By now many of you will have become aware of the brouhaha around the latest announcement from that fruity company in Cupertino, California.

ICYMI they announced a groundbreaking new device they call ‘Vision Pro’:

Unlike the virtual world of legless avatars that young Zucky is flogging, Apple Vision Pro is something entirely different — and to be clear, it’s not a metaverse.

In my mind this new device accomplishes three things:

• it unencumbers you from the limitations of physical screens and monitors
• it enables truly immersive interaction with 3D content
• it creates a ground breaking environment for sharing and collaboration

What then could provide a more perfect platform to interact with geospatial data?

I remember a demo, some 18 years ago, at the Esri annual user conference of a 3D touch table. People were wowed. Of course now Vision Pro would blow this out of the water.

Even Apple’s AR demo at the Apple Visitor Center at Apple Park seems quaint compared to what could be accomplished with Vision Pro:

With Apple Vision Pro I could imagine sitting in a room sharing some geospatial model of some landscape or perhaps a cityscape, pulling apart and visualizing different layers of data or watching as some geoprocess operates on the data — with all the interactions controlled with simple hand gestures.

And editing geospatial data would be similarly awesome. Perhaps you would dive into the scene to edit some little aspect of some pipe or fire hydrant, or perhaps you would fly back out to experiment with manipulating whole layers.

All at the same time your colleagues, remote or present in the room with you, would be able to experience the same thing and collaborate with you on the spatial interactions.

Geospatial story telling would be equally mind blowing.

Imagine the power of a presentation to make the case for some new policy or some new major investment. It would truly be a game changer.

Yes, dear Esri, it’s time to finally junk that mountain of COM based Microsoft Windows code you developed last century, abandon the complexity of UI ribbons and endless check boxes. It’s time get with the program and show the world what you can really do!

Done right your platform could become the prime enterprise example of the power Apple Vision Pro.

And who knows, if you’re busy junking that 20th century technology and revamping your platform, maybe, just maybe, ArcGIS for macOS may come easier than you thought. 😉