8 ms·

It would be great if Apple would activate WebGL on iOS! Officially only available through iAd on iOS 4.2 and higher, for all devices except for 2nd Gen iP

by frik 13y ago

It would be great if Apple would activate WebGL on iOS! Officially only available through iAd on iOS 4.2 and higher, for all devices except for 2nd Gen iPod Touch or iPhone 3G and earlier. However, there is a tweak for jailbroken devices to enable functionality for Mobile Safari and all other WebKit browsers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL Today, even Microsoft supports WebGL with IE 11, so hopefully Apple activates it with iOS8...

pavlov 13y ago
If you'd asked me three years ago, I never would have guessed it would turn out like this. We have Internet Explorer supporting WebGL on ARM-based Windows tablets manufactured by Microsoft itself, yet the iPad still lacks WebGL. It's like bizarro world. One gets the impression that Apple feels WebGL is perhaps too much power in a cross-platform package. If you need to do 3D-accelerated GUIs or games on iOS today, you build an Objective-C app for the App Store because there's no other way to access those APIs. Is Apple protecting their lock-in?
- grinich 13y ago
  The bigger thing is the payments infrastructure. There's no easy way to monetize a WebGL game.
  - MarkHarmon 13y ago
    Not true. You could have an online WebGL game that requires an account and dynamic server provided data to run. The account would cost money. EDIT: Added last sentence.
    - teraflop 13y ago
      To elaborate: there's no easy way for Apple to monetize a WebGL game.
    - grinich 13y ago
      Compared to using Store Kit, this is super complicated to build and manage. The App Store also provides marketing, which is huge. Where is the public listing of WebGL games that you can quickly browse and start playing?
      - pavlov 13y ago
        If WebGL worked in UIKit's WebView, you could just wrap your WebGL game with PhoneGap and use StoreKit for ripping off children... I mean, selling exciting in-app upgrades. I'm not convinced the App Store is a meaningful marketing channel anyway, except for the 0.001% of game developers that can afford to buy downloads and then happen to get lucky in the App Store curation roulette.
      - Cthulhu_ 13y ago
        > Where is the public listing of WebGL games that you can quickly browse and start playing? https://chrome.google.com/webstore https://chrome.google.com/webstore
  - ye 13y ago
    There's. Bitcoin or any altcoin.
- jakobe 13y ago
  Without knowing the details, I assume that WebGL poses a high security risk. Considering that Mobile Safari has access to lots of confidential data (eg. iCloud keychain), and runs in a less restricted sandbox (can make data pages executable), that's probably the last place where Apple wants to try out some new technology. EDIT: It's weird how iOS is now arguably the most secure mobile platform, after all the shit they got from Blackberry in the beginning :)
  - jheriko 13y ago
    WebGL /does/ pose a high security risk. Security problems were pointed out to the WebGL guys a very long time ago and continue to be pointed out - they have not all been addressed (for whatever reasons - i don't want to imply that any of them are impossible to resolve) although extensions exist or have been proposed to resolve the more serious concerns. This is quite well documented: http://www.khronos.org/webgl/security/ http://www.khronos.org/webgl/security/ I'd be more inclined to think that Apple don't want to include WebGL for other reasons though. Their track record with technology is much less than encouraging...
untog 13y ago
Yep, iOS is the only one left - Chrome on Android has it, even Firefox OS has it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
lunixbochs 13y ago
This demo throws an error for me on iOS - it's missing the OES_texture_float extension. Looks awesome on my laptop. If someone has a jailbroken current-gen iPhone or iPad and wants to try it out, Apple's docs say that extension is supported on the A7 GPU driver [1] There's not a tweak currently in Cydia for WebGL, because the last guy to do that was naughty [2] and nobody's published a replacement. Both rpetrich and I have open-source WebGL enabler tweaks if anyone's interested: [3] and [4] (I'm not sure if his works on iOS7, as the last commit was three years ago.) [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DeviceInformation/Reference/iOSDeviceCompatibility/OpenGLESPlatforms/OpenGLESPlatforms.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Device... [2] http://ryanhileman.info/posts/webgl http://ryanhileman.info/posts/webgl [3] https://github.com/lunixbochs/EnableWebGL https://github.com/lunixbochs/EnableWebGL [4] https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler
- deathfrom 13y ago
  very useful, tnx.
ANTSANTS 13y ago
I dunno, I'm not really crazy about the prospect of random web sites murdering my phone's battery with superfluous WebGL animations. Remind me again why web pages need the ability to display realtime 3D graphics? I don't like a lot of what Apple does, but I'm glad somebody isn't thrilled with the idea of "the browser" becoming the world's most Lovecraftian cross-platform runtime, even if it's only out of self-interest.
- debt 13y ago
  This is where I'm at. What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective? If a developer wants to create a game, I'll just use OpenGL or CoreGraphics to do it.
  - pyalot2 13y ago
    The click trough rate from a website to a downloadable/appstorable package until it's installed, found, opened and used is around 1%. The click trough rate from a website to another website is around 50%. Writing a native application requires you to port that application to every conceivable app-store and platform in order to get it to run most places, this includes, but is not limited to: Writing it once in C++, once in ObjectiveC, once In java, package it for x86-64 windows classic, package it for x86-64 windows metro, once for x86 windows classic, x86 windows metro, Wart, Android, iOS, RPM, DEB, etc. A native app also requires you to come up with a solution to windowing (on windowing platforms, such as WGL, GLX etc.), sound (alsa, openal, directsound etc.), input (xinput (X), xinput or directinput (windows), cocoa (osx) etc.), etc. etc. It also requires you to come up with a solution on how to build guis, which a lot of games do these days by simply embedding webkit... It also requires you to come up with a solution to scripting, which is already built into browsers, but nevertheless, many embedd anglescript, lua, etc. Etc. etc. etc. Why do WebGL? Maybe think about that again, really carefully.
    - ANTSANTS 13y ago
      >What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective?

by frik 13y ago

pavlov 13y ago

If you'd asked me three years ago, I never would have guessed it would turn out like this. We have Internet Explorer supporting WebGL on ARM-based Windows tablets manufactured by Microsoft itself, yet the iPad still lacks WebGL. It's like bizarro world. One gets the impression that Apple feels WebGL is perhaps too much power in a cross-platform package. If you need to do 3D-accelerated GUIs or games on iOS today, you build an Objective-C app for the App Store because there's no other way to access those APIs. Is Apple protecting their lock-in?

grinich 13y ago
The bigger thing is the payments infrastructure. There's no easy way to monetize a WebGL game.
- MarkHarmon 13y ago
  Not true. You could have an online WebGL game that requires an account and dynamic server provided data to run. The account would cost money. EDIT: Added last sentence.
  - teraflop 13y ago
    To elaborate: there's no easy way for Apple to monetize a WebGL game.
  - grinich 13y ago
    Compared to using Store Kit, this is super complicated to build and manage. The App Store also provides marketing, which is huge. Where is the public listing of WebGL games that you can quickly browse and start playing?
    - pavlov 13y ago
      If WebGL worked in UIKit's WebView, you could just wrap your WebGL game with PhoneGap and use StoreKit for ripping off children... I mean, selling exciting in-app upgrades. I'm not convinced the App Store is a meaningful marketing channel anyway, except for the 0.001% of game developers that can afford to buy downloads and then happen to get lucky in the App Store curation roulette.
    - Cthulhu_ 13y ago
      > Where is the public listing of WebGL games that you can quickly browse and start playing? https://chrome.google.com/webstore https://chrome.google.com/webstore
- ye 13y ago
  There's. Bitcoin or any altcoin.
jakobe 13y ago
Without knowing the details, I assume that WebGL poses a high security risk. Considering that Mobile Safari has access to lots of confidential data (eg. iCloud keychain), and runs in a less restricted sandbox (can make data pages executable), that's probably the last place where Apple wants to try out some new technology. EDIT: It's weird how iOS is now arguably the most secure mobile platform, after all the shit they got from Blackberry in the beginning :)
- jheriko 13y ago
  WebGL /does/ pose a high security risk. Security problems were pointed out to the WebGL guys a very long time ago and continue to be pointed out - they have not all been addressed (for whatever reasons - i don't want to imply that any of them are impossible to resolve) although extensions exist or have been proposed to resolve the more serious concerns. This is quite well documented: http://www.khronos.org/webgl/security/ http://www.khronos.org/webgl/security/ I'd be more inclined to think that Apple don't want to include WebGL for other reasons though. Their track record with technology is much less than encouraging...

untog 13y ago

Yep, iOS is the only one left - Chrome on Android has it, even Firefox OS has it.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

lunixbochs 13y ago

This demo throws an error for me on iOS - it's missing the OES_texture_float extension. Looks awesome on my laptop. If someone has a jailbroken current-gen iPhone or iPad and wants to try it out, Apple's docs say that extension is supported on the A7 GPU driver [1] There's not a tweak currently in Cydia for WebGL, because the last guy to do that was naughty [2] and nobody's published a replacement. Both rpetrich and I have open-source WebGL enabler tweaks if anyone's interested: [3] and [4] (I'm not sure if his works on iOS7, as the last commit was three years ago.) [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DeviceInformation/Reference/iOSDeviceCompatibility/OpenGLESPlatforms/OpenGLESPlatforms.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Device... [2] http://ryanhileman.info/posts/webgl http://ryanhileman.info/posts/webgl [3] https://github.com/lunixbochs/EnableWebGL https://github.com/lunixbochs/EnableWebGL [4] https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler https://github.com/rpetrich/WebGLEnabler

deathfrom 13y ago
very useful, tnx.

ANTSANTS 13y ago

I dunno, I'm not really crazy about the prospect of random web sites murdering my phone's battery with superfluous WebGL animations. Remind me again why web pages need the ability to display realtime 3D graphics? I don't like a lot of what Apple does, but I'm glad somebody isn't thrilled with the idea of "the browser" becoming the world's most Lovecraftian cross-platform runtime, even if it's only out of self-interest.

debt 13y ago
This is where I'm at. What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective? If a developer wants to create a game, I'll just use OpenGL or CoreGraphics to do it.
- pyalot2 13y ago
  The click trough rate from a website to a downloadable/appstorable package until it's installed, found, opened and used is around 1%. The click trough rate from a website to another website is around 50%. Writing a native application requires you to port that application to every conceivable app-store and platform in order to get it to run most places, this includes, but is not limited to: Writing it once in C++, once in ObjectiveC, once In java, package it for x86-64 windows classic, package it for x86-64 windows metro, once for x86 windows classic, x86 windows metro, Wart, Android, iOS, RPM, DEB, etc. A native app also requires you to come up with a solution to windowing (on windowing platforms, such as WGL, GLX etc.), sound (alsa, openal, directsound etc.), input (xinput (X), xinput or directinput (windows), cocoa (osx) etc.), etc. etc. It also requires you to come up with a solution on how to build guis, which a lot of games do these days by simply embedding webkit... It also requires you to come up with a solution to scripting, which is already built into browsers, but nevertheless, many embedd anglescript, lua, etc. Etc. etc. etc. Why do WebGL? Maybe think about that again, really carefully.
  - ANTSANTS 13y ago
    >What's the point of WebGL from Apple's perspective?