Geo Elevation Pro

Geo Elevation is free. Everything on the map is yours: paths, areas and circles, their profiles and numbers, slope and contours, line of sight and the view from a point. Geo Elevation Pro is one purchase in the app that adds the ground in 3D, standing on it, and every way of taking your work out of the app: pictures, plates, models, the report and your data.

Free

Paths, areas, circles and rectangles, drawn with Add Points or Freehand, straight or along trails and roads, and spot heights.
The elevation profile of a path and the numbers of an area.
Slope and Contours on the map.
Line of sight and a circle’s View from Center.
Find a Place…, Add Point at Coordinates…, Add My Location, every unit and map style, both data sources.
Copying a point’s or a spot’s coordinates from the points and spots lists.
Your documents: new, open, save, Save As…, and Import… of GPX, KML and GeoJSON; Quick Look and the document icons. See Documents and files.
The ten Places in 3D, as long as they are unchanged (below).

With Pro

The ground in 3D: Relief and the sun, the Map, Tint, Plain and Geology grounds, Gloss and Paper.
Look: on foot at a circle’s center.
On Apple Vision Pro: View as Object and Stand Here.
Every export: Image (TIFF), Image (PDF), Plate (PDF), 3D Model (USDZ), Blender Scene, 3D Print (STL), Map Image (PNG), Report (PDF), GeoJSON, GPX and CSV. See Import and export.
Print…, to paper or saved as a PDF, and the Share button’s picture of the map on iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro.

The Places: 3D for free

Ten real places come with the app: Mount Rainier, Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point, Zion Canyon, Mount St. Helens, Crater Lake, Kīlauea, Mount Whitney and Mount Washington. Open one from Places on the start screen (iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro, see On iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro) or from Samples in the welcome window on the Mac (see On the Mac). It opens straight onto its 3D view, without Pro.

A Place keeps its free 3D, Look and, on Apple Vision Pro, its object and Stand Here, as long as its measurements are the ones it came with: the same shapes, the same points, the same spots. Rename it, recolor it, change its map style or the order of its layers, or save it as it is, and nothing changes. Move a point, or add a shape or a spot, and it is your own work: its 3D asks for Pro. Undo the change and it is free again.

A Place is there to look at: its exports and Print… ask for Pro too.

Where Pro asks

Until you have Pro, what needs it says so with (Pro) after its name: 3D (Pro) on the Map | 3D switch, View ▸ Show ▸ 3D Terrain (Pro) and View ▸ Look (Pro) on the Mac, Print… (Pro), and every item in the Export menu, such as Plate (PDF)… (Pro) or GPX… (Pro). The circle’s Look button asks too. In a Place as shipped, 3D and Look carry no mark, since they are free there.

Choosing one opens the Geo Elevation Pro screen. It never opens by itself or at launch. It lists what Pro adds (Your ground in 3D, Geology and plates, 3D pictures and models, The report and your data, Look, On Apple Vision Pro, Every Pro feature added later), an Unlock for button with the price in your App Store currency (“One purchase. No subscription.”), Restore Purchases, and the Terms and Privacy links. With Ask to Buy it says “Waiting for approval. Pro unlocks by itself when it arrives.” When the App Store cannot be reached it says so, with Try Again.

Once Pro is bought, what you asked for carries on: the 3D view opens, Look starts, the export or the print goes ahead, as long as you are still in the same document with the same shape selected. Close the screen without buying and nothing changes.

Buying and restoring

Settings: the first section is Geo Elevation Pro (on the Mac, at the top of Settings ▸ General). It says Unlocked, or offers Unlock Geo Elevation Pro… and Restore Purchases.
On the Mac: Unlock Geo Elevation Pro…, in the app menu right below About, opens the Geo Elevation Pro window (on macOS 14 it opens Settings, where Pro comes first). It is gone once Pro is unlocked. The About window says “Geo Elevation Pro is unlocked. Thank you.” or where to unlock it.
Everywhere you use it: the purchase belongs to your Apple Account and is shared with your family through Family Sharing. Geo Elevation’s Pro covers iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro. Geo Elevation for Mac, the Mac-only edition, has a Pro of its own for all your Macs; a purchase in one edition does not unlock the other.
On a new device, or after reinstalling, choose Restore Purchases.

Bought Geo Elevation before it became free?

Then Pro is yours, whichever version you bought, back to 1.0 in 2012. Geo Elevation asks the App Store whether your Apple Account bought the app before it became free, and when the answer is yes, Pro is unlocked for good and Settings says “Pro is included with your earlier purchase. Thank you.” While it asks, the Pro screen says “Checking for an earlier purchase of Geo Elevation…” instead of showing a price. If the App Store cannot be asked (no connection, not signed in), the screen says so and leads with Restore Purchases: choose it once you are online.

This covers both editions: an earlier purchase of Geo Elevation unlocks Pro in Geo Elevation, and an earlier purchase of Geo Elevation for Mac unlocks Pro in Geo Elevation for Mac.