Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far?
I&#x27;ve spoken about this before on here. We developed on HoloLens for a couple months. Working on the HoloLens app was actually my first foray into 3D development, and also required converting ThreeJS JSON into Unity models which was a mess.<p>The user experience
--------------<p>HoloLens is mesmerizing. I&#x27;m not big into VR or anything, and will often make the arguement that VR hype will die out and is a fad. But there&#x27;s something very different about what Microsoft is doing. The ability to incorporate reality as a first class citizen in your 3D applications (or vice versa) is groundbreaking. People often complain about the FOV when they first try it out, and I had the same complaint, but your brain is able to compensate once it gets used to it, and then you stop noticing it. That&#x27;s something you don&#x27;t get from a short trial of it at a tech demo. The user inputs are indeed very clumsy still. We&#x27;ll need vast improvements in this area before HoloLens can feel immersive. But the amazing thing is that this first pass isn&#x27;t <i>that</i> bad. It can track your hands and it&#x27;s a computer that sits on your head. I mean, come on! I&#x27;m only 22 and even I think that&#x27;s amazing.<p>The developer experience
------------------------<p>One of the major short comings of HoloLens development is its dependency on Unity. C# isn&#x27;t the problem. I love C# and use it daily now for web development. The problem is Unity uses .NET 2.0, and good luck finding C# libraries that are compatible. So for every new thing you want to do, you&#x27;re going to have to find a &quot;Unity compatible&quot; C# library, which is very annoying.<p>Unity will work for what you need most of the time, but it turns out if you want to try something custom (like your own gestures) then you&#x27;re out of luck, because the Unity APIs are limited in that way.<p>I suppose I&#x27;m mostly just not a fan of Unity&#x27;s component model. Constantly switching between adjusting settings in the IDE and coding feels like a bad way of developing.<p>Okay, so maybe you want to try something a little lower level. Microsoft offers a C++ API as well, and for the most part this is what you want if you need to harness the limited power of the HoloLens. I haven&#x27;t played around with all of the APIs, but I know of one in particular that left a bad taste in my mouth (this applies to Unity too) -- the spatial anchor API. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the spatial anchor API is the only way to acquire a durable and persistent reference to a real world location. This is done (I think) with sensor data (orientation, lighting, and images captured by the 4 on board spatial mapping cameras.) This is really an incredible feat of engineering, however it produces a binary which is around 15MB. Far too large to store in a database at scale. I&#x27;d like to see MS open up raw access to those sensors so middleware developers can try their hand at improving this aspect of HoloLens.<p>If C++ isn&#x27;t your thing, there&#x27;s a library called HoloJS. You guessed it, it&#x27;s a JS runtime for HoloLens with access to native libs. I actually started my own variation on this (called HolographicJS) before Microsoft released theirs, but I&#x27;m happy they&#x27;ve taken over.<p>The future
----------<p>So what does this all mean for a device that seemly has its share of problems to overcome? Well, after trying it I&#x27;m fairly confident that MR as Microsoft calls it, is here to stay. The ability to mix reality with virtual reality, and augment that with a layer of environmental understanding is really incredible. I think we&#x27;re just scratching the surface of the possiblities.<p>HoloLens is the first in a new field of devices that I believe will come to replace all forms of computers we currently use: phones, laptops, desktops, tablets, etc. Even things like IOT devices. Why spend time building your own interfaces when you can just augment the users&#x27;?<p>If v2 had better FOV and improved input tracking, I&#x27;d consider it a major success. But if it also included improved spatial mapping and a reliable GPS, that could bring us into a whole new world, quite literally.<p>The way I see it, the first company to solve outdoor use of an MR device, and solve what I&#x27;m calling the &quot;universal spatial map&quot; problem, will run the world of tomorrow.<p>Imagine every machine being capable of interfacing with you without the need for a screen or separate device. Imagine walking down the street, gesturing to a restaurant and placing an order before you even get inside.<p>Further down the line. What if we could transfer consciousness out of a dying car crash survivor into a computer. What if that person could then be virtually transferred back to the scene of the accident, to be greeted by those who are augmented.<p>Anyway, that&#x27;s all crazy futurism; but the point is that reality starts with what is being done with HoloLens, and I think it&#x27;s an incredible thing to be a part of.<p>To me, HoloLens feels like the Apple II.