Leap Motion delayed until July 22 for further software testing

Shawn Knight

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Those eyeballing Leap Motion’s upcoming 3D gesture controller will have to sit tight a bit longer as its launch has officially been pushed back to July 22. The decision, according to CEO Michael Buckwald, was made to give the company more time to test the device before putting it in the hands of consumers.

In a note to customers, Buckwald said the reality is they very likely could have hit the May 13 ship date but it wouldn’t have left time for comprehensive testing. He said the only way they felt 100 percent confident they could deliver a magical product was to push the date back. The device was originally scheduled to ship earlier this year before being pushed back to May.

In the interim, Leap will begin a beta test with the 12,000 or so developers that already have the device in their hands. The beta will give these developers full access to the product’s features including OS interaction.

Buckwald pointed out that this extra round of beta testing was to focus primarily on software, not hardware. That’s good news for Leap as more than 600,000 gesture controllers have already been made. Either way, however, it must be a bit disappointing for those that already have a unit on order.

If you aren’t familiar with the device, the 3-by-1-inch module is able to track the movement of all 10 fingers on both hands up to 1/1000th-millimeter accuracy with no visible latency. If you need a visual on exactly how the technology works, I encourage you to check out our post on Google Earth with Leap Motion integration.

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I don't buy it. According to Leap Motion, this is purely software-related, to make it better. But they also have been saying that the hardware has been finalized ages ago, and that all of the software is 100% upgradable. So why not release it as it is, and then provide online software updates?

They offer no answer to that question, which makes me think they are lying. They probably found yet more issues with the hardware and just trying to save face by saying they are improving the software, which makes no sense at all, at least none to delay the product release.

These days delaying the release till the software is perfect is a crazy idea. It is much more important to release it earlier and then provide updates quickly as needed.
 
I was one of the pre-order customers who have been waiting for this to arrive. Initially I almost forgot that I had ordered it as so little info was coming from the company. Then I got the first push back notice and thought... 'well, ok at least the company still exists and they still intend to make a product'.

Then another long, long silence, no email product status updates, no update to the company website, occasional news articles about how big name laptop companies are going to have this thing built into upcoming machines. This is when I started thinking that even though I pre-ordered the device, I'll probably not get one until all the big company orders are placed, if ever. Thoughts began to creep in that it was more vapor-ware that hardware. Good thing I didn't have to give any credit card info to them when I pre-ordered, I would have canceled the card thinking it had been compromised.

And now the second push back notice. I'm guessing at this point this is all we will ever get from this company is empty promises and continual random statements about how they are making sure it is perfect before releasing, as nothing is ever perfect this wonder controller will most likely never get into the hands of the people who pre-ordered it. Again good thing I did not have any money invested in the product, but it is sad to see the hope I had gone to waste on another non -product.

At this point if the company keeps pushing back some Chinese knock off company is going to come around and release a similar/idenitcal product and beat them to the punch. At that point I would by something similar even if it didn't work 100% just to have something tangible in my hands to work with.
 
Initially I almost forgot that I had ordered it as so little info was coming from the company.

They actually brought this up in their live chat with their customers earlier today. They said despite their email and facebook page, they realized they weren't keeping anybody updated, and vowed to start doing just that. We'll see if they stick to it. For this being their first appearance to the public, they've screwed up pretty bad.

They've already set up contracts with HP and ASUS, so even if many of their pre-order customers back out, in the end, they're still going to be bringing in a fairly nice chunk of change as long as the product sells well after release. Even with this slip up, I still am at 99% ready to buy. Just going to wait until it's released and I see video reviews of it first, lol.
 
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