Augmented Reality Isn’t Magic
Magic Leap is almost ready to take another run at the AR market
What is it about certain companies and sectors that make investors pour endless funds into them? Is it the story? The leadership? I’m not talking about places with a history of popular products and track records of solid, even inspired leadership.
I’m thinking about the ill-fated Theranos, the still-breathing WeWork and, now Magic Leap. This week the Augmented Reality hardware company reported another half a billion in funding and, according to CEO Peggy Johnson, a valuation of $2 billion.
Few companies have been as buzzy and bloated by vaporware as Magic Leap. We’ve been talking about the company since 2014. The company carefully teased tiny glimpses into its product plans and purportedly ground-breaking technology once or twice a year until it finally released its underwhelming and ridiculously expensive consumer, augmented reality headgear.
Reviews noted how the first headset beat Microsoft HoloLens on image quality but lagged on field of view and that it still needed a remote, as well as separate, tethered hardware pack.
The bigger problem, as I saw it, was that the final product didn’t live up to the hype — hype that was primarily generated by a company, which used secrecy to craft unrealistic expectations.
Not all of this was Magic Leap’s fault.
Consumers love using AR filters through their phones, but wearable augmented reality technology is still a tough sell. Products like Google Glass proved it could be done but that no one wanted to walk through life looking like a bargain-basement Borg.
Microsoft quickly found that its HoloLens mixed reality headgear had virtually no appeal to the average consumer and quickly pivoted to the enterprise.
Earlier this year, Magic Leap announced that it, too, would make the pivot and promised Magic Leap 2 headgear by the end of the year.
This week, the company pushed that deadline out to next year but also introduced rendered images of the new headgear and updates on key enhancements. Chief among them is a lighter body (it’s unclear if the tethered hockey puck remains), much improved field of vision…
