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Actually, Vulkan was created by AMD (under the name Mantle) in 2013. Apple surely was aware of this, yet wanted to go their own way.

pjmlp 6y ago
When Mantle was created Vulkan wasn't in sight. Mantle became Vulkan when Khronos realized they weren't going to be able to deliver anything worthwhile using, and AMD gently gave Mantle to Khronos . Metal was already on their way when this decision took place.
flohofwoe 6y ago
IFIR at the time when Metal was released (or at least well into development) it wasn't at all clear what Vulkan would look like or that it would be derived from Mantle. Also Apple didn't exactly go their own way (in the sense of inventing something entirely different). Metal v1 looks a lot like a "next gen D3D11". The only thing that was clear at the time was that the GL programming model had to be abandondend, but better APIs than GL already existed on PC and game consoles to steal good ideas from.
kalleboo 6y ago
Wasn’t Mantle AMD-proprietary? So Apple couldn’t use it anyway, since iOS devices don’t use AMD GPUs
- masklinn 6y ago
  Yes. AMD announced Mantle late 2013, Apple announced Metal early 2014 with initial release mid-2014, AMD stopped development of Mantle as Khronos announced the Vulkan project in mid-2015 (and the first release of Vulkan was in 2016). AMD was the first out of the gate, but the API style was really in the air at that point e.g. Dx12 was also announced in early 2014 though only released in mid-2015. The high-level OpenGL API style had been getting really long in the tooth by that point, GPUs were diverging more and more from it (requiring more and more complex drivers in order to bridge the divide) and the stateful nature of OGL really hadn't aged well.
coldtea 6y ago
>Apple surely was aware of this, yet wanted to go their own way. First, well, AMD wanted to go their own way (designing their own thing in Mantle), so why not Apple? Second, the year Metal appeared publicly wasn't the year Metal was designed in Apple. It was released in 2014 -- so it could very well preceed Mantle by a lot.
unsigner 6y ago
This has a kernel of truth in it, but only a tiny kernel. Mantle was much, much simpler than what eventually was shipped as Vulkan 1.0. When mobile vendors got onto the bandwagon, it turned into the monstrosity it is today.
dmitriid 6y ago
> Apple surely was aware of this, yet wanted to go their own way. Mantle was a proprietary API promised to work on AMD cards only. The work on it started in 2013. Apple released version 1 of metal in June 2014. So, they'd already spent at least a year working on it. So why would they want to somehow go ahead with something proprietary that AMD was developing at the same time? Khronos groups announced they were going to work on the next generation graphics API in July 2014 (a full month after the release of Metal v1). AMD donated Mantle to Khronos in 2015, a full year after Metal v1. --- There are reasons why Apple went with Metal, and they make a lot of sense: OpenGL was a disaster. Any improvements to it would require immense effort, and fighting against Khronos committees. OpenGL ES was only marginally better and only marginally better suited for mobile devices. So why would not Apple develop their own low-level graphics API for their own devices?
- Someone 6y ago
  To add some links to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(API) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(API) says (note 1) that AMD announced working with DICE on Mantle end of September 2013. Metal’s first release was in June 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(API) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(API) ) It certainly doesn’t look like AMD started working on a new API long before Apple did.
deleted 6y ago
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Jasper_ 6y ago
A team of small engineers inside AMD created Mantle, and AMD management did fuck-all with it; they donated it to Khronos for Vulkan, but some lawyers got involved and patent claims held up the release for a few years (Vulkan being late? That's AMD's fault!) So the team that mostly created Mantle left AMD, got hired by Apple, where they built Mantle 2.0, aka Metal.

pjmlp 6y ago

When Mantle was created Vulkan wasn't in sight. Mantle became Vulkan when Khronos realized they weren't going to be able to deliver anything worthwhile using, and AMD gently gave Mantle to Khronos . Metal was already on their way when this decision took place.

flohofwoe 6y ago

IFIR at the time when Metal was released (or at least well into development) it wasn't at all clear what Vulkan would look like or that it would be derived from Mantle. Also Apple didn't exactly go their own way (in the sense of inventing something entirely different). Metal v1 looks a lot like a "next gen D3D11". The only thing that was clear at the time was that the GL programming model had to be abandondend, but better APIs than GL already existed on PC and game consoles to steal good ideas from.

kalleboo 6y ago

Wasn’t Mantle AMD-proprietary? So Apple couldn’t use it anyway, since iOS devices don’t use AMD GPUs

masklinn 6y ago
Yes. AMD announced Mantle late 2013, Apple announced Metal early 2014 with initial release mid-2014, AMD stopped development of Mantle as Khronos announced the Vulkan project in mid-2015 (and the first release of Vulkan was in 2016). AMD was the first out of the gate, but the API style was really in the air at that point e.g. Dx12 was also announced in early 2014 though only released in mid-2015. The high-level OpenGL API style had been getting really long in the tooth by that point, GPUs were diverging more and more from it (requiring more and more complex drivers in order to bridge the divide) and the stateful nature of OGL really hadn't aged well.

coldtea 6y ago

>Apple surely was aware of this, yet wanted to go their own way. First, well, AMD wanted to go their own way (designing their own thing in Mantle), so why not Apple? Second, the year Metal appeared publicly wasn't the year Metal was designed in Apple. It was released in 2014 -- so it could very well preceed Mantle by a lot.

unsigner 6y ago

This has a kernel of truth in it, but only a tiny kernel. Mantle was much, much simpler than what eventually was shipped as Vulkan 1.0. When mobile vendors got onto the bandwagon, it turned into the monstrosity it is today.

dmitriid 6y ago

> Apple surely was aware of this, yet wanted to go their own way. Mantle was a proprietary API promised to work on AMD cards only. The work on it started in 2013. Apple released version 1 of metal in June 2014. So, they'd already spent at least a year working on it. So why would they want to somehow go ahead with something proprietary that AMD was developing at the same time? Khronos groups announced they were going to work on the next generation graphics API in July 2014 (a full month after the release of Metal v1). AMD donated Mantle to Khronos in 2015, a full year after Metal v1. --- There are reasons why Apple went with Metal, and they make a lot of sense: OpenGL was a disaster. Any improvements to it would require immense effort, and fighting against Khronos committees. OpenGL ES was only marginally better and only marginally better suited for mobile devices. So why would not Apple develop their own low-level graphics API for their own devices?

Someone 6y ago
To add some links to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(API) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_(API) says (note 1) that AMD announced working with DICE on Mantle end of September 2013. Metal’s first release was in June 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(API) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_(API) ) It certainly doesn’t look like AMD started working on a new API long before Apple did.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Jasper_ 6y ago

A team of small engineers inside AMD created Mantle, and AMD management did fuck-all with it; they donated it to Khronos for Vulkan, but some lawyers got involved and patent claims held up the release for a few years (Vulkan being late? That's AMD's fault!) So the team that mostly created Mantle left AMD, got hired by Apple, where they built Mantle 2.0, aka Metal.