The Leap Motion Controller officially begins shipping Monday. While the Controller is just now making it into the hands of consumers, it’s been in the hands of some developers for some time now, developers who have created some pretty amazing motion-controlled apps for the device.
The Leap Motion app is the software part that works with the hardware team to complete the whole hand-controller-Mac motion interaction process. Note that, Leap Motion comes with two additional.
The Leap Motion Controller is a peripheral input device that lets you interact with your Mac in a new way. With it you can control supported apps by waving your hands in. Leap Motion launched its groundbreaking motion detection module on Monday, allowing anyone to connect a little box to their Mac or Windows computer that can detect gestures more precisely than.
The idea of motion-controlled apps is certainly intriguing, but do they actually work? I had the opportunity to spend this past weekend trying out some of the apps in the store to find out.
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At launch there are already a lot of apps to choose from. With everything from a racing game to an app for virtually dissecting a frog, there's a Leap Motion app out there that's bound to catch your attention.
Heading Into Airspace
Apps for Leap Motion are sold from their own special app store called the Airspace Store. Much like Apple’s App Store or Google Play, apps are organized in the store by category, with special sections available for things like Top Picks or Free Apps.
While the Leap Motion Controller can be used with both Macs and Windows PCs, apps in the store are platform specific. What that means is if you have a Windows machine, the apps you’ll be able to use with your Controller will be a bit different than those someone with a Mac can.
Leap Motion Mac Apps Offline
Below each app’s listing in the Airspace store you’ll see a “Win” or “Mac” designation letting you know what type of machine that particular application will work with. You can also sort apps in the store by platform. Right now that method works fairly well, simply because there aren’t a substantial number of apps available. As Airspace grows, however, it will likely get a lot harder to navigate.
Apps range in price from free to quite expensive, with most prices on-par with what you would pay for a particular application on its own with Leap Motion Controller functionality.
Ready for Launch
Leap Motion Mac Apps Download
Once downloaded, all of the apps that are compatible with the Leap Motion Controller can be launched from a special Airspace launcher.
If you’re not using Touchless, an app for controller your computer, then you’ll have to open each app using your computer’s mouse before you’ll be able to use the Leap Motion Controller.
Apps are displayed within the launcher as tiles, which ultimately expand to several pages as your app library grows, and grow it will. I found each app I tried a little more addictive than the next, each often offering an opportunity to do something entirely new and different with the Controller than the last.
By in large I was able to use all of the apps I tried out — Leap gave me a demo account where I could download everything for free — but some apps definitely have a steeper learning curve than others, and could benefit from you coming in with a bit of experience using the Controller before you launch them the first time.
Check out the gallery for a look at some of the apps currently available in the Airspace Store.
What apps do you hope become available for the Leap Motion Controller? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.