Now that the Magic Leap One Mixed Reality headset is out for anyone (in 6 specific cities in the US) to buy, it’s up for the developers to make something great with it. Magic Leap has given you a great technology that can help developers make some extraordinary experiences, but those great experiences won’t necessarily come from within Magic Leap, but from 3rd party developers.
Every company who released a development platform, its main goal is a large adoption and seeing its platform grow in popularity and eager to see killer apps that will make people go crazy about its device.
Now considering the Magic Leao Price tag and its limited availability (Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco (Bay Area), and Seattle), the problem is that even if such app is released, there is a very little market that will enjoy it. A big chunk of those are developers themselves. So making any good profit from that so-called “Killer App” is not tight to reality. Now developers aren’t stupid, they know that the consumer market is very limited, yet, this is a great opportunity for individuals and indie devs to make some strong early impressions and build a name for themselves. I’ve seen in Augmented Reality and I have little doubt that something different will happen here.
We’ll get to see some great projects in the upcoming months. Seeing developers coming out with some cool ideas that obviously will just scratch the surface of what’s possible.
Many of those companies will probably are ready to take on some loss in favor of a strong media exposure. This can even help them promote other projects that they have already finished for other platforms and use this as a springboard to get great exposure.
However, I think that there will be quite a few companies that their main focus is AR and MR. Some of them probably already have been invested in, companies who believe in the future of this medium and do their best to make the best early impressions.
Nobody really knows how this market will shape up in the upcoming years. However, many developers do know that it’s easier to showcase your talent and get media exposure at the beginning when the technology is fresh and all the media outlets are starving for related news about it, then entering when the competition is very tough and you are almost invisible to the media.
I have a good feeling that we’ll get to see some of the familiar studios that were in AR from the very beginning also showcasing their mixed reality project for the Magic Leap One.
There will certainly be some developers who will just port their AR projects to Magic Leap One. I’ve seen that when developers brought games from HoloLens to ARKit and ARCore, hopefully, to gain more audience trying out their app. However, I think this can be a bad idea. Magic Leap is a completely new platform that has far higher potential than any AR platform out there. Let alone the fact that you don’t need to hold a device, and you have so many other types of interactions and new technologies (e.g. hand gesture, eye-tracking, 3D spatial audio, scene meshing) that you can take advantage of to create a completely fresh new experience, something no other AR developer has done before in any AR app or game.
I’m sure there will be those whom for them, copy-pasting is a quick way to just get exposure to their previously developer AR game, maybe with some extra features like using the controller or employing hand-gestures. However, if I was a developer, I would focus on creating an experience that is designed from the ground up for this platform and taking advantage of as many features as possible to really showcase this platform’s potential. This way, your app can be “featured” by Magic Leap and has a higher chance of getting exposure in different media outlets and get a better chance for virality and exposure for your brand.
I have so many ideas for the Magic Leap One that my mind hurts. The technology is awe-inspiring and I’m sure that many developers have watched those demos and that opened up the mind to some many creative ideas. It’s not hard when you have such a fresh technology and so much creative freedom. AR had many limitations in comparison, and many of those limitations are gone. AR devs need to readjust their thinking yet again and try to focus on apps without that fixed AR limitations in mind.
I think this is exactly what Rony Abovitz meant when he posted that “Free Your Mind” banner in one of his tweets.
Happy Monday 😎🚀 pic.twitter.com/7qT0fF2KCf
— Rony Abovitz (@rabovitz) August 13, 2018
He posted it several times. For me, this means one thing, having fewer restrictions and more freedom to create amazing things. Try open your mind and imagine new creative ideas that you can reimagine on this platform.
You need to sit down, drink a hot herbal tea, watch those demos and start writing down ideas. I’m sure as you watch those videos or experimenting with them yourself with the Magic Leap One, ideas will just come out. Some of those idea you probably already had but wasn’t able to them to due prior restrictions in other AR platforms. Now you won’t have to, just thinking about that the hands of the user are free now, this alone can open up endless creative options for games, educational apps, business apps, etc. I actually thought about an educational app that teaches the sign language or a spellcasting game, this good be so awesome!
Like Rony said: “Free Your Mind”. Once you do, you’ll found that great idea. It can even be very easy to develop because there are so many ideas that weren’t done for this platform because it’s so brand new but it’s the perfect platform to make those ideas a reality.
I am really excited to see what you guys are going to develop with this new amazing platform. Take advantage of this relatively easy time period, come up with great ideas and showcase them to the world. I would be glad to share your creation as well and write about it. If you do want to share it with me, whether before or after release, contact me via email or preferably via Twitter. If you want to make it private, you can ask me to follow you on Twitter so we can have a little chat. I wish you success and good luck in your mixed reality journey and don’t forget to stay in touch.
Banner image: I took that picture in Kyoto, Japan. It’s Kinkau-Ji, a Zen Buddhist temple, also known as “Golden Pavilion”. I love relaxing places, it helps me relax, think better and open my mind to creative ideas.