The big mistake was trying to make AR specific hardware/cameras, which means that people wanting to use whatever made on that platform will have to buy phones w

The big mistake was trying to make AR specific hardware/cameras, which means that people wanting to use whatever made on that platform will have to buy phones with Tango support. Apple on the other hand focused on AR that works with normal phone cameras, allowing all their devices to get ARKit support, which is what Google ended up doing too. They dropped Tango for ARCore, which runs on any device with a normal camera on it. Specialized hardware will always lose, because it's stuck in the content -> hardware -> content vicious cycle. No one buys it because there's no content, and no one makes content because no one has the device.