This week has been a lesson in the harsh reality of product management. If I had to sum it up, it would be: “The Art of the Cut.”
We went from high-level dreaming to the granular, sometimes painful, ground reality of shipping a Version 1.0 product. Here is the breakdown of a week spent navigating compromises and complex logic.
Killing the Darlings (Again)
The biggest headline this week is a tough one. Remember the modular, widget-based homepage I was so excited about? The one that would allow users to fully customise their dashboard?
It’s been cut from Phase 1.
Leadership reviewed the scope and decided it was too heavy for our initial launch timeline. We are reverting to a simpler, static list structure. I won’t lie—I’m gutted. Seeing weeks of interaction logic and design work get “deprioritised” (read: put in the freezer) is a bitter pill to swallow. But, stepping back, I understand it. Stability and speed must come first. We need to ship a solid product, not a perfect concept that never launches.
The “Invisible” Mountain: Login & Permissions
With the fancy UI features trimmed, my focus shifted to the unsexy but critical backend logic: Onboarding.
You wouldn’t believe how complicated “just signing up” can be when you’re building a global product. We spent hours debating:
- Region Selection: We can’t just let users sign in; we have to route them to the correct server cluster (GDPR, etc.) before they even enter a password. We explored using IP detection vs. manual selection to make this seamless.
- Age Restrictions: We had to implement logic to handle users under 18 in certain regions (like Italy), restricting access to specific LLM features while keeping the rest of the device functional.
- The “Email vs. Social” Matrix: Handling edge cases where a user signs up with Google, then tries to sign in with the same email address manually. It’s a logic maze.
Android vs. iOS: The Notification Nightmare
We also dove deep into the Notification System. The disparity between iOS and Android continues to be my biggest headache.
iOS gives us neat categories (Social, News, etc.). Android? It’s the Wild West. We had to design a fallback logic where we maintain our own list of app packages to categorise notifications intelligently.
We also made a firm decision on Replies. We debated letting users reply to messages directly from the glasses. Ultimately, we decided no. The interaction cost is just too high with our current hardware controls. It’s better to offer a perfect viewing experience than a clumsy, frustrating replying experience.
Team Banter & Reality Checks
Despite the cuts, the team spirit is still there. I had some long sessions with the development team (and some solid banter with my colleague Shaozheng). There’s a running joke now about the “intern shield”—if things go wrong, I’m just here to learn, right? (Though in reality, the pressure is definitely on).
We wrapped up the week feeling exhausted but clearer. The product is leaner. The logic is tighter. The “bells and whistles” are gone, but the engine is being built properly.
Next week: locking down the final UI for the simplified dashboard and hopefully getting some of these logic flows approved by legal.
Onwards.
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