Leap Motion Controller Review (opens in new tab)

I pre-ordered one early and have been waiting for what seems like forever. Mine should be arriving in a day or so.

I have a lot lower expectation than Leap seems to be espousing - as an interesting and offbeat UI device fun for developing.

It's certainly not the next coming UI paradigm. There's been enough UI and human physiology research that would tell people that holding up ones arms to point to things on the screen is not a feasible method for interacting with a computer (Minority Report not withstanding).

I think Leap made a big mistake going from a hacker group making an interesting device to a world changing UI group. They can never sustain this business model.

I'll enjoy my Leap and show it off as an amazing idea of technology but I'm not holding my breath that this will replace a mouse or trackpad.

I really like the tech but am not sure they've found the killer app yet, although I think they are going about it in a decent direction really trying to cater to tinkerers and hackers with the SDK & dev kit.

That said, I do think they need to think a little bit harder from a top-down perspective just where this tech might be most applicable. Certainly gaming could be big. But as a general purpose input device, I'm not so sure.

I first heard about leapmotion controller almost 6 months back and it was quite evident that it is a brilliant piece of technology. It may take a while to mature maybe but it looks like something with great potential in gaming, designing etc.

I think this is the future UI for certain use cases. I'll be curious to see how widely this sort of UI can be practically applied.