I think about Apple's rumored virtual reality/augmented reality device in terms of something like this post at Matt Webb's Interconnected blog. And I regard Apple's Freeform app as a kind of introduction to this sort of networked collaborative workspace.

Freeform has utility in its present form, but I wonder if it isn't serving a couple of purposes for Apple. First is introducing users to the idea networked collaboration, and second is to gather data on how people use it.

Matt's post about the "map room" is something that might be able to be realized in a virtual reality setting, affording, or helping to establish, the shared context necessary for effective collaboration.

Personally, what I'm looking forward to with VR is the opportunity to explore distant places in a somewhat immersive experience. The ability to visit historic places without hundreds or thousands of tourists present. To experience them at any time of the day or night, unconstrained by a travel schedule or transportation. The chance to see places without dumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere just to get to them.

But I also get excited about the potential for collaboration as Matt describes, and I think Apple may be too.

I think universities and research facilities may be the first to employ this type of capability. Corporations would soon follow. As the technology advances, becomes smaller, lighter and cheaper, I can see it being introduced in secondary schools.

Pretty cool, I think.

Get me to the holodeck.