Apple wanted to buy AR company Magic Leap

Apple was interested in buying AR company Magic Leap and almost did in 2016. Financial news agency Bloomberg writes in a reconstruction of what happened to the company that raised $ 3.5 billion in investment and its platform never got off the ground. saw coming.

Magic Leap was in consultation with all the major tech giants in 2016, but the interest from Apple was the most concrete and those conversations were the furthest, writes Bloomberg in the backstory. Magic Leap’s founder traveled to Cupertino to discuss an acquisition with Apple’s board.

Apple has been interested in augmented reality for years. Around the time of the talks, Apple director Tim Cook said that Apple was more interested in augmented reality than in virtual reality. Meanwhile, with ARKit, Apple already has APIs for developers to create apps for iOS with aspects of AR. Glasses were rumored to follow in a few years.

Magic Leap has been around since 2011 and raised investments from major companies such as Google and Qualcomm. Despite this, the company did not keep its promises. Eventually, experimental AR glasses came on the market, the Magic Leap One. The founder retired as CEO earlier this year. His successor wants to enter into partnerships with other companies to sell the AR glasses and focuses more on the business market.