Google Glass-wearing, iPhone-toting techies who can't be bothered to look at their smartphones for texts can instead peer into a different screen out of the corner of their eye.
Google on Monday said that SMS for iPhone would be coming later this week to its headmounted computer system, so that the texts people receive on those devices would also appear in their Glass displays.
People won't be able to reply to the texts on Glass due to limitations with iOS, Google said. But they will get a notification on Glass whenever they receive a text. Users will be able to turn on the feature by going to their iPhone's Bluetooth settings, and selecting "Show notifications" for their paired Glass.
The update comes as Google aims to make Glass more useful for everyday applications. Last week the company said that Glass would get KitKat, the newest version of Google's Android operating system for mobile devices.
A growing number of Google Web services, which Google calls Glassware, are currently available for the unit, such as Gmail, Google+ and Google Play Music. Glass can already receive SMS texts from Android-based devices.
Glass is one of Google's biggest pushes into offering "connected wearables," and incorporating texting from iOS is a major step toward that goal. But Google faces challenges in gathering mainstream acceptance for the device, partly due to its conspicuous appearance, and also because of privacy concerns tied to its video recording abilities.
Glass is still in beta, with a price tag of US$1,500 for developers and other early adopters in Google's "Explorer" program.
In another Glassware release, Google also said on Monday that a Calendar app would be coming to Glass. The software lets people RSVP to events, or delete them, from their Glass headsets.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com
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