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Comment by ericd | Hacker News Reader

Keep in mind that this author is a long-time Magic Leap critic. He's not exactly looking hard for silver linings.

I'm sure you think that shows bias, but you could also say that his track record of being right means he should be considered extra credible. :)

Are you seeing a “silver lining” he missed? If not, don’t you think it’s possible that he’s been a long time critic because it was crap and exception from the get-go? If not, I think it’s worth remembering that this critic correctly predicted all of the major problems with the device months (and longer) before it was released. He called the “lightfield” and other marketing dishonesty out quite a long time ago, and seems to have been batting nearly .1000.

So... what do you see that he missed?

I understand that you’ve been very supportive of this for months, but unless you’re invested in or affiliated with Magic Leap it might be time to let it go in the face of the reality.

Yes, I've watched a few long form video reviews of the ML One, and I've generally been impressed with what I've seen in the videos. The reviewers have generally seemed impressed as well. They usually say it could use a bit of work before being unleashed to consumers, and that it's a long way from fulfilling all of AR's potential, but being that it's explictly a dev kit of a V1 of potentially a whole new industry, I think that's all acceptable.

This reviewer has clearly had an axe to grind with ML's claims for years, and this is a continuation of that.

EDIT: that doesn't seem like the same comment I replied to, did you significantly expand it?

I think you can quibble about the author's bias, but Magic Leap has so far failed to deliver on the promise that its early videos promised: the ability to seamlessly blend the real world with a computer-generated one.

Other systems in the same space (like Hololens, the Rift and the Vive) didn’t put such simulated imagery front-and-centre in their marketing materials.

They're not quite there yet on their miniaturized consumer hardware, but have you watched the longer form videos? What they've pulled off looks like a very strong start toward that.

The Rift and Vive are not in the same space as Hololens/ML at all, they shouldn't be lumped together.

You either didn't notice or forgot the bad press Hololens endured for misleading advertising:

https://mashable.com/2015/10/06/microsoft-hololens-misleadin...

https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9465839/microsoft-hololen...

Going back further, Microsoft has a history of this with things like Project Milo on the Kinect. These things really don't matter in the end though. Its the technology itself that matters, and how good or bad it is relative to the market.

“batting nearly .1000” would mean he’s right almost 10% of the time. I think you meant “batting a thousand”, which would be written “1.000”

You’re right, thanks for the correction.

The silver lining is that devs actually really like the device. Despite the hype/reality factor that tainted the initial reviews the consensus is that the device itself is actually quite good. If all you read are the negatives, especially hit pieces from Guttag then I could see why you have the point of view you do. In fact you'll be hard pressed to find any reviews outside of Guttag and Palmer Luckey who state the device is bad:

Hololens developers:

https://brekel.com/category/magic-leap/

https://medium.com/futurepi/magic-leap-one-in-depth-review-b...

AR/VR reporters:

https://twitter.com/kentbye/status/1038927438279888896?s=21

https://uploadvr.com/heres-what-actual-developers-think-of-t...

New content is getting praise:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17876488/angry-birds-magi...

And this is just the start. Their dev conference is in a week. Lots more to see and I don't think they're going anywhere for a very long time.

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