(Image courtesy of Magic Leap.)
Magic Leap is in the midst of its second coming as an industrial headset. This means that the company has put out several pushes for developers to make the magic real. After losing a major U.S. government contract to Microsoft HoloLens (valued at over USD $500 million) last year, industry veterans and enthusiasts alike have been paying attention to how the unicorn manages and encourages its small but dedicated developer community.
To that end, two recent bits of news have come to light.
Access Hardware
Magic Leap has started a program called Access Hardware, which is designed to amplify access to the Magic Leap One Developer Edition headset. In the program, Magic Leap has enabled users to port content from other software platforms to the Magic Leap OS as well as increased the user friendliness for first-time developers interested in understanding how the Magic Leap developer environment may differ from development environments they are most familiar with. Also included in the Access Hardware program is more robust support from internal experts at Magic Leap.
Since launching the Magic Leap One Developer Edition, the company has afforded developers access to programs such as “Out There,” an entertainment-oriented immersive musical in spatial computing. This program debuted at Comic Con Paris recently, where it was reportedly well received. The success of third-party developers at such a big event helped management at Magic Leap direct more resources toward encouraging the development of mobile apps and XR programs. The company realized that if developers could create a mixed reality application on another platform (like HoloLens), enabling and encouraging them to port content over to Magic Leap is in its very best interest. Bolstering hardware and internal team member support is a good way to make this happen, and this is what Magic Leap is doing with these two new programs.
If you happen to be curious about Access Hardware, you can apply right now.
LEAP Developer Days
The second announcement is for something called LEAP Developer Days. These are two different two-day events at Magic Leap’s headquarters in Florida. The events are currently scheduled for this coming May and will revolve around meeting Magic Leap team members and workshopping with them in different developer activities. In order to draw more developers to LEAP Developer Days, Magic Leap is promising attendees sneak peeks at upcoming features and new technologies on the horizon of its product roadmap.
The events will give participants an opportunity to get up close and personal with the engineers and designers who’ve been at Magic Leap from its earliest developer stages to the present. Having a closer look at the company’s studios and interacting with its marketing teams will give participants a better sense of the company’s overall direction and a sense of what the Magic Leap is looking for, ultimately giving them a better chance at being successful.
Bottom Line
The first LEAP Developer Days runs from May 19 to May 20, and the second one follows immediately after it, running from May 21 to May 22. Developers will learn about best practices regarding first-party applications, gain a better understanding of enterprise markets, and have a chance to focus on some of the spatial applications that interest them.