Ok DJI, your drone is out.  Here is an upgrade idea for all your drones through the use of your APP.
First you need a tutorial system where the APP gives you VR waypoints to go through.  When you look through the APP screen, you can see hoops or waypoints you need to pass.  This could be integrated into levels to allow people who fly the ability to level up.
The second part of upgrade, which I think would make it the ultimate fun APP.  Would be a multiplayer style dog fighting VR simulator where you can challenge other DJI drones to fights.  The APP provides an overlay with the ability to be able to shoot other drones virtually as well as release chaff or counter measures as well as provide virtual roadblocks.  For older drones which may be slower and such, you can give them higher hit points.  Anyway just a thought to try and bring in a little more fun to flying of drones and just capturing pictures.
They did it with Pokemon GO, but instead you don't need to be somewhere specific, just at a certain height with clearance all around.

The amount of processing power required to fully track and map a 3d environment and then place and render dynamic 3d objects within that environment is about 200,000x that of which a phone could produce.  

It's a really cool idea, but it would have to be run on a rather powerful computer.  Not a cell phone.

There was an iOS APP that to a snapshot of your environment and you could pop bubbles.  You would see your actual surroundings, but bubbles would show up on your screen and you used your phone to flick other things to pop the bubbles.  If this type of APP was incorporated into the software it could be done.  I'm sure they could sell a small sensor that would allow another DJI aircraft to see that sensor.  The drones already recognize people, they should be able to recognize other drones.

Walkera are onto something similar with the Aibao (stupid name) although there's been safety concerns raised already.

That is a different name.

There is a sim in the Mavic.  Is it very powerful, not really.  But you have to have the controller connected to the craft that is powered on.  The sim uses the processing power of the craft to power it.  It is better than crashing your Mavic if you are a first time user.  Remember the Mavic has a beginner mode.  Don't get overly confident that you can just do this.  It does not work that way.  Orientation is easy to loose.  Keep the craft in close, nose out.  Then learn to do nose in and all the other orientations.  It is not difficult but it does take some practice.  Don't rely on the GPS and monitor to save you.  It may not.  Remember if you loose GPS the Mavic does not know where home is.  That means that it is up to the pilot.  Thats you.  You have to be prepared.

chris50 Posted at 2016-10-22 06:36
The amount of processing power required to fully track and map a 3d environment and then place and r ...

I think you are grossly underestimating the power of the CPU and GPUs in top end cell phones. The new iPhone 7 has almost the same power of an Xbox One.

kevinelliott Posted at 2016-10-22 08:04
I think you are grossly underestimating the power of the CPU and GPUs in top end cell phones. The  ...

I'm not... This is literally my job.... The Xbox one wouldn't be able to do this either for the record, consoles are very underpowered.

Tahoe Ed Posted at 2016-10-21 17:55
There is a sim in the Mavic.  Is it very powerful, not really.  But you have to have the controller  ...

This has probably been discussed before but is there any reason we don't have a headless mode (where the controls work based on a fixed compass heading rather than the nose of the drone)?

WolfgangStiller Posted at 2016-10-22 12:53
This has probably been discussed before but is there any reason we don't have a headless mode (whe ...

It does have, they call it 'course lock' and 'home lock', 2 different versions of headless mode at least.

It would be nice to have acro mode. There can be several implementations:
1. permanent, customize a button and press to switch
2. temporary. from sport mode press a button and have 5-10seconds of fun, then it switches back into sport mode
3. one time. press a button, then on extreme stick movement it switches in acro mode till you stop moving sticks or move them to the middle.

Looks like just software update will be enough, but combined with nice camera it can produce cool videos impossible on big drones

Tahoe Ed Posted at 2016-10-22 07:55
There is a sim in the Mavic.  Is it very powerful, not really.  But you have to have the controller  ...

Think I will be practicing in the back yard with some pylons to get used to flying.  I have flown small quadcopters before.

The 3DR solo does something very basic with the augmented reality home point and stuff, I cant see a top end smartphone struggling  

chris50 Posted at 2016-10-22 06:36
The amount of processing power required to fully track and map a 3d environment and then place and r ...

You don't need to track the entire environment, you just do it as AR based on the drone's positioning sensors.  For things like rings you can fly through it would work fine, with the exception of not having proper layering, but for a drone that's much less of a concern than the general case.