So was the iPhone when it came out. It was an evolution over the available phones at the time. BlackBerry Razor if i recall correctly was the hottest phone at the time.
Actually the dominance of the iPhone was all but certain at the time. I remember a female friend sticking to Blackberry because it was easier for her to type on a physical keyboard than a touch-screen with her long nails.
Good job to Magic Leap team for getting us closer to the last stroke in MR that will trickle down a plethora of innovations
When the iPhone came out, it felt like someone had handed you a little bit of Star Trek. It was nothing like using any other phone at the time - the entire way the device was designed and the way you interacted with it was a new paradigm.
I think this only true for those that didn't have pre-iPhone smart phones.
The iPhone was a massive upgrade to anyone using a flip phone still, but an evolutionary upgrade to people that had been using Palm Pilots, Blackberry's, and other devices since the late 90's.
As someone who had both a Handspring Visor and a T-Mobile Sidekick (Danger Hiptop), I just don't think this is true. I get that nearly every single thing the iPhone did had an antecedent of some kind in an older product, but putting them all together the way Apple did matters--and if there was another product of that era or any previous one that provided the same level of UX responsiveness the first iPhone did, I sure never saw it, and I traveled in some pretty nerdy circles.
We can debate about whether that's "evolutionary" vs. "revolutionary," but if it was evolutionary, it's the kind of evolutionary success that leads to epochal shifts.
To bring this around to the actual OP, I'm dubious that Magic Leap is going to pull that same thing off, but that's because I'm dubious that AR in the form of "things you stick on your head" is ever going to be a mass-market phenomenon.
Of course its going to be a mass market phenomenon. Its going to be a mass market phenomenon for the same reason the smart phone was a phenomenon. It takes the internet which in the smartphone's case was something you had to go seek out at a desktop or computer and put it in your pocket. It took a dopamine hit and put it in your pocket.
AR is the same thing, it takes the dopamine hit and puts it on your face. Subsequently you get a lot more dopamine hits.
Hmm. I like your argument, but the more I think about it, the more I disagree with it. :)
I think you're correct that the smartphone was a phenomenon because it put the internet in your pocket, but we already knew the use case for the internet. People use their smartphones to do everything computers do, and sometimes more: browse the web, read books, find restaurants, make reservations, get directions, use social media platforms, pay for purchases with NFC, listen to music and podcasts, manage their calendars, control their home entertainment systems, check the weather, (...deep breath)
Anyway: "Great dopamine hits, man" falls, I think, into the "necessary but not sufficient" bucket. AR needs to do that, but it needs to do more, too. I agree with "the smartphone was a phenomenon because it put the internet in your pocket," but I think we're still looking for the correct X and Y values of "AR will be a phenomenon because it puts [X] in your [Y]."
I think the gaming potential is huge, it would take games like Pokemon GO and turn them into something like Pokemon Stadium, or can you imagine playing Wizards Chess? Obviously gaming isn't something that makes something must have, its just the area I've thought the most about. I guess I have a hard time imagining that a tool as robust as AR(especially if you add leap motion) would fail to find a set of "killer apps" that make it a market phenomenon.
People often say "of course this is going to be a mass-market phenomenon". And sometimes they're right. But sometimes, it just doesn't happen. 3D TV is the obvious one, and right now I'd be guessing that VR is next on the line. Who knows what happens with AR at this point.
for me, being in tech my whole life and growing up solidly a nerd and in the cyberpunk culture of the 80s, when the iphone
hit, it was more of a sigh of relief of "ok finally we are making the steps into the cyberpunk future weve been fantasizing and thus building for decades"
it wasnt until the snowden stuff hit and all the current tech problems we have that the sentiment is "oh crap, the dystopian cyberpunk future is a heck of a lot more of a slippry slope than we were ready to deal with as a society"
People picked up SnapChat though, then used it to send really intimate content. Like I see your point, but I don't think consumers are that smart when they're getting dopamine hits.
Absolutely, 100% not the case. I was in grad school, working on smartphones so had access and used a lot of them. iPhone was MILES and MILES better. Obviously so.
I think first impression is important but not a key indicator of long term success. The first iPhone unlocked the mobile web browsing use case, which is huge. People had always wanted to browse the web, just not on mobile. That alone makes the first iPhone a revolutionary product. Magic Leap One has to create new user behavior, which is much much harder.
"When the iPhone came out, it felt like someone had handed you a little bit of Star Trek."
Equivalent statement:
"When the iPod came out, it felt like someone had handed you a little bit of Star Trek."
In both cases, once you started using it you had the same reaction "this is REALLY cool but has major issues, I can't' wait for the next version".
I remember my boss gleefully showing me his new iPod, and then him cursing from his office that afternoon (and many after that) as the thing crashed, and nuked his music library again, and again.
Played with an iPod when it first came out. It was really nifty. I played with an iPhone when it first came out, even the swipe to unlock screen felt like star trek. The two things were not comparable
One of the big things was simply the touch screen. No-one else was using that tech at the time and it was light-years better than the existing tech. Turned it from nice in theory to actually usable.
I don't think the iPod was in the same class, really. For the consumer, it was, mostly, a way better minidisc player. It was better enough than other MP3 players and other audio players that it took over (especially once the nano came out), but it was not, dare I say it, magical and revolutionary in the same way the iPhone was.
I believe Apple will win this race, for this reason. They aren't talking about what they're doing but they are very much preparing developers to develop AR tech on their device with swift and ARKit as well as the capabilities of the A11.
I suspect that by the time Apple starts signaling that they've got a headset and announce it at WWDCXX its going to feel like it fell straight out of the year 3000.
A core component of any AR headset for everyday use is going to be that it not only has to be stylish, it has to be chic. I think Apple is the only one of the frightful five that have that kind of brand power. I have serious doubts that ML has a culture that can be molded to produce a product that has that aura around it. I can 100% see ML becoming part of Google, especially considering Google's stake in ML.
Google can make some snazzy things, and Amazon echo's pretty nice, I think Apple's not the 'only' ones who can do stylish, I personally prefer Google's phones over iphone, but I'm not an apple fanboy either. I prefer utility over style, and I enjoy android/linux over ios/macos anyday.
Google seems to have had some decent experience lately with hardware, Amazon still feels like it flounders a little in this area with failed fireos phones, and alexa/echos' and maybe firesticks are the only major things they've really come out with that stuck, I guess kindles too a bit, but not great.
Samsung I guess could also be another contender to buy them, they put out some great devices as well... I don't know who it'll be - but I think ML will be acqui-hired.
Beats they paid 3 billion for, that seems pretty big... and ML while it has a lot of investment could be purchased (if it's on a downtrend/failing cycle) for that much if they just want a talent acquisition... I mean ML has hype but it's nowhere near as big as even Tesla, definitely not as big as some of the recent 'big' buys like Disney buying Fox for 70 billion, or even FB/Whatsapp for 20 billion...
I mean, I feel ML team is definitely worth more than Whatsapp, but they don't have a product that's ready for mainstream yet... having the full backing of one of the bigger companies could bring mass AR to mainstream audiences faster.
the entire way the device was designed and the way you interacted with it was a new paradigm.
Only if you ignored all the other smartdevices on the market at the time. Palm and WindowsMobile phones had touchscreens before the iPhone came out. The only big change with the iPhone from an interaction perspective was a switch to capacitative screens, which made it easier to use with fingers but far worse to use in any sort of weather or industrial situations.
I had a windows mobile phone at the time and disagree. The ux of the iphone was so far beyond any competitor it was a different kind of product. It felt like a part of the future, instead of the bleeding edge of the present.
I had both a Windows Mobile and the first iPhone. The iPhone was definitely not "so far beyond any competitor" that it was a new kind of product. It just felt like another smartphone with a prettier UI.
And also, of course, all phones now are pretty much an evolution of the iPhone. No phones now are an evolution of Windows CE. Windows CE/Mobile didn't just die itself; it left no spiritual descendants.
Did you ever use the Prada? The UI was horrible, not to mention apps sucked (phone had no easy integration for contacts and calling, no visual voicemail).
It had similar features, but not useful. iPhone was very useful.
When the iPhone came out, it was pretty much identical to the already popular iPod Touch, but with a phone included. It was a very obvious next step for Apple to take, although I'm sure Apple had planned to launch the iPod Touch as an intermediate step to a phone.
The original iPod was not all that much different from other MP3 players at the time, it simply had great design (both from a UX and aesthetic perspective). Similarly, the iPod Touch or early iPhones were technologically not much more impressive than a Blackberry. Touchscreens were nothing new at the time. But I agree with you that the way you interacted with the device was a new paradigm. Sometimes little evolutions make a big difference, especially when they make something easier to use, which is probably the most important factor for mass adoption.
In addition to getting your release timing off, as the other commenter has pointed out, the iPod Touch and iPhone are essentially the same thing, only the latter has a cellular radio and the respective features that enables. Regardless of which came out first, it's this platform that was truly innovative. So they should be considered together as the revolution.
It may indeed be true that a revolution isn't needed to make MR commercially viable for a consumer market, but I don't think we're there quite yet.
The Magic Leap One costs $2.2k, which is cheaper than the competition but still pretty expensive for a product that hasn't yet established its usefulness to the extent PCs or smartphones have.
If Magic Leap (or a competitor) can cut the price to a third, bump the specs a bit further, and get developers on board creating compelling experiences that just might do it, but it will take a couple more evolutionary iterations before we get to that point.
There was never a "Blackberry Razor" product. There was the Motorola RAZR phone that was just a flip phone that was very popular for a few years before the iPhone, and then there were Blackberry phones of the time which had small screens and small keyboards. Some people loved them but they were a fairly niche product mostly used by professionals who valued email access at all times.
When the iPhone came out it was a true revolution and the plans for Android phones at the time were entirely redone.
Good job to Magic Leap team for getting us closer to the last stroke in MR that will trickle down a plethora of innovations