When the announcement of the Cheddar app for Magic Leap first went out on Tuesday morning, the app was not available on my updated Magic Leap One (located in New York City). However, after checking throughout the day, I can confirm that the app is now live.
The free app downloaded very quickly and launched immediately with no problem, so I thought it might be good to give you a quick first impression of the app and how it works.
To get the app, simply turn on your Magic Leap One device and navigate to the Magic Leap World section of the menu. Once there, you'll see a bright new yellow and pink Cheddar logo (a block of cheese) shown on the extreme left side of the carousel. Click on that logo and then select the option to download the app.
One thing I wanted to check was if the feed was live or canned video content, and it turns out that it's as live as the Cheddar channel on Sling TV. In fact, I turned on the Cheddar channel on the Sling TV app and the video feeds were identical and perfectly in sync.
If you have a Magic Leap One and are wondering how the guy in the demo video (above) walked around his home while watching the Cheddar channel, the way you do it is to tap the front-facing bumper on the controller and select the Follow option.
Once that option is enabled, the Cheddar screen will follow you anywhere you've scanned your space (scanning your space is a process that you should go through before launching any apps on the Magic Leap One). You can also resize the Cheddar screen to be as large as a widescreen television set or as small as a sheet of paper.
For the uninitiated, Cheddar was launched in 2016 to serve as a millennial-focused alternative to older financial news networks like CNBC and Bloomberg TV. In addition to traditional stock and business news, the network also features dedicated programs on topics like cryptocurrency and the growing legalized marijuana business sprouting up across the US.
In the past couple of years, if you just measure based on attention and publicity, Cheddar has made a lot of progress toward its goal of competing with the two major financial news networks when it comes to snagging the attention of serious investors.
Although exact viewership numbers aren't readily available, at least one report in Digiday in 2017 claimed that the channel was averaging around 200,000 to 300,000 viewers per hour on its various platforms, which include iOS, Android, Roku, Hulu, Twitch, Sling TV, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and others.
It's worth noting that this is the first live video app available for the Magic Leap One (assuming you don't count live video streams available on YouTube via the Helio app). That's a pleasant surprise because just a few weeks ago it looked like the Direct TV Magic Leap One app would be first to offer live video on the device in 2019.
I can't guarantee that you'll "want" to keep the Magic Leap One all day to watch Cheddar around your home or office while working on other things on your computer or in the kitchen, but I can confirm that it's absolutely possible and quite easy.
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Cover image via Magic Leap/YouTube
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