5 ms·

I feel like Apple are just trying to get in early with a proposal so they don't get forced into supporting Vulkan (and wasting all that effort on Metal). Mind

I feel like Apple are just trying to get in early with a proposal so they don't get forced into supporting Vulkan (and wasting all that effort on Metal). Mind you, it does at least look like they're trying not to be jerks about it (even if the motivation is somewhat selfish). They specifically mention the competition to Metal and how "webgpu" is ideally an abstraction that'll sit on-top of Vulkan, Metal and Direct3D 12. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Vulkan, Metal and Direct3D 12 are all intentionally very low level, adding a wrapper of any kind may be seen as non-ideal by all parties.

revelation 10y ago
It is not "seen as non-ideal", it was the very point of existence for all of those standards. Graphic apis had become a leaking abstraction of non-standardized driver behavior with single-digit FPS lurking around every non-popular feature corner. It is a joke to suggest putting another abstraction over the low-level api. That is squarely the domain of libraries and frameworks.
- sipos 10y ago
  > It is a joke to suggest putting another abstraction over the low-level api. That is squarely the domain of libraries and frameworks. That's fine for native apps when the libraries and frameworks can be native and thus high performance but, on the web, these have to compile to JavaScript and, while that can be very fast, a native framework is going to be faster than one running in JavaScript ontop of a lower-level API. This is a problem with the web though.
om2 10y ago
Is that really a "just" or is it the right thing to do? Working on top of all the major APIs is the right thing for the web. We've discussed our proposal a lot with key players in this space (including other browsers, GPU vendors, relevant ISVs) and we're pretty sure a cross-API abstraction is the way to go. Some even want to build a form of cross-API abstraction at the native C/C++ level.
- cma 10y ago
  Apple knows they aren't going to push something closed like Metal itself onto the web, so they want to make the web API easy to use with Metal as a backend instead. The end goal is to maintain Metal as a proprietary bit of tech for native apps, in order to make it more burdensome for people to port native apps away from the Apple platform and as a result give Apple more exclusive apps and more artificial barriers to entry for competitors. Why should the web standards people be bending backwards to support that goal?
  - om2 10y ago
    Turns out that you don't have to bend over backwards if you're already supporting Vulkan and DirectX 12. But still, the ability to run your awesome 3D web apps on Apple platforms seems to be a good reason to support a Metal back end.
    - cma 10y ago
      I think 3D web standards are going to take off in spite of Apple. Apple might even end up supporting Vulkan as a result. That would be a really great outcome for consumers (including Apple users) and developers and only not so great for Apple and its lock-in strategy. Seems like a net positive.
    - phaed 10y ago
      Why would any serious gamer want to burden themseves with Apple's overpriced and underperforming platforms. Let them die, this would be a nice step in that direction.
      - mahyarm 10y ago
        They have some of the best smartphones in the world ...
- kuschku 10y ago
  > Working on top of all the major APIs is the right thing for the web. No, the right thing for the broader ecosystem is working only on Vulkan, and forcing Apple to adopt Vulkan, so that one API is usable natively on every OS, device (even Nintendo will support Vulkan on its consoles!) and browser. If Apple wants to go their own way, sure, but they’ll be cut off from the rest of the world, and quickly realize where they went wrong.
i386 10y ago
Naive to think that any companies reasons for doing anything should be or is coming from the purest of motives.

revelation 10y ago

It is not "seen as non-ideal", it was the very point of existence for all of those standards. Graphic apis had become a leaking abstraction of non-standardized driver behavior with single-digit FPS lurking around every non-popular feature corner. It is a joke to suggest putting another abstraction over the low-level api. That is squarely the domain of libraries and frameworks.

sipos 10y ago
> It is a joke to suggest putting another abstraction over the low-level api. That is squarely the domain of libraries and frameworks. That's fine for native apps when the libraries and frameworks can be native and thus high performance but, on the web, these have to compile to JavaScript and, while that can be very fast, a native framework is going to be faster than one running in JavaScript ontop of a lower-level API. This is a problem with the web though.

om2 10y ago

Is that really a "just" or is it the right thing to do? Working on top of all the major APIs is the right thing for the web. We've discussed our proposal a lot with key players in this space (including other browsers, GPU vendors, relevant ISVs) and we're pretty sure a cross-API abstraction is the way to go. Some even want to build a form of cross-API abstraction at the native C/C++ level.

cma 10y ago
Apple knows they aren't going to push something closed like Metal itself onto the web, so they want to make the web API easy to use with Metal as a backend instead. The end goal is to maintain Metal as a proprietary bit of tech for native apps, in order to make it more burdensome for people to port native apps away from the Apple platform and as a result give Apple more exclusive apps and more artificial barriers to entry for competitors. Why should the web standards people be bending backwards to support that goal?
- om2 10y ago
  Turns out that you don't have to bend over backwards if you're already supporting Vulkan and DirectX 12. But still, the ability to run your awesome 3D web apps on Apple platforms seems to be a good reason to support a Metal back end.
  - cma 10y ago
    I think 3D web standards are going to take off in spite of Apple. Apple might even end up supporting Vulkan as a result. That would be a really great outcome for consumers (including Apple users) and developers and only not so great for Apple and its lock-in strategy. Seems like a net positive.
  - phaed 10y ago
    Why would any serious gamer want to burden themseves with Apple's overpriced and underperforming platforms. Let them die, this would be a nice step in that direction.
    - mahyarm 10y ago
      They have some of the best smartphones in the world ...
kuschku 10y ago
> Working on top of all the major APIs is the right thing for the web. No, the right thing for the broader ecosystem is working only on Vulkan, and forcing Apple to adopt Vulkan, so that one API is usable natively on every OS, device (even Nintendo will support Vulkan on its consoles!) and browser. If Apple wants to go their own way, sure, but they’ll be cut off from the rest of the world, and quickly realize where they went wrong.

i386 10y ago

Naive to think that any companies reasons for doing anything should be or is coming from the purest of motives.