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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 game

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...
    - pcwalton 14y ago
      Joe Public didn't care about AAC and Apple Lossless either before Apple started heavily pushing them on the iTunes Music Store. Apple doesn't use popularity as its metric when determining which formats to back.
    - recoiledsnake 14y ago
      > Joe Public doesn't care about Ogg But developers care, a lot. You have no idea how many popular games use Ogg internally. Here's a small list: http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis Looking at the games, I wouldn't be surprised if a billion copies have been sold to date.
      - fpgeek 14y ago
        Do you know why games use Ogg internally? Is it just licensing or does Ogg have some technical advantage for them?
- huskyr 14y ago
  The biggest problem is definitely not the lack of OGG support but the disabling of autoplay on iOS: http://weblogs.vpro.nl/digitaal/2011/11/04/why-html5-audiovideo-on-ios-is-virtually-unusable/ http://weblogs.vpro.nl/digitaal/2011/11/04/why-html5-audiovi...
  - Xuzz 14y ago
    Disabling autoplay on iOS is not unreasonable. I don't want autoplay anywhere, but I really would not expect opening a web page on my phone to start blaring random audio out the speakers. I wouldn't call that "sabotage", I'd call that "someone actually cares about what users expect". (That's leaving alone data concerns, especially with limited and expensive 3G data plans.)
    - nkassis 14y ago
      They could always allow you to mute sites by default. You see to be overly optimistic that they are doing it for the users good.
      - Xuzz 14y ago
        How is "mute by default" different from "no autoplay" except that when users actually hit play, it would just start somewhere in the middle? (That sounds like an even worse user experience.)
        gosub 14y ago
        It would be "no autoplay by default" instead of "mute by default". the difference is that in the "no autoplay ever" case I would be not able to enable it if I wanted. "No autoplay by default" is the reasonable initial setting, while still giving users a choice.
    - bcowcher 14y ago
      Theres no reason this couldn't be a user permissions thing like the geolocation API's. If the user wants a particular page to have autoplay enabled, then the user should have the choice.
- wavephorm 14y ago
  It's impossible to build an iOS game for Safari that has sound. They've limited the API by only allowing a single audio channel that can only be used during touchscreen actions. You can't programmatically play a sound, eg like when a collision occurs.
  - ryannielsen 14y ago
    To be fair, audio support on all web browsers was an awful embarrassment, especially on mobile, until just recently. Thankfully recent versions of Chrome and Firefox are changing things, and I expect Safari (both Mac and iOS) will soon improve. Hell, it's not like Android is a shining example of audio support: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9372 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9372
    - wavephorm 14y ago
      No, HTML5 audio actually kind of worked in iOS 3. But Apple plugged that whole and made sure it was fully sabotaged in iOS 4.
      - ryannielsen 14y ago
        I think you're coloring Apple to be far more nefarious than they actually are. For many people, the change to only load media in response to a user's explicit action is a huge step forward, as they can confidentially browse over cellular networks without blowing out their bandwidth cap. As a user, I definitely appreciate that behavior. And don't think I'm not affected as a developer – all the time people use our product, Hype, to create content that includes audio and video elements, and we're stuck explaining to them the behavioral differences between desktop and mobile browsers. Apple's not evil; they're pragmatic. Right now, users needs win in this situation. Hopefully we get a more flexible solution in iOS 6.
- seclorum 14y ago
  Audio cannot be played automatically -only when a user event occurs. Audio cannot be streamed playlist-style, one after the other - again, it always requires user input. So this screws things up completely for html5-based games with audio.

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...
  - pcwalton 14y ago
    Joe Public didn't care about AAC and Apple Lossless either before Apple started heavily pushing them on the iTunes Music Store. Apple doesn't use popularity as its metric when determining which formats to back.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    > Joe Public doesn't care about Ogg But developers care, a lot. You have no idea how many popular games use Ogg internally. Here's a small list: http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis Looking at the games, I wouldn't be surprised if a billion copies have been sold to date.
    - fpgeek 14y ago
      Do you know why games use Ogg internally? Is it just licensing or does Ogg have some technical advantage for them?
huskyr 14y ago
The biggest problem is definitely not the lack of OGG support but the disabling of autoplay on iOS: http://weblogs.vpro.nl/digitaal/2011/11/04/why-html5-audiovideo-on-ios-is-virtually-unusable/ http://weblogs.vpro.nl/digitaal/2011/11/04/why-html5-audiovi...
- Xuzz 14y ago
  Disabling autoplay on iOS is not unreasonable. I don't want autoplay anywhere, but I really would not expect opening a web page on my phone to start blaring random audio out the speakers. I wouldn't call that "sabotage", I'd call that "someone actually cares about what users expect". (That's leaving alone data concerns, especially with limited and expensive 3G data plans.)
  - nkassis 14y ago
    They could always allow you to mute sites by default. You see to be overly optimistic that they are doing it for the users good.
    - Xuzz 14y ago
      How is "mute by default" different from "no autoplay" except that when users actually hit play, it would just start somewhere in the middle? (That sounds like an even worse user experience.)
      - gosub 14y ago
        It would be "no autoplay by default" instead of "mute by default". the difference is that in the "no autoplay ever" case I would be not able to enable it if I wanted. "No autoplay by default" is the reasonable initial setting, while still giving users a choice.
  - bcowcher 14y ago
    Theres no reason this couldn't be a user permissions thing like the geolocation API's. If the user wants a particular page to have autoplay enabled, then the user should have the choice.
wavephorm 14y ago
It's impossible to build an iOS game for Safari that has sound. They've limited the API by only allowing a single audio channel that can only be used during touchscreen actions. You can't programmatically play a sound, eg like when a collision occurs.
- ryannielsen 14y ago
  To be fair, audio support on all web browsers was an awful embarrassment, especially on mobile, until just recently. Thankfully recent versions of Chrome and Firefox are changing things, and I expect Safari (both Mac and iOS) will soon improve. Hell, it's not like Android is a shining example of audio support: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9372 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9372
  - wavephorm 14y ago
    No, HTML5 audio actually kind of worked in iOS 3. But Apple plugged that whole and made sure it was fully sabotaged in iOS 4.
    - ryannielsen 14y ago
      I think you're coloring Apple to be far more nefarious than they actually are. For many people, the change to only load media in response to a user's explicit action is a huge step forward, as they can confidentially browse over cellular networks without blowing out their bandwidth cap. As a user, I definitely appreciate that behavior. And don't think I'm not affected as a developer – all the time people use our product, Hype, to create content that includes audio and video elements, and we're stuck explaining to them the behavioral differences between desktop and mobile browsers. Apple's not evil; they're pragmatic. Right now, users needs win in this situation. Hopefully we get a more flexible solution in iOS 6.
seclorum 14y ago
Audio cannot be played automatically -only when a user event occurs. Audio cannot be streamed playlist-style, one after the other - again, it always requires user input. So this screws things up completely for html5-based games with audio.