
Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses - gumby
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/dented-reality-magic-leap-sees-slow-sales-steep-losses?pu=hackernewsfh62oc&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock
======
daenz
The thing that got me about the Magic Leap is I couldn't find a reliable video
of _what it looked like through the lenses._ Everything was clearly a CGI
overlay or recreation. Reviewers claimed they were prohibited from showing
video through the lenses.[0]

I can understand not wanting their product misrepresented, but all the secrecy
and censorship about it makes me believe it is bad, and I'm not going to spend
money on something I believe is bad.

0\. [https://youtu.be/TfzlU7nW23Y?t=34](https://youtu.be/TfzlU7nW23Y?t=34)

~~~
fossuser
There was a twitter video that comically showed their marketing demo of the
whale and then the real life example of the product (with related music).

It appears to have been scrubbed from the internet though because I was trying
to find it a while back to show someone and I searched for a while, but
couldn't find anything.

Magic Leap seems like a case study of how not to release a product, but maybe
they were more focused on raising money?

Either work on your thing in public, shipping units (Oculus/FB) or work on it
entirely in secret (Apple), but don't loudly and continuously talk vaguely
about how amazing your thing is with no real public examples for years. This
plus all the fake marketing video demos - if you're going to do this you
better be as good as you're pretending to be.

Someone that good probably wouldn't need to show marketing videos, they'd just
show the product itself.

I finally did get to play with one (friend who personally knows an investor
had one) and it was pretty disappointing. AR seems likely to be the next
computing platform, but the hardware is not ready yet.

Magic Leap reminds me a lot of the General Magic documentary - crazy hype,
right general idea, but too early and bad product.

I'm not sure if they have the same talent General Magic had though.

~~~
ryandrake
Yet everyone was so optimistic and believed the hype. And it happens again and
again! Whenever some early stage company/product gets some traction on HN that
looks like hype-ware, the default reaction always seems to be excitement and
optimism, rather than doubt and skepticism. Nobody's learned from Theranos.
It's like we all adhere to that X-files poster "I WANT TO BELIEVE" over and
over.

~~~
Aeolun
I don’t think this was ever the case for Magic Leap. All threads were always
full of ‘I think this is waaaay too much funding for something we haven’t even
seem yet’.

I’m just confused how the press and investors were misled in such a miraculous
way.

~~~
DonHopkins
The most convincing "argument" for them was "well, they fooled Google into
giving them a half a billion dollars, so they must have something there."

~~~
gumby
My understanding is that sergey wanted to do it and he can effectively write
checks right off the balance sheet. Google Ventures passed, as folks were
always eager to tell me.

~~~
DonHopkins
Sounds like that's the same way Google Glass got funded, too. I wonder what
Sergey Brin thought of the nepotism at Magic Leap that he funded, documented
in the sexual discrimination lawsuit?

[http://valleywag.gawker.com/meet-the-google-founders-
mistres...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/meet-the-google-founders-
mistress-1219044247)

>Since Google Glass launched to our awe and horror, the company's co-founder,
Sergey Brin, hasn't been spotted without a pair. He's placed himself atop the
privacy-eroding project, publicly, and inside Google's secret labs. Maybe it's
because he's fucking the Glass marketing manager, Amanda Rosenberg.

>According to a startling report by AllThingsD's Liz Gannes and Kara Swisher,
Brin and his wife of six years, Anne Wojcicki, are no more, now that he's
found himself a PR girlfriend at Google. AllThingsD also reported this
girlfriend was recently attached to another (totally coincidentally departing)
top Googler, Hugo Barra, to make Brin's relationship with the recent San
Francisco transplant behind the backs of his wife and children all that much
worse.

[https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-
discriminat...](https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-
discrimination.pdf)

>"Eric Akerman, vice president of IT, is a high school buddy of Abovitz. He is
a loud and outspoken and several misogynistic comments have emanated from his
department and from him."

>"Vice president of IT Akerman, on Nov. 8, 2016, told a large group of people
who asked why he voted for Trump that it was 'because Melania is hot.'"

------
donpdonp
Magic Leap One has been for sale for 6 months. At $2.6B in total funding,
thats $433,333 per unit for 6,000 units. The sticker price is $2300 per unit.

By comparison the Nintendo VirtualBoy was for sale for one year at $180(in
1995/$300 in 2018) and sold 770,000 units[1].

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _6,000 units_

This number gets more mind-blowing the more you think about it.

It's small enough that one needs to start considering the units bought by
management, employees, investors, suppliers, competitors, _et cetera_ to say
nothing of their friends and families.

~~~
poidos
A friend worked for them and (if I recall correctly) employees got a free
unit. Not sure if that’s included in this number.

------
mo1ok
Let this be a lesson:

Working prototypes trump all theory.

I heard all silicon valley gurus stating they were "bearish on VR, bullish on
"AR". This proliferated as a mantra throughout the industry. I thought they
were wrong then, and believed the opposite - because I had a working VR
headset that was awesome, but had only heard somewhat meh things about
existing AR prototypes.

Until great AR hardware comes out, I'm still sticking with the same opinion.

~~~
ghaff
It depends on your definitions. You don't _need_ a headset for pretty
interesting AR. If I could just point a phone at things and get genuinely
useful information as an overlay, I'd consider that a pretty decent AR
application. Sure, the same thing in a pair of stylish glasses might be even
better but it's not strictly necessary.

~~~
greggman2
I see phone AR as a pointless gimmick. Like comparing a 1970s video game to
PS4 video game. Yes both can be fun but pong is not really comparable to GTA5.
Phone AR is so far off from Black Mirror AR. I can imagine every teenage girl
spending all their time playing with their friends in AR, having their friends
appear in their bedroom instead of just on Facetime. With AR glasses, some
future version where they are no more intrusive than normal reading glasses, I
can't imagine them not doing it. I can imagine all the youtube AR cooking
classes will just project directly on your kitchen counter where you can
either stand directly beside the chef or cover the same space, have your
friends appear on the sofa next to you for facetime, etc... When it actually
gets there it will be compelling in the extreme and non-geeks will flock to it
like they did to iPhone. Until then it will stay in the realm of Apple Newton.

~~~
lonelappde
Why girls?

~~~
greggman2
I wasn't trying to single out girls, only that it's an observed pattern that
young girls (teens) talk to their friends constantly. It used to be with a
phone, now it's probably via multiple ways. AFAIK the same pattern does not
exist with young men to the same level. I have no idea why. I only know that
it's an observed pattern than fits enough that it's a stereotype.

It's old but it was one of the first hits

[https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2010/04/20/chapter-
two-...](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2010/04/20/chapter-two-how-
phones-are-used-with-friends-what-they-can-do-and-how-teens-use-them/)

How teens communicate might have changed but I'm guessing the relative amounts
show girls still use it more.

I firmly believe that at some point those same people will embrace full eye AR
(not phone AR) as a preferred or common way to communicate over all current
methods. Further, I believe that once it's possible for them to do it easily
without cumbersome equipment that AR will become mainstream.

It's clearly years out but the fact that I can carry a tiny and relatively
light computer on my wrist with display (a smart watch) suggests it might not
be that far off to have stylish glasses with similar tech at a price people
will pay for once the applications make it clear they want it.

If you asked in 2007 how many non-techies wanted a PDA the answer would likely
have been close to 0. Now the answer is close to 100% of them carrying one at
all times. I think AR will be no different. What has to happen is they need to
go from the bulky Apple Newton level tech of today to something light and
useful.

------
daeken
I bought one second-hand a couple months ago. It's neat and all, but between
the poor software and the severe extent to which it darkens the rest of the
world, it's a pretty resounding 'meh'. I still have hopes for using it for
productivity, but it honestly doesn't hold a candle to the original Hololens.
(Can't speak to the Hololens 2 yet; going to get one in a little while though,
hopefully!)

~~~
filoleg
I haven't gotten a chance to try Magic Leap myself, but if you think that
Magic Leap doesn't hold a candle to the original Hololens, then in it is dead
in the water imo. I was somewhat annoyed with how small the field of view was
on Hololens, and overall it was a pretty janky experience that I wouldn't
recommend to anyone except those who just want to try the first "real" AR
headset product out here and attempt writing code for it.

Hololens 2 is already publicly available, and I had a chance to play with it
for a bit. All I am going to say is, if you thought the original Hololens was
decent enough, you will be blown away by Hololens 2. It is leaps ahead of the
first version, both in terms of the UX and the tech. Even everything auxiliary
about it just feels "right", stuff like the flippable visor, easier head
mount, etc. It is the kind of a device that I would legitimately consider
using occasionally at home to read news and do other stuff while lazying
around doing other things.

It isn't at the original iPhone levels of "whoa, we are entering a new era of
how people use their personal computing devices" yet, but the overall
experience is such a large step up from the original Hololens, it is clear as
day to me that AR is quickly getting closer to the point where it will be
dominating personal computing niche currently occupied by smartphones.

~~~
daeken
How was the comfort level on the HL2? That and the low FOV were what killed
the original for me, as my use case is replacing my screens. I'm actually
getting ready to commit to working 100% through VR -- Quest -- and AR --
currently ML1, but seriously considering the HL2...

If I didn't have a toddler to watch while I work much of the time, I'd
probably just go all-in on VR (I'm currently working 30-50% through the
Quest), but being able to see the world is kind of essential for those times
haha.

~~~
filoleg
Imo you are in for a treat, because FOV and comfort are the two biggest
improvement areas with HL2, along with redesigned software/UX. Still no
“killer app” third party software yet, or much third party software at all,
but your biggest comfort and FOV complaints are all addressed extremely well.

As it goes with those kinds of things, you should definitely try the device
out before making a conclusion, but given what you said earlier, I feel like
you will like it.

------
dang
The Information has been unlocking the occasional article for HN users for a
while now. I asked if they'd do that for this one and they agreed. Thanks!

(The submitted URL was [https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/06/report-magic-leaps-
early-d...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/06/report-magic-leaps-early-device-
sales-arent-looking-good/), which made sense while the original source was
behind a hard paywall. Changed now.)

~~~
soneca
That's nice! I noticed a modal but I closed before reading it. I could parse
(not in time to avoid closing) that it was welcoming HN users.

I am curious now what it was saying.

EDIT: Got it again, it says:

 _" Welcome Hacker News Readers_

 _Before you quickly exit out of this popup, consider subscribing for $10
/month for your first 3 months"_

I was quicker than they expected lol

~~~
ballmers_peak
Welp, at least my copy was on point.

------
aeturnum
I think all of these things are true:

AR is really hard and anything that does it at all is impressive and could,
believably, be the precursor to a revolutionary product.

All current AR tech is more expensive than seems sustainable for a consumer
product. It's also difficult to develop for and has few (if any) compelling
experiences. These things are endemic to early stage products, but it is also
possible that they will endure long enough to cripple AR as a product in the
foreseeable future.

Everyone in the AR industry is guilty of overhype. Moreso than early tech
start ups in general. That said, Magic Leap seems to have behaved
significantly worse than its peers.

Part of the effect of the hype machine is that it's hard to get any depiction
of what it looks like _to look through the lenses of the products_. This
comes, as far as I can tell, from the likely true idea that the experiential
qualities of AR cannot be captured through 2D video and such video would be
somewhat deceptive. To me, it seems like the practice of releasing
visualization videos is more deceptive but reasonable people can disagree.

\-----

It feels to me like a lot of AR discussion comes down to people asserting that
one of these genres of view is true in response to someone else expressing a
different one of these views.

To me, it feels like it's hard to talk usefully about the current state of the
industry. The promise is very cool, the products are early stage. So many
factors legitimately excuse current failings. Do people feel like we the tech
is public or mature enough that we can talk about the real limits or likely
arc of the tech at all, or are we trapped between hype and development?

~~~
tim333
On the other hand the more modest AR in Pokemon Go has been a huge hit.

~~~
DonHopkins
Is pretending to be something that you're not really "modest"?

~~~
tim333
I'm not sure how they are pretending? The AR bit seems to work pretty well to
me.

~~~
Zanneth
Everybody I know who plays Pokémon Go turns off the AR features, because they
don’t care about them. They would rather use their smartphone normally than
pointlessly aiming the camera at the sidewalk.

~~~
tim333
The AR is not very good for actual gameplay but was kind of fun, partly for
sending pictures in the early days.

------
nrp
Karl Guttag estimated in the same range last month:
[https://www.kguttag.com/2019/11/10/all-magic-leap-patents-
ha...](https://www.kguttag.com/2019/11/10/all-magic-leap-patents-have-
apparently-been-assigned-to-j-p-chase-morgan-as-collateral/)

His whole blog is a pretty compelling read on the current and near future
state of AR.

~~~
Holomakerbot
He's underestimating (though not by a whole lot probably). The 6k numbers from
the above article refer to the first 6 months sale. Guttag is talking about
the last 18 months. Also doesn't account for the headsets that have been
seeded to devs.

------
bumblebee4
Haven't they learned from General Magic [1]?

>“Magic's just science that we don't understand yet.” [2]

If you call your company magic then the product most likely is not just at the
brink of your understanding but so far out that it is impossible to close the
gap by hard work alone.

Steve Jobs mentioned in a very early interview somewhere that he wants to
build a computer for everybody. He waited years and decades patiently until
every duck was in line and he could launch the iPhone.

This thought doesn't lead to a meaningful point. I am just wondering why he
and Apple (e.g. the A7[3]) got the timing right several times but many others
push too soon or wait too long.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic)

[2] [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/547452-magic-s-just-
science...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/547452-magic-s-just-science-that-
we-don-t-understand-yet)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21704954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21704954)

~~~
nrp
On Apple (as opposed to Magic Leap), I believe a lot of it is figuring out a
customer need and audience that can be satisfied by a set of technologies that
are just at the edge of mature, and then not shipping the product until it
actually satisfies those needs. This means not shipping a technology as a
product just because it may be useful in the future, and it means resetting a
products at the prototype stage often.

Both are hard for startups to take on. The former because many of the founders
are heavily focused on a technology they came up with and attempt to shoehorn
it into products that don't quite make sense. The latter because it requires
either very patient investors or a big bank account.

Both are also hard for established, mature companies to take on. The former
because they seem to believe that innovation for innovations sake is a useful
thing to do, and for whatever reason the tech press seems to encourage them.
The latter because they are focused on delivering quarterly results over
building long term platform and ecosystem value, and because politically a
cancelled project can be career ending.

------
zaroth
I didn’t even know they had gotten beyond vaporware!

Why would someone spend $2,300 on this equipment other than as a developer
kit? I assume there is virtually no compelling content or services available
to make a consumer interested in shelling out that amount of money, or even
1/10th that amount of money.

~~~
sheepdestroyer
The tech they were hyping (FSD) never materialized and is very much vaporware.
Every one following got disappointed when they pivoted to hololens-like
stuff...

~~~
bobsil1
Fiber scan display in hi res would’ve required moving at 14× speed of sound:
[https://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-
scanning...](https://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-scanning-
display-fsd-the-big-con-at-the-core/)

------
khazhou
There's a lot of discussion here of how this was predictable given the absence
of a visible prototype for so long, and the over-the-top secrecy of the
project. However, for me this was a predetermined failure when I first read an
interview with the founder. Classic Super-Visionary snake-oil salesman. He
could say nothing about the product, except for how it would change the world
more than the world had ever been changed in the history of world changes.
Sure, ok. I don't remember Larry and Sergey being like that (because they had
a real product). Or Bezos, etc.

Frankly, I'm shocked at how the investors couldn't see past this CEO.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
I think it's pretty common for investors to see someone as a Snakeoil-salesman
but still invest. It only matters if they think they'll get a return.

~~~
khazhou
Well, I don't have all the data points, but it seems to me that snakeoiler
should stand out as an anti-pattern. Maybe VCs see it differently. Maybe
they'd inform me that the snakeoil CEOs are _sometimes_ frauds, but the non-
snakeoil CEOs _always_ fail (not enough energy, not charismatic enough to
attract talent, etc).

("Huckster"... that's the word I was looking for)

~~~
fuzzfactor
Seems to me one person's snake oil has often been another person's cannabis
oil, in oil terms I guess where neither type of oil may actually be useful to
a particular consumer.

But if you've got a truly persuasive and aggressive salesman who can really
get things done and actually sell virtual snake oil like few others,
especially for much more than it's worth if genuine to buyers who don't
actually need the product or as much as he is selling them; well that salesman
needs to be incentivized with excess genuine product to sell, and appropriate
adult supervision and probably legal counsel and you can reach goals more
impressive than most top salesmen who are themselves very productive.

IOW with that kind of salesman you don't need functional product anyway since
you'll do quite well selling the sizzle alone, but if you do actually throw in
a real steak it can indeed be relatively non-slimy.

So a product company might be able to slide more product out through a slick
pipeline, but when you're delivering something of value you're still a product
company.

The problem is a salesman like this who gets too close to executive rank can
overcome the supervision and turn it into a snake oil company, and it can ruin
everything.

Or with the right connections, found a new high-tech snake oil company where
the most important consideration was not a product of value anyway. Unless
dreams came true of course.

------
chadash
I was very skeptical about this company, but I actually got to demo the
technology a few nights ago, and I have to say my mind was blown. There are
definitely a lot of kinks to work out, but I would say that the experience was
not too far off from the whale video they used to have on their homepage,
probably better. In the demo I saw, you are immersed in a sort of coral reef,
but it's all within the confines of your living room. It basically looks like
you're living room has turned into a fish tank. It feels real enough that I
wanted to reach out and touch the fish swimming around in front of me. Yes, it
wasn't perfect at mapping the room, but the technology was much more
impressive than I imagined. And the fact that it is augmented reality rather
than virtual reality made things much more interesting, because you're
interacting with the real world and the virtual world at the same time.

------
whoisstan
This 2015 story did already sent the wrong message, blatantly ripping off
other people in the industry.

Magic Leap Ripped Off Those Awesome UI Concepts
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8974976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8974976)

~~~
DonHopkins
And as if blatantly ripping off other people in the industry wasn't enough,
then there was also the sexist company culture and blatant nepotism of Abovitz
hiring his old high school buddy Eric Akerman as vice president of IT, who is
but one of the many people they have to thank for the lawsuit about the
hostile sexist work environment, and the fact that their leadership, design
team, marketing material, and target demographic excluded and insulted women:

[https://www.vrandfun.com/magic-leap-settling-sex-
discriminat...](https://www.vrandfun.com/magic-leap-settling-sex-
discrimination-lawsuit-with-former-employee/)

>Magic Leap Settling Sex Discrimination Lawsuit with Former Employee
(vrandfun.com)

>[...] It’s quite alarming to see Magic Leap make headlines for sex
discrimination lawsuits rather than innovation and technology.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14310144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14310144)

[https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-
discriminat...](https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-
discrimination.pdf)

>This is an action for hostile environment sex discrimination and retaliation
brought by Tannen Campbell ("Campbell" or "plaintiff"), former Head of
Strategic Marketing and Brand Identity and, later, Vice President of Strategic
Marketing and Brand Identity, against her former employer, Magic Leap, Inc.
(“Magic Leap” or “defendant”).

>"Eric Akerman, vice president of IT, is a high school buddy of Abovitz. He is
a loud and outspoken and several misogynistic comments have emanated from his
department and from him."

>"Vice president of IT Akerman, on Nov. 8, 2016, told a large group of people
who asked why he voted for Trump that it was 'because Melania is hot.'"

>Campbell, one of whose responsibilities was to help Magic Leap with the
“pink/blue problem,” had to endure hostile environment sex discrimination
while proposing ways, not only to make Magic Leap’s product more woman
friendly, but also to make the workplace more diverse and inclusive. Campbell
was terminated after (and because) she, like the child in “The Emperor’s New
Clothes” who blurted out that the Emperor was naked, challenged Magic Leap’s
CEO, Rony Abovitz, to acknowledge the depths of misogyny in Magic Leap’s
culture and take steps to correct an gender imbalance that negatively affects
the company’s core culture and renders it so dysfunctional it continues to
delay the launch of a product that attracted billions of investment dollars.
Campbell also raised concerns that what Magic Leap showed the public in
marketing material was not what the product actually could do—admonitions
ignored in favor of her male colleagues’ assertions that the images and videos
presented on Magic Leap’s website and on YouTube were “aspirational,” and not
Magic Leap’s version of “alternate facts.”

>Campbell met September 28, 2016 with Magic Leap CFO Henry and Head of
Operations Tina Tuli for a conference call with the CFO and leadership team at
R/GA, an award-winning international advertising agency that was Magic Leap’s
advertising agency of record. During the call, Henry said of the product under
development, “I’m sitting here between two beautiful ladies. They’re not going
to want to put a big ugly device over their pretty faces. And I have an office
with glass doors, I don’t want people to see me with these beautiful girls
with ugly things on their faces.” Later, one of the male R/GA executives on
the call asked Campbell if Henry frequently made sexist comments like he had
made. A female executive at R/GA also was offended by Henry’s remarks.

>As an example of more egregious comments, Campbell told Abovitz of the “Three
Os” incident and Vlietstra’s lack of any meaningful discipline in response. As
an example of unconscious bias, she told him of an IT employee who was helping
Campbell a new logo into the email system. Cognizant that she was taking up a
lot of the employee’s time with minor changes to get the logo “perfect,”
Campbell apologized for taking up so much of the employee’s time, to which he
responded, “Oh, don’t worry, I get it. You’re a woman and you care that things
look pretty. I’m a man. I just get the work done.”

>Euen Thompson, an IT Support Lead, on November 16, 2016, gave a tutorial to a
group of seven new hires, including two women, how to use Magic Leap’s IT
equipment and resources. One woman asked Thompson a question in front of the
group and Thompson responded, “Yeah, women always have trouble with
computers.” The women in the group, in apparent disbelief, asked Thompson to
repeat what he said and Thompson replied, “In IT we have a saying; stay away
from the Three Os: Orientals, Old People and Ovaries.”

> During Campbell’s last four months at Magic Leap, Abovitz—who always had
> been pouty and prone to temper-tantrums, began to dig his heels in even more
> in the face of dissenting ideas and to explode ever more frequently into
> child-like fits of rage, threatening retribution when he didn’t get his way,
> felt betrayed or was portrayed publically in an unfavorable light.

>[...] the “Wizards Wanted” section of its website. Indeed, given that a
“wizard” generally is defined as “a man who has magical powers,” and virtually
without exception images of wizards are male, Magic Leap’s recruiting verbiage
contains a not-so-subtle “women-need-not-apply” message.

>Senior Engineer Eric Adams sent out an email December 4, 2015 through a
company email list serv for social activities for Magic Leap employees and
their families, which email bore the subject line, “Board (sic) Wives at home
while you are loving it at the Leap,” which stated:

\----

Hello Leapers:

My wife is starting a Google group outside of the Magic Leap locked domain.

It is called “Magic Leap spouses” and should be findable as such.

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/magic-leap-
spouses](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/magic-leap-spouses)

It is sort of a social meeting place for all the spouses that have been
displaced, alone in the daytime and are new to the area, would like to have
lunch with or just to have someone local to hang out with when their
significant other is slaving away at work thru-out the 12-Hr day. Or are they
just nagging you because you moved here?

Please forward this Email to your wife if she would like to get better
acclimated to South Florida. The group is not public and is reasonably private
(by email invite/accept) as to not accidentally disclose any Magic Leap
secrets.

\----

>The gender-neutral reference to “spouses” notwithstanding, implicit in the
subject line and the reference to “your wife” is the assumption — which is not
too far from wrong — that all the employees were men with wives who didn’t
work outside the home and were “alone in the daytime.”

>Sadly, because Magic Leap seldom hires and does not actively recruit female
candidates, the company loses competitive advantage to products like
Microsoft’s Hololens. Microsoft, which employs far more females on its team,
developed its similar product on a faster time line with more content that
appeals to both genders.

------
zer00eyz
For as cool as this is, cost is the problem.

$2300 is an expensive experiment, one that might not be for me.

You want to get developers to bet on new tech, to innovate, then get the cost
way down. Make me as an individual developer willing to take the risk that I
might not have the time or the mindset to follow through.

I can't imagine that the cost of production is more than $500... start selling
them at that price point.

~~~
rory096
>I can't imagine that the cost of production is more than $500... start
selling them at that price point.

You can't imagine that the cost of custom bleeding-edge hardware produced in
four-digit-volume runs is more than $500?

~~~
munk-a
In theory a lot of this funding should've been spent securing sales so they
wouldn't be producing the items on a bespoke scale but instead would've been
able to get the cost per unit down. I'm sort of amazed at the funding this has
received when it seems to be performing like an underwhelming kickstarter.

~~~
soared
Securing sales for an alpha prototype?

~~~
munk-a
Yea honestly - that's the only way to do it when you're going out on a limb
like this. That's why business often prefer more conservative incremental
changes. These folks took a giant risk making such a drastic tech leap and
they just need to reap what they've sown. They're selling units to the public
so we're out of alpha, they're trying to pawn off alpha units as a finished
product, or they really don't know what they're doing. Either way signs aren't
great.

------
sheepdestroyer
The very big disappointment comes from that they promised (kind of) that they
would get Fiber Scanning Displays working. What I gather is they had a sort
of, more or less working, giant machinery prototype (The Beast) that was very
impressive for the few who got to try it. But they never actually managed to
make the tech viable in a headset form factor. Also unclear if they had more
than one color... Still very curious about what they managed to accomplish on
that front but I now doubt we will ever know.

~~~
donpdonp
Exactly. We never got the Magic Leap. I remember reading that surgeons were
already using the tech so it 100% existed and just needed to be productized. I
figured google-ers had taken a close look and had a pretty good idea about how
to productize it. Maybe it is worth a billion, I thought to myself. What we
got was a Hololens clone. It should be called the Magic One because there's no
technological Leap in it.

------
teknot
I shot a video with Tom Furness from the UW a few years ago. He was totally
burned by the UW on the patents sold to magic leap and didn't get a dime. Then
in the interview Tom called the product total BS because they will never never
ship the true waveguide system.

The demo in lab was shown to the investors. They were sold a bill of goods
because the technology simply does not scale down to a headset size with
proper heat dissipation and power needs. Ever hear of Microvision?

The bottom line? Magic Leap was completely arrogant and gave Devs the run-
around. Then they hyped up the market with the fail whale videos that we're
all CGI and served no practical need showcasing the technology helping to save
time or fix a problem.

The dev kits shipped did showcase a lot of hard problems that needed to be
solved and integrated. A cool glimpse of the future. However the waveguide
system that they hyped investors on was never shipped in the dev kits. They
used smoke and mirrors to fool people.

Magic leap is really based off of old Microvision hype with the great backroom
demo for investors that will not manifest into a real product anytime in the
near future.

Microsoft's going to own the Enterprise in this space with integrated cloud
scale systems powering the headset.

I've tried the Magic Leap, HoloLens, helped launch the Gear VR, and was early
in the old Valve VR room. Remember kids, don't believe the hype.

~~~
rasz
> integrated cloud scale systems

a computer?

------
yalogin
Is anything else expected out of it? I mean, the way the company has rolled
on, starting with a lot of in fighting, then releasing a bunch CGI videos
about experience and never actually releasing any real use cases. They ended
up launching the product without really showing anyone what the experience
will be. People want to see what it is before spending an obscene amount on
it. I fully expected it to fail.

------
vassilyk
How are we even surprised. They are the Theranos of AR. They pushed the 'fake
it until you make it' mantra a bit far, and now reality is biting hard.

Hopefully they will still trigger a revolution of some sort... but this was
predictable.

~~~
jayd16
This is way overblown. They have at least a Hololens equivalent, and if you
value occlusion, they're ahead. And that's without Microsoft's reach. Equating
them to vaporware isn't fair at all.

~~~
pvarangot
Have you used one?

~~~
jayd16
Both.

~~~
pvarangot
I can't see how you would really take their implementation of occlusion
seriously, what's it useful for? it's so laggy that it's not even tech-demo
worthy.

~~~
jayd16
It seemed fine for static object geometry. Throw a virtual ball behind a couch
and its gone. AR toys can fall behind tables. It does add to the experience. I
don't have the most up to date view but has the Hololens significantly
improved over that?

------
ogre_codes
AR is a somewhat difficult sell, particularly with limited software available
for it. Just imagine playing the interactive games they promoted in their demo
videos, it would cost $10,000 in gear alone to get a 4 player game going.

To me, AR sounds great when you are mobile and apps can supplement reality
with useful information. Playing Minecraft or some kind of space invaders game
in my kitchen isn't that much more appealing than playing a game in a full
virtual environment.

~~~
jandrese
AR for games is an even harder sell IMHO because it's very hard for the game
developer to make use of your space in a compelling way since they have no
idea what it might look like, at least for home use.

I could see it as a carnival or arcade attraction where the AR application is
tightly coupled with the space it is in, but this is a niche application.

------
1auralynn
>Employees started receiving free headsets earlier this year, with some
managers telling staffers it was because the company couldn’t sell enough and
had extra inventory, said multiple people.

I applied for their developer grant program, and got offered a consolation
prize of a free headset - that they wanted to send me a 1099 for the full
price! Would have had to pay $600-1000 in taxes on it, so had to reject. Nice
tax write-off opportunity with a bonus of good PR!

------
mojomark
Well, the crazy thing is, the underlying technology that ML was originally
based on (i.e. U. Of Wahington's HIT lab VRD), is absolutely a leading
approach in the path to AR. I personally think it's what will ultimately make
AR the medium for applications people actually want (dare I say, need) to use
every day. Ronny got that part right. Where he failed was in not investing
that $2B+ fully into the glasses development and solving hard AR software
problems like real time occlusion. Instead, this guy hired "story tellers" to
design content for a technology that he didn't have yet.

For the second mistake, let me say only that people in AR marketing demos
should not be smiling. If they are, you're introducing the wrong product.

The core idea was on the right track, but the conductor let the train derail
very early on.

------
manigandham
This is an early beta product for wealthy tech-savvy trend-following early-
adopting VR-wanting consumers. That's a tiny market.

Classic case of a company having no idea what they're selling and who they're
selling it to but expecting billions just for existing.

~~~
fullshark
Isn't it more a classic case of a company underestimating the challenges of
bringing a prototype to market? Didn't magic leap's tech demo work on like a
supercomputer strapped to the user's back?

~~~
manigandham
Yes, but I argue that's the same thing. The end user defines the product. They
could've developed and sold the original technology is a different way
(stationary entertainment, movies, etc) and be far more successful.

------
blhack
It’s expensive, and it’s incredibly difficult to convey in video what it’s
like to wear one.

If you get a chance to try one, I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s an incredible
experience. Even just the demos.

------
sb8244
I won a unit from Twilio conference. I haven't touched it in a year but I
often think about turning it back on. I really hope they get more content for
it.

------
RenRav
It's too expensive.

~~~
lukifer
$2300? Yikes.

Curious if the quoted 100k-unit estimate was for the so-called "Creator
Edition" (clearly targeted at devs and early adopters), or if it was supposed
to include a more mass-market unit that hasn't shipped.

------
bishalpaudel
The main problem with ML is that they don't have enough apps, that could
practically be usable with AR technology. They marketed with Whale and GoT
app, which is nothing compared to the spatial awareness and real world
tracking they could have presented.

------
SkyMarshal
They need to start advertising like Occulus is doing, buying up literally
_all_ the ad slots on Youtube.

By comparison, I haven't seen a single ad for Magic Leap anywhere on the
internet. People aren't buying it b/c they've never heard of it.

~~~
davidwitt415
Imo, they are not really trying for the Consumer market right now, and these
units are aimed at Developers, who are needed to create content for the
platform. Kinda big point that was skipped over in the article, but it still
paints ML into a corner.

------
jmpman
Am I going to drop $2300 sight unseen? No. I’d be willing to go to a Microsoft
store or Apple store to try one out. The technology might be great, but they
need to work on their marketing.

------
Havoc
>He then told employees to “stay the course” and “protect the company” by
keeping confidential information “under lock and key.”

Classic. Instruction to team to not leak info get leaked.

------
ChuckMcM
Ok I knew it was bad, I didn't know it was that bad.

Lesson for the day, these guys have an excellent team when you need to
fundraise, not so much when it comes to execution.

------
keenmaster
Magic Leap is proof that first mover advantage is fictional (or at least it's
not an iron law that guarantees success). They spent large sums of money to
put out the least half-baked AR product on the market. They would be in better
shape now if they hadn't grown so fast.

That being said, AR truly is the future. In a few years there will be multiple
digital universes overlaid onto our world. Magic Leap should be commended for
their technical accomplishments, but can they stay solvent until their dream
of the future is realized? I honestly hope they pull through.

~~~
criddell
> In a few years there will be multiple digital universes overlaid onto our
> world.

I think applications like HUD displays on car windshields is an obvious place
where it will be big for regular consumers. There are a bunch of interesting
applications for commercial use too. Other than that, I have a hard time
seeing much interest in regular people until they can eliminate the need for
glasses or goggles.

~~~
keenmaster
There are many applications that, together, may make it worthwhile to wear AR
glasses:

\- Laptop monitor replacement or augmentation

\- Indoor and outdoor navigation

\- Identifying an available self-driving cab and dropping a waypoint for it to
navigate to

\- Immediate POV recording + sharing of ephemeral events (many people will
like this, even if the HN crowd won't)

\- Shared viewing of footage, large 3D graphics, or news items with your
friends no matter where you are

\- "Digitalized" brick and mortar fashion stores where you can easily identify
clothes that fit you or that are in your price point. An enhanced view would
show additional information, such as online reviews of each item.

\- All the filtering features of the digital world can be brought into real
life, including filtering out of advertisements

\- Games games games. It sounds comical to say, but Pokemon will become real.
People will run around with poke balls that release increasingly intelligent
digital creatures. In Harry Potter AR, people will be able to cast digital
spells by waving their wand in a certain way and saying the right thing. WOW
or Runescape players could dawn their achievement capes irl

\- Aesthetic landscape transformation. I imagine there will be a "default
view," "modified view," and "off view" of the world. If you go to Times Square
and enable the default view, you would be immersed in a digital world curated
by the brands that advertise there. If you use a modified view, you can see
whatever you want, whether that's anarchist graffiti or cyberpunk renderings.
In the off view, all advertisements and all screens would be rendered
invisible

\- Usable IKEA instructions

\- Non-boring meetings at work with interactive holographic renderings of
enterprise projects

\- Remote guidance and instruction (enabling emergency plant maintenance by
people who have no clue how to repair a broken pipe)

\- Digitally enhanced classrooms. Imagine a physics lab with a 3D rocket or
roller coaster sim overlaid with force diagrams.

\- Multilingual digital tour guide bots that can explain every nook and cranny
of a city for free

\- Guided construction of elaborate, ML-generated Lego structures

That's just the beginning. There are probably use cases we couldn't even
imagine yet, kind of like how some technologies that are out today seemed like
science fiction 10 years ago.

~~~
criddell
Education and games seem sensible and I already said there may be some
commercial uses (although I can't imagine them ever being good enough to want
to use for 8 hours a day). Nothing else you listed there offers enough of an
improvement over current phone and watch based alternatives.

Outside of education, games, and commercial uses, I don't think they will be
able to overcome the glasshole factor.

It's going to be a big market, but I don't think it will ever be as big as
cell phones are today.

------
jayd16
Occlusion is cool and all but Microsoft ate their lunch.

------
xenospn
I’m actually surprised they’ve sold any. Are there any practical
uses/games/anything useful or enjoyable you can do with them?

------
cryptozeus
All these talks on AR VR and I still haven’t seen a single killer app that
would make me want to buy it.

~~~
notjustanymike
I work at a 3d company that's starting to land some contracts for AR. I don't
think you're going to see consumer reasons for a while; instead look to
colleges and other training platforms. AR and VR are gonna be huge in the
medical fields - learning from a 3d model is so much easier than a textbook
image.

~~~
cryptozeus
I hope so, medical field is in a major need for innovation.

------
unlinked_dll
>He still personally signs off on new hires, who are told that it’s harder to
get a job at Magic Leap than it is to be accepted into Harvard

I doubt that. South Florida isn't crawling with engineering talent, we all
left. Having known, studied, and worked with several people who work(ed)
there, I sincerely doubt they can claim to have such a deep bench of talent.

~~~
filoleg
South Florida doesn't need to have all that talent. Pretty much none of the
people I know who were considering offers from Magic Leap, with some
eventually accepting them, were from Florida at all.

------
briefcomment
Lol at "Dented Reality". I would prefer "Demented Reality" though.

------
bblpeter
It will likely become the next WeWork

------
sixQuarks
I kind of called it 3 years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13972212](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13972212)

------
ArcVRArthur
I saw this coming long ago. I wrote this on June 7th 2018:
[https://arccompute.com/blog/why-augmented-reality-is-not-
rea...](https://arccompute.com/blog/why-augmented-reality-is-not-ready/)

------
aaron695
AR fundamentally can't work.

To work, it has to understand the world around us. It needs to be full AI.

There's also no reason why we would want it. Nothing. As we develop ways to
augment our world a simple phone can deliver the info.

VR has a use case for entertainment. It has no business or education case.

Work is done by reducing dimensions and abstracting things not adding
dimensions and unabstraction.

But at least entertainment will propel the VR industry forward so we can see
if anything else pops out.

Magic Leap faked all use cases from day one. It was obvious on multiple levels
it was vaporware

~~~
filoleg
I have a feeling this comment will be linked on HN eventually (in about a
decade) the same way people link that one infamous comment about Dropbox being
an unnecessary thing that no one needs or wants. Or the same way people in
2019 mock those from a couple of decades ago who were saying that internet was
"just a fad" that will go away sooner rather than later.

~~~
aaron695
AR has been around since 1990. VR decades before so times ticking on what a
fad is and you have to make a case why this decade AR will start?

Plus I did premise it on full AI to understand the world to augment.
Technically we already augment with the 100 year old phone allowing us to talk
to someone far away anywhere-ish.

Your case why in a decade we want AR which is a overlayed response and a
camera that can analyse the world using real technology. What will it do? Sci
Fiction movies struggle to come up with more than ads or more intrusive
notifications ;) Magic Leap made beautiful whales that looked pretty, cost a
fortune to produce and would have worked equally well in a movie which is how
everyone viewed it, in a 2D advertisement. There was no reason to AR it even
if you could afford to do it in the wild.

Most museums, a place of high structure and high value struggle to even create
simple voice overlays of art work.

~~~
filoleg
>AR has been around since 1990. VR decades before so times ticking on what a
fad is and you have to make a case why this decade AR will start?

By that metric, we had smartphones at least since the early 90s. They didn't
make any significant impact on the world at all until at least late 00s. And
now, look at the world we live in these days.

>Your case why in a decade we want AR which is a overlayed response and a
camera that can analyse the world using real technology. What will it do?

Everything a smartphone can do, but in a much more seamless, unobtrusive, and
superior way, as well as many many other things that we cannot even think of
now. If you think a tech that can completely supplant smartphones (as well as
offer many more things that smartphones cannot do) isn't gonna be desired by
people in the future, then I think there isn't much one can say to convince
you otherwise.

