Small nit: the US didn’t pause the HoloLens, they said it wasn’t rugged enough to deploy as is, and they wanted more design before they bought a bunch for field use.
That isn’t a particular damnation because it’s a very particular use case that has super tough requirements.
I think phone-based AR is completely different from face-mounted fwiw and phone-based has no reason to catch on because I’d you have to hold a phone, the UX is extra terrible. I do agree that the experiences aren’t ready yet for facemounted either, however.
Phone and headset AR have different affordances for different situations. Phone AR actually works right now and is deployed to everyone's pockets. And phones are much more capable input devices that headsets which allows for things like Pokemon Go. And you don't need to worry about obscuring the user's view so they can do full occlusion of real images and not worry about someone walking into a telephone pole. You can't do immersive, but immersive isn't the only or even the best approach.
That isn’t a particular damnation because it’s a very particular use case that has super tough requirements.
I think phone-based AR is completely different from face-mounted fwiw and phone-based has no reason to catch on because I’d you have to hold a phone, the UX is extra terrible. I do agree that the experiences aren’t ready yet for facemounted either, however.