can't last. "Indeterminate optimism is unstable" says Thiel. "I want people to at least be aware that this is the [prevailing] religion."

It's a bubble world. It goes without saying that no one wants to talk about bubbles.

The Anti-Tony Stark?

I assumed a man so glutted with cash that he'd dedicate $1.25 million toward seasteading was just another flashy, lucky, walking embodiment of the Gatsbian dream. But Thiel is a cerebral entrepreneur steeped in Continental philosophy and urban planning practicalities - not the VC lexicon of buzzwords and bullshit. With an even meter to his speech and an uncanny way of flitting from history to philosophy, he may have just called the most gracefully executed bullshit on the tech industry… ever.

His talk itself proved to me that no, success isn't just about luck - not all of the time, anyway. Plucking historical examples from The Reber Plan to one of No Country For Old Men's creepiest scenes (the one when sociopath Javier Bardem decides if he'll kill a small-town Texan with a coin toss) to pop-finance read A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Thiel is a fascinating foil to the Tony Starks - and the Elon Musks - of the entrepreneurial world.

And yet his dreams are as big as Musk's - and I'd bet they're crazy enough to work, just the same.

While he didn't reveal a launch date, Jordan did say Google Glass has been working on an app with the The New York Times. The re-thought news reader app lets Google Glass wearers visually scan headlines and have stories read aloud with the device's built-in speaker, which only Glass wearer can hear.

Path will be another early entrant to the Glass app marketplace. Path is a social feed designed around tracking your life and sharing what you're up to with your inner social circles. While a great many people don't seem to know what to do with Path, its "in the background" ethos seems to make it a natural fit for Google Glass.

There's more than just news reading and social apps, too. Google said that productivity darling Evernote (and its image-snapping partner, Skitch) will also tie into Glass, letting wearers share and annotate images all while syncing them seamlessly with their accounts. 

Take a sneak peek of the first wave of Google Glass apps in the photos below: 

Photos by Taylor Hatmaker.

Social networks like Facebook and Google+ are suddenly more image-happy than ever. And that's awesome, in theory. But images ≠ photos. And that's an important distinction. 

(See also Facebook Updates News Feed With Dedicated Feeds, Bigger Photos and Google+ Update Adds Crazy Big Cover Photos + Other Stuff.)

According to Facebook, today the News Feed is comprised of about 50% "visual content." What began as a spartan little text entry box is now a full-fledged multimedia monster, for better or worse. But the advent of Facebook's new "bright beautiful stories" may just mean more visual detritus to brush away from the content we really want to see, assuming it's out there at all.

Goodbye Clutter?

Trying to get a screen capture of the new News Feed Photos page earlier today, I had to refresh about ten times before anything worthy of being highlighted bubbled up. But even then, the rest of the stuff on the page was such an eyesore, I just went with the Facebook PR team's stock shot. My Photos tab (and the News Feed at large) remains a confusing mixture of Someecards and random images that people scoop up from around the Web and don't attribute. I've probably been guilty of this too, but whatever - I'm the one writing this story. 

In the News Feed example images, everything looks so good. I mean, if all of my friends only posted high-res photographs of their amazing blue-skied skiing adventures, I wouldn't be complaining. Maybe I need to friend more of Facebook's staff - they can clearly afford vacations chock full of photo opps. (Maybe they'll bring me along? I'm a pretty good time. Just sayin'.)

(See also An Early Sneak Peek At Facebook's New News Feed [Gallery].)

The Memes Come Marching In

The invasion of the meme might be partly to blame. I remember when memes hit Tumblr and then took off. I'd been blogging there since 2009. Back then I'd post original photos and original writing and the people I followed did the same. Then suddenly, one day it just flipped - Tumblr became a place for recycling jokes and reposting lolcats. I lost interest in it immediately and haven't really blogged there since. Now that Facebook is dominated by image updates, the News Feed is a morass of recycled content - and again, I'm losing interest.

Instagram's Unspoken Rule

Facebook may own Instagram, but the social photo sharing network has its own set of rules - many of them unspoken, selfies aside. Instagram made generating original content fun again. Sure, we're just taking little snapshots and posting them in quasi-realtime, but that's a hell of a lot more interesting than a retweet or a video gone viral. If anyone on my Instagram posts a screencap or a picture lifted from a different source, I unfollow them. Instagram is training people to populate and curate their own little photo portals - and it encourages even first-time photographers to  develop a unique aesthetic. It's no surprise that the most interesting images in my News Feed are all imported from Instagram. Instagram is a viewfinder, not a recycling bin.

(See also #Me: Instagram Narcissism And The Scourge Of The Selfie.)

Call me old fashioned. I like actual photos. I like text. I will not for the life of me watch a viral video unless I'm absolutely convinced it will be earth-shatteringly funny - and if I have to sit through an auto-play ad first, forget it. I'd take user-generated content on a sparse web 2.0-style personal blog over multimedia Web-recycling any day. Remember when people used to blog? Now most of us just move other people's content from one place to another and point at it. 

Content Other Other People Create

Chris Cox, Facebook's VP of Product, summed it up this at Facebook's big announcement Thursday morning: "Fundamentally we're a container for content other people create." But most Facebook users don't create content, they just borrow it from someone else who probably borrowed it from someone else after it made the rounds on Tumblr a few months ago. None of this is Facebook's fault. I've been test-driving the redesign and it looks and works great. It's a web culture issue - one accentuated by the new News Feed's "bright, beautiful stories".

Maybe I'm just cynical. Or maybe there really is nothing new under the sun. But if you ask me, social sites need more content creators - and fewer diligent meme mules ferrying viral junk from point A to point B with their heads down. 

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Facebook and Someecards.

Facebook just announced the biggest change to its design since Timeline shook things up back in 2011 — and actually, it looks pretty awesome. The big, popping visuals that Timeline introduced certainly heralded the News Feed redesign that Facebook announced today at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters.

Big Changes Rolling Out Gradually

Facebook learned its lesson from that redesign too: the new News Feed will be rolling out, starting today, very gradually — folding in user feedback all along the way. The new News Feed design even includes a button that lets you revert to the old design, you know, if you're the afraid-of-change type.

But even if you are that type, this interface overhaul will probably strike your fancy. I didn't even realize how long in the tooth Facebook was starting to look until I activated the new design.

If you're anxious for a peek at the new News Feed, we've got plenty of images outlining the major new features. And don't panic — change can be a good thing. 

If you see this pop up on your News Feed, take the new design for a spin like so.

A new drop down menu makes it easy to hop between revamped News Feed hubs like Music, Games and Photos.

The new Music stream ties into apps like Spotify as well as posts by musicians, like Mr. Bowie.

Memes are bigger than ever now, literally.

A separate stream for accounts that you "follow" turns News Feed into, well, a news feed reader.

Now everyone will know about your quadruple word score.

Has the News Feed redesign popped up on your Facebook account yet? Let us know what you think!

Let's be honest — does anyone really go to South by Southwest for the keynotes? Often hailed as "geek spring break," South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) turns the city of Austin, Texas, into a sprawling bacchanalian hot mess — one with hook-ups aplenty, even for us geek types. 

A Different Kind of Awkward For The STD Talk

In one of the better press releases to grace my inbox this week, a company called Qpid.me wants to help you achieve your ultimate SXSW 2013 goal: Getting laid, you know, without all of those nasty drawbacks to promiscuity. From the press release:

It’s a known fact that there is a huge amount of “Sex” that happens at SXSW as creators, indie film makers, up-and-coming stars flock there to spark ideas, find investors, create together and…have sex.... But is the free love of the festival worth the after effects of coming home with an unwanted gift like some Spring Breakers, an STD?

Qpid is a social network with the well-meaning mission of making it easier for people to share verified information about sexual health status before they shack up. While it would make way more sense as an app, it isn't one — although the information can be shared via text.

Of course, that's only one reality hurdle standing in the way. The founder of Qpid is obviously well-meaning, but in practice the whole process is no less awkward than the analog version of the same conversation, although it does add verified test results for nasties like HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea into the mix.

Qpid Means Well...

Of course, if all of the people you know on OkCupid were on Qpid too, that would be an awesome thing. So would be a world in which we weren't all so weird about talking about sexual health in the first place. But they aren't and we still are, for whatever reason. If you're willing to broach the conversation at all after a long night on Sixth Street and you've both conquered your health care provider's likely reticence to disclose medical records to something that sounds like a hookup app... well, bully for you! Keep up the good work! Etc.

There's bound to be a handful of success stories out there, but until culture catches up to technology, most of us will still be just as squeamish talking about the ickier parts of sex — with a tool like Qpid or without it.

Image of date via Shutterstock

The latest changes to Google+ might not have a huge impact - but that doesn't mean they aren't huge.

Wednesday, Google revamped its Google+ profile pages, making the social network more image-heavy and sprucing up a few Google+ areas that were collecting virtual cobwebs. The announcement appeared as a blog post by Googler Sara McKinely and was then shared widely by Google+ guru Vic Gundotra. 

Cleaning Up The About Page

The update cleans up users' About pages, where personal, educational and professional info live. Previously the About page was an odd tangle of editable boxes, and it wasn't always clear what information was private or public. Now Google+ has added in a "View profile as" button (à la Facebook), making for handy, quick way to check who can see what on your profile. The page is also much more attractive, with color-coded boxes displaying personal information in cards, as you can see in the image below:

Sweating The Small Stuff

Beyond the literally big stuff, Google has added a shortcut to its Local hub, where reviews of restaurants and venues show up, all linked to a reviewer's respective Google+ account, of course. 

Google+'s thriving photo community will no doubt be excited about today's interface changes. Personally, I'm dreading what happens when graphically challenged Google+ users start uploading their newest baby photos at insufficient resolution. Ick.

The changes to the look of Google+ come a day before Facebook's March 7 press event, where it's speculated that the big blue social network could infuse News Feed with larger images while doing a bit of UI spring cleaning itself.

Images via Google+.

According to a report today from TechCrunch, Google is at work on its own version of Amazon's premium fast-shipping subscription service, Amazon Prime. The service would be called "Google Shopping Express" and could undercut Amazon Prime's $79 annual membership rates by as much as $15. TechCrunch's report names Google e-commerce product manager Tom Fallows as the head of the project.

Assuming the report reflects what's on the way (Google had not responded to inquiries at press time), Google's Prime competitor would partner with brick and mortar retailers - Walmart, Target and the like. The service would tie into the Google's Amazon lookalike shopping portal, Google Shopping.

We'd be interested to see what a Google Shopping Express-like service might offer in the way of digital perks - after all, Amazon Prime not only nets its users free two-day shipping, but also access to instant streaming videos and Kindle e-book lending perks. Fortunately, Google has plenty of virtual goodies of its own to offer in the Play store. 

It may dominate in areas like search and mobile, but Google remains an underdog in e-commerce, where giants like Amazon and Ebay run the show. And after the Google Wallet buzz fizzled out - you know, since no one could actually use Google Wallet - its efforts in online shopping and payments have been pretty quiet. 

It might not be enough to make the new service a success, but same-day shipping would at least speed up the process for anyone out there still waiting to for their Nexus 4 to show up in the mail.

Images via Shutterstock and Google.

From natural disasters and national tragedies to elections and award shows, no event goes untweeted these days.

For better or worse, we've come to consider Twitter an accurate reflection of opinion at large, a global zeitgeist bubbling up through real-time micro-musings. But according to a new report from the Pew Research Center, Twitter might be a sample more than 500 million accounts strong - but that doesn't make it reflective of public opinion beyond the Twittersphere.

Tweets Vs. Reality

The most cut-and-dried case that Twitter isn't the a perfect litmus test for popular opinion came during President Obama's reelection last November. While 77% of the tweets issued about the election night outcome were positive, the popular vote (still contested at the time) and post-election polling painted a much more divided - and more accurate - picture.

Interestingly, Twitter can also err on the conservative side. During Obama's 2012 State of the Union speech, Twitter lit up with negative commentary. The speech was much better received by the public at large, where 42% of those polled had a positive reaction to the speech and only 27% reported a negative reaction. Analyses of tweets from the event found the exact opposite trend, with 40% of the conversation capturing a negative reaction - only 21% of tweets analyzed cast the event in a positive light.

A Flawed Sample

When pulling numbers out of Twitter - how many people raved about Jennifer Lawrence's Oscars dress or disagreed with Obama's handling of the budget cuts, for instance - we have to be careful to remember that aggregated Twitter data only measures what people are thinking, saying or doing on Twitter. 

Twitter is a very different beast than Facebook - one that only 13% of adults report having used at all, compared to an earlier Pew study showing that 67% of Americans who use the internet are Facebook users. While those stats aren't directly comparable, Facebook's unrivaled user numbers make it clear that Twitter isn't as broad or deep a sample of the population. 

The key here is that Twitter is a platform for very intentional expressions, and tweets are mapped onto the events its users are already invested. Given the way its users hop on and off of the site, a sample of its users is shifting wildly at any given time. During a major NFL event, Twitter is on fire with football fans, while an iPhone launch captures the sentiment of the early adopter tech set.

Naturally, for those among us who live and breathe tweets, Twitter seems like a realtime cross-section of everyone's thoughts about, well, everything. But as common sense and the Pew report make clear, Twitter is an imperfect zeitgeist at best.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

The Twitter client end times are nigh. Well, to be fair, they've been nigh for a while now - so I guess now the end times are here.

In a blog post today, Twitter announced that it would formally discontinue support for TweetDeck's trio of non-web apps, TweetDeck for iPhone, Android and AIR. The clients will be pulled from their app stores in early May, so you can expect considerable wonkiness thereafter.

Twitter, The Control Freak

The death of the TweetDeck trifecta marks a formal end to the heyday of third-party Twitter clients. Last year, as Twitter began to tighten its guidelines, the company effectively wrestled developers into a choke-hold.

Along the way, many great clients and apps folded, deeming it too risky to pour themselves into projects that could be felled by Twitter at a moment's notice. The three clients that Twitter will no longer support are all powered by its old API v1, which the company already announced plans to retire.

Power Users Left In The Cold 

What are we left with? Well, acccording to its blog, Twitter will rally around the "modern, web-based version of TweetDeck - namely TweetDeck for web and TweetDeck the Chrome app. TweetDeck's native Mac and PC clients will also live on, though Twitter will focus its efforts on the other versions. None of these option are atrocious in their own right, but it's slim pickings for power users these days.

Many self-proclaimed power users remain loyal to the AIR version of TweetDeck, in spite of its quirks. The AIR-powered client retains the flavor of the original app, before Twitter began to splice TweetDeck's DNA into a less feature-rich client meant for more casual users.

Twitter Is A Platform, Not An App

Twitter's plan to evolve beyond a platform and into a suite of apps has been building momentum for years. Twitter acquired TweetDeck back in 2011 and casual Twitter client Tweetie before that, in 2010.

Still, the vestigial remains of half-abandoned clients are just as much of a mess than ever - and the fact that Twitter is keeping the TweetDeck branding isn't helping. At its essence, Twitter is still more of a platform than it is an app. But as its development strangehold tightens, the ample customization of a thriving ecosystem will soon be the stuff of archived tweets.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.