5 ms·

Show HN: WebGL Enabler for iOS

53 points by daeken 14y ago

daeken 14y ago
I submitted this a couple days ago at a pretty bad time (middle of the US night) and it died pretty quickly. I figured I'd wait until v0.0.2 to throw it back up here, and that's now out. It seems to be working quite nicely on all iOS 4.2+ devices, though some of the older iPhones have performance issues it seems. Hope you guys enjoy this.
infinitivium 14y ago
This is badass! But, once again something Apple should have already given developers. Thanks for putting this together, hopefully it spurs them along.
- cccbbb 14y ago
  It's not like Apple forgot about this feature. It just isn't ready which is why it's not enabled. It will be released when it's ready.
  - veb 14y ago
    In the mean time you can use OPs link.
DanielRibeiro 14y ago
Former discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029365 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029365
hartror 14y ago
So it immediately raises the question why isn't this released? The reasons I can think of are: * Performance isn't what they want yet. * Implementation isn't what they want yet. * There are security issues they still need to fix. OR putting on my tin foil hat for a second: * Apple sees WebGL as a possible threat to their app revenues as a soild WebGL implementation could allow developers to avoid entering their app market place and instead charge users directly. It would also allow developers to deploy to other platforms with the same code base. Obviously the last point is a bit nutty but one can't help but wonder if it is a consideration.
- daeken 14y ago
  I've spent a lot of time playing with this over the last two days, and it's absolutely the implementation not being where they want it yet. There are definite stability issues with more intensive scenes, though it generally works pretty nicely. I imagine that's why they allow it for iAds, where they can monitor the quality and test it across devices. Hopefully with iOS 6 my tweak won't be needed any longer.
- frou_dh 14y ago
  It's hardly a tin foil theory. Even if it isn't the primary reason WebGL isn't enabled at the moment, higher-end games moving out of the App Store and into the browser must weigh on their mind.
- cccbbb 14y ago
  His program essentially leaks beta software for profit.
  - daeken 14y ago
    Agreed. I don't know what I'd do without the $20.60 I've made off of this (before Paypal fees)...
    - ktizo 14y ago
      Would be really interesting to see how much you make off this with your donation model. I wonder how much it would affect income if you used someone other than paypal, or had several donate options. Anyways, good on you for doing this.
      - daeken 14y ago
        I'm expecting that it's probably not going to go much above where it is right now (which is still twice as much as I figured it'd bring in); despite quite a few downloads from HN, no one has paid for it. That said, I'm sure I could increase paid conversions with some work, but I honestly don't care enough to do so. I built this so that I could build neat demos on my iPad, and there's no way I'll recoup the cost of 5 or so hours of dev time I spent on this. I'm just glad that it's working well for people.
cccbbb 14y ago
You're encouraging people to pay for this internal setting toggle, that Apple didn't default to 'On' for a reason (not being finished)? Where is the value in this? You are basically charging for Apples incomplete software.
- daeken 14y ago
  The value is that people want to use WebGL now, as seen by the almost 1000 people who have downloaded the software over the last few days. However, I have no idea how one can put a price on something of this sort, which is why you could pay $0 or $500 for it if you want. I tend to believe that saving people from a couple of hours of tinkering (writing the same tweak I have, basically) is worth at least $1, but people have thrown in anywhere from $0.10 to $5.
  - cccbbb 14y ago
    But they're not "using" WebGL other than seeing a demo of it. There's absolutely no interaction. I bet at least half of your downloads expect they'll magically be able to have fully compatible WebGL games. Now that would be software worth paying for, provided it wasn't a settings toggle.
    - daeken 14y ago
      Err, what? You do have full compatibility with WebGL with this. Any failings there are on the part of games are due to a lack of proper event handling (specifically, not using ontouch* events). And again, "worth paying for" is up to the customers. I very much encourage people to download it and then pay for it if they see value in it. So far people have seen value in it.
      - cccbbb 14y ago
        Device data (touches, accelerometer, etc) are exactly what I meant by compatibility. Again, back to my point of it not being finished. I see that it wasn't your fault, but this is misleading and shady.
wavephorm 14y ago
Like how Apple has sabotaged the use of HTML5 Audio, I think it is unlikely they will enable WebGL. It provides developers an open platform for developing games, which conflicts with Apple's closed system agenda.
- melling 14y ago
  Apple has helped keep OpenGL alive. Microsoft is the company that simply refuses to support it. Think we'll be seeing WebGL on IE anytime soon? Microsoft could have gone with OpenGL but they invented DirectX instead on the desktop. Apple does support OpenGL on their phone, it's just not in the browser, so I would think writing games for Android and iOS should be doable, right? Windows Phone 8? Probably not.
- st3fan 14y ago
  How have they sabotaged HTML Audio?
  - phoboslab 14y ago
    By not supporting Ogg Vorbis on Desktop and totally fucking it up on Mobile on purpose: http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2011/03/the-state-of-html5-audio http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2011/03/the-state-of-html5-audi... (Year old, but still valid)
    - objclxt 14y ago
      I don't really call 'not supporting Ogg' sabotage. Joe Public doesn't care about Ogg. Never has, never will. How is not supporting Ogg for <audio> tags when the spec for <audio> tags doesn't require it 'sabotage'? The requirement for HTML5 to support Ogg was dropped very early on in 2007. It's not part of the standard. Apple have been fairly supportive of WebGL: it's been in the WebKit nightly builds for almost three years now, of which Apple are a major contributor. You can accuse Apple of many things, but given how they've been part of the WebGL Working Group from its formation I'm not so sure you can say they're out to 'get' WebGL...
satu 14y ago
WebGL Enabler won't work well with all existing WebGL demos, but there's a cache of them to tryout at http://www.webgl.com http://www.webgl.com and http://www.chromeexperiments.com http://www.chromeexperiments.com
- daeken 14y ago
  Two things to note about testing existing demos/games: 1) It supports 0 vertex shader texture units, which breaks some of the more interesting demos (I think this is an implementation thing, rather than a hardware limitation, at least on the higher end devices; the iPad 3 has to support this stuff), 2) Most demos and games use onmousedown/move/up rather than ontouch*, which causes them to break. I'm trying to come up with a decent solution to run these existing demos.
DHowett 14y ago
Free, open-source, and ten months old. https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler
- daeken 14y ago
  I saw that after my first release, but 1) this is free-ish (you can choose to pay whatever amount you want) and open source ( https://github.com/daeken/WebGLEnabler https://github.com/daeken/WebGLEnabler ) as well, 2) mine works at the WebView level rather than Safari, and includes a toggle in settings. That said, I would've used a different name had I known about that before I released. Edit: Oh, I'm wrong. I could've sworn that his was just for Safari, but I just saw in the source that I'm wrong. He just works at the WebFrame level rather than WebView.
  - DHowett 14y ago
    Ouch, sorry for not paying better attention; I didn't notice the source to yours. Both approaches appear equally valid and yours appears to be rather more fleshed-out (what with preferences). I didn't mean to denigrate your project, as well: I apologize if it seemed that way! I quite enjoy seeing people use Theos/Logos as well. Definitely worth sinking my time into working on them!
    - daeken 14y ago
      No worries. And seriously great work with Theos/Logos; I haven't touched iOS stuff since working on the unlock for the original iPhone, and I still managed to whip all of this up in ~5 hours.
  - conradev 14y ago
    One a random note, it would be cool to see AppList integrated into the preferences to allow for per-app toggling.
    - daeken 14y ago
      I thought about doing that, but at this point I don't think it'd be too terribly useful. If I do anything more with it (outside of fixing bugs if they pop up), it'll probably be to add a WebGL toggle inside of MobileSafari somewhere, for convenience.
mappu 14y ago
I know jailbreaking doesn't immediately imply piracy, but this is another example in the fine tradition of pirates getting the better product. The recent Quasar window manager for iOS is another example.

53 points by daeken 14y ago

I submitted this a couple days ago at a pretty bad time (middle of the US night) and it died pretty quickly. I figured I'd wait until v0.0.2 to throw it back up here, and that's now out. It seems to be working quite nicely on all iOS 4.2+ devices, though some of the older iPhones have performance issues it seems. Hope you guys enjoy this.

infinitivium 14y ago

This is badass! But, once again something Apple should have already given developers. Thanks for putting this together, hopefully it spurs them along.

cccbbb 14y ago
It's not like Apple forgot about this feature. It just isn't ready which is why it's not enabled. It will be released when it's ready.
- veb 14y ago
  In the mean time you can use OPs link.

DanielRibeiro 14y ago

Former discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029365 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029365

hartror 14y ago

So it immediately raises the question why isn't this released? The reasons I can think of are: * Performance isn't what they want yet. * Implementation isn't what they want yet. * There are security issues they still need to fix. OR putting on my tin foil hat for a second: * Apple sees WebGL as a possible threat to their app revenues as a soild WebGL implementation could allow developers to avoid entering their app market place and instead charge users directly. It would also allow developers to deploy to other platforms with the same code base. Obviously the last point is a bit nutty but one can't help but wonder if it is a consideration.

daeken 14y ago
I've spent a lot of time playing with this over the last two days, and it's absolutely the implementation not being where they want it yet. There are definite stability issues with more intensive scenes, though it generally works pretty nicely. I imagine that's why they allow it for iAds, where they can monitor the quality and test it across devices. Hopefully with iOS 6 my tweak won't be needed any longer.
frou_dh 14y ago
It's hardly a tin foil theory. Even if it isn't the primary reason WebGL isn't enabled at the moment, higher-end games moving out of the App Store and into the browser must weigh on their mind.
cccbbb 14y ago
His program essentially leaks beta software for profit.
- daeken 14y ago
  Agreed. I don't know what I'd do without the $20.60 I've made off of this (before Paypal fees)...
  - ktizo 14y ago
    Would be really interesting to see how much you make off this with your donation model. I wonder how much it would affect income if you used someone other than paypal, or had several donate options. Anyways, good on you for doing this.
    - daeken 14y ago
      I'm expecting that it's probably not going to go much above where it is right now (which is still twice as much as I figured it'd bring in); despite quite a few downloads from HN, no one has paid for it. That said, I'm sure I could increase paid conversions with some work, but I honestly don't care enough to do so. I built this so that I could build neat demos on my iPad, and there's no way I'll recoup the cost of 5 or so hours of dev time I spent on this. I'm just glad that it's working well for people.

cccbbb 14y ago

You're encouraging people to pay for this internal setting toggle, that Apple didn't default to 'On' for a reason (not being finished)? Where is the value in this? You are basically charging for Apples incomplete software.

daeken 14y ago
The value is that people want to use WebGL now, as seen by the almost 1000 people who have downloaded the software over the last few days. However, I have no idea how one can put a price on something of this sort, which is why you could pay $0 or $500 for it if you want. I tend to believe that saving people from a couple of hours of tinkering (writing the same tweak I have, basically) is worth at least $1, but people have thrown in anywhere from $0.10 to $5.
- cccbbb 14y ago
  But they're not "using" WebGL other than seeing a demo of it. There's absolutely no interaction. I bet at least half of your downloads expect they'll magically be able to have fully compatible WebGL games. Now that would be software worth paying for, provided it wasn't a settings toggle.
  - daeken 14y ago
    Err, what? You do have full compatibility with WebGL with this. Any failings there are on the part of games are due to a lack of proper event handling (specifically, not using ontouch* events). And again, "worth paying for" is up to the customers. I very much encourage people to download it and then pay for it if they see value in it. So far people have seen value in it.
    - cccbbb 14y ago
      Device data (touches, accelerometer, etc) are exactly what I meant by compatibility. Again, back to my point of it not being finished. I see that it wasn't your fault, but this is misleading and shady.

wavephorm 14y ago

Like how Apple has sabotaged the use of HTML5 Audio, I think it is unlikely they will enable WebGL. It provides developers an open platform for developing games, which conflicts with Apple's closed system agenda.

melling 14y ago
Apple has helped keep OpenGL alive. Microsoft is the company that simply refuses to support it. Think we'll be seeing WebGL on IE anytime soon? Microsoft could have gone with OpenGL but they invented DirectX instead on the desktop. Apple does support OpenGL on their phone, it's just not in the browser, so I would think writing games for Android and iOS should be doable, right? Windows Phone 8? Probably not.
st3fan 14y ago
How have they sabotaged HTML Audio?
- phoboslab 14y ago
  By not supporting Ogg Vorbis on Desktop and totally fucking it up on Mobile on purpose: http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2011/03/the-state-of-html5-audio http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2011/03/the-state-of-html5-audi... (Year old, but still valid)
  - objclxt 14y ago
    I don't really call 'not supporting Ogg' sabotage. Joe Public doesn't care about Ogg. Never has, never will. How is not supporting Ogg for <audio> tags when the spec for <audio> tags doesn't require it 'sabotage'? The requirement for HTML5 to support Ogg was dropped very early on in 2007. It's not part of the standard. Apple have been fairly supportive of WebGL: it's been in the WebKit nightly builds for almost three years now, of which Apple are a major contributor. You can accuse Apple of many things, but given how they've been part of the WebGL Working Group from its formation I'm not so sure you can say they're out to 'get' WebGL...

satu 14y ago

WebGL Enabler won't work well with all existing WebGL demos, but there's a cache of them to tryout at http://www.webgl.com http://www.webgl.com and http://www.chromeexperiments.com http://www.chromeexperiments.com

daeken 14y ago
Two things to note about testing existing demos/games: 1) It supports 0 vertex shader texture units, which breaks some of the more interesting demos (I think this is an implementation thing, rather than a hardware limitation, at least on the higher end devices; the iPad 3 has to support this stuff), 2) Most demos and games use onmousedown/move/up rather than ontouch*, which causes them to break. I'm trying to come up with a decent solution to run these existing demos.

DHowett 14y ago

Free, open-source, and ten months old. https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler

daeken 14y ago
I saw that after my first release, but 1) this is free-ish (you can choose to pay whatever amount you want) and open source ( https://github.com/daeken/WebGLEnabler https://github.com/daeken/WebGLEnabler ) as well, 2) mine works at the WebView level rather than Safari, and includes a toggle in settings. That said, I would've used a different name had I known about that before I released. Edit: Oh, I'm wrong. I could've sworn that his was just for Safari, but I just saw in the source that I'm wrong. He just works at the WebFrame level rather than WebView.
- DHowett 14y ago
  Ouch, sorry for not paying better attention; I didn't notice the source to yours. Both approaches appear equally valid and yours appears to be rather more fleshed-out (what with preferences). I didn't mean to denigrate your project, as well: I apologize if it seemed that way! I quite enjoy seeing people use Theos/Logos as well. Definitely worth sinking my time into working on them!
  - daeken 14y ago
    No worries. And seriously great work with Theos/Logos; I haven't touched iOS stuff since working on the unlock for the original iPhone, and I still managed to whip all of this up in ~5 hours.
- conradev 14y ago
  One a random note, it would be cool to see AppList integrated into the preferences to allow for per-app toggling.
  - daeken 14y ago
    I thought about doing that, but at this point I don't think it'd be too terribly useful. If I do anything more with it (outside of fixing bugs if they pop up), it'll probably be to add a WebGL toggle inside of MobileSafari somewhere, for convenience.

mappu 14y ago

I know jailbreaking doesn't immediately imply piracy, but this is another example in the fine tradition of pirates getting the better product. The recent Quasar window manager for iOS is another example.