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The gap between the last version of OpenGL that Apple supports and the release of Metal for OSX is 5 years. Even giving metal a few years of development it stil
by kllrnohj 9y ago
The gap between the last version of OpenGL that Apple supports and the release of Metal for OSX is 5 years. Even giving metal a few years of development it still means Apple abandoned OSX graphics before they began working on Metal at all. Given that they updated GLES on iOS for a couple of years after the last update to OpenGL on OSX it seems more plausible that macOS is just a second-class citizen to Apple, or at least the graphics are.
- saagarjha 9y agoI'm sure the real reason is a combination of these factors. Why support OpenGL on Mac OS X if a new API will be in development soon?
- jheriko 9y agoBecause current projects must work?
- kllrnohj 9y ago"in development soon"? For comparison the Vulkan project began July 2014 and was released 19 months later. That released on multiple GPU vendors and OSes at launch, which Metal did not. So let's say Metal took 2 years from conception to release, even though it only targeted one platform and one GPU (and likely took less time as a result) That means OpenGL was abandoned on OSX roughly 3 years before Metal existed as a project at all. The timelines of Metal vs. OpenGL on OSX just don't line up at all to be any sort of API redirection effort. It just doesn't mesh.
- saagarjha 9y agoI don't know the timeline that the graphics team at Apple follows, so the best I can provide you with is a guess as to what I think the reasons are behind their release schedule. Maybe the team was reorganized?