7 ms·

Issues with Apple's iOS WebGL Implementation

49 points by espadrine 12y ago

0x0 12y ago
So... It's a beta and some limits aren't up to native spec because of things like the UIWebView currently being backed by an OpenGL ES 2.0 surface (instead of 3.0, which is only available on the iPhone5s)?
- illumen 12y ago
  The author is doing a great service to WebGL by actually testing the beta, and reporting bugs to Apple.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Why limit the iPad to iPod levels?
- maccard 12y ago
  Because it's still not finished?
fit2rule 12y ago
I think its fascinating that the embrace and extend (and wall-off in a garden) strategy being applied by Apple is still producing, nevertheless, a very pliable audience even in this day and age. I see the 'heading off of open standards' play of Apple in a cynical light, because I believe Apple are playing platform games here. These breaks/incompatibilities are another reason for developers to not bother with other platforms, or at least limit themselves in a way that makes platform-dependent tooling inevitable. Basically, it's developers getting screwed by hardware guys, over and over again.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 12y ago
  Cross-platform is not the be-and end-all in software. Cross-platform has the covenience (and bigger market), but it's also crippled by catering to the lowest common denominator. You won't get stuff that takes full advantage of a platform if it's cross platform. Some people like native dedicated apps. I, for one, like cross platform stuff for common infrastructure (servers, unix userland, etc), but prefer platform specific and integrated desktop apps that take full advantage of my OS (whether OS X, Windows or Linux).
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    To me, 'native dedicated apps' just means: letting someone else do the GUI for you, even though it may suck.
    - rimantas 12y ago
      What does it mean, exactly?
      - leonatan 12y ago
        To me it reads like complete nonsense.
      - fit2rule 12y ago
        It means let Apple do all the GUI work for you. And then let them change their designs, and the design of your app of course, according to their whims. Its okay, I understand I'm getting downvoted for not following along with the groupthink that Apple can't do anything wrong in the GUI department, and therefore native is far superior to anything else, but I've still got the opinion that the native GUI toolkits/frameworks for each platform are really designed to lock users - and developers - into the platform. Far better to avoid this issue completely, and do cross-platform development with custom GUI controls, if you want to have an app that works wherever your users will run it ..
        demallien 12y ago
rmrfrmrf 12y ago
Apple has made it known through its chip design (and subsequent underclocking), app development limitations, etc. that battery life is of utmost importance. I suspect that some of these limits are an attempt to keep websites from draining mobile devices of energy. Is WebGL over a browser typically as performant as native code? I would suspect no, but I'm not familiar enough with WebGL to know.
- 0x0 12y ago
  It's unlikely to be battery concerns. If anything, lack of extensions and low limits means webgl code would have to perform multiple passes of a scene to achieve the same visual effects, thereby increasing the battery drain. Also, why allow these features for native apps if it's not good for the battery? And if you click through to the webkit bugtracker, it looks like almost all the issues listed already have patches committed.
- overgard 12y ago
  Performance wise it's about the same. The work is mostly done by the graphics card, so if you're able to feed it enough data without stalling it it doesn't particularly matter what platform you're invoking it from.
overgard 12y ago
Apple's support of OpenGL has been notoriously bad performance and feature wise for quite a while (at least on OSX, not sure of the mobile story), so I'm not that surprised that their webgl implementation isn't brilliant. It would be the most un-apple thing ever, but I wish they'd just leave it up to the device manufacturers to provide a GL implementation directly in the same way microsoft (generally) does. Apple has so far proven to be awful at it.
- comex 12y ago
  Today on mobile, device manufacturers' GL implementations are notoriously awful: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013/09/26/dolphin-emulator-and-opengl-drivers-hall-fameshame/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013/09/26/dolphin-emulator-and... It sounds like Apple is doing well by comparison, but I don't deal with this stuff myself at present, so I'm not sure.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Lerc 12y ago
I just ran the Conformance test under Firefox (30.0) and Chrome (35.0). Firefox crashed completely. Chrome popped up a "Rats! WebGL hit a snag". So in a sense, iOS has reached feature parity :-)
- slacka 12y ago
  While, Firefox has been crashing for the past few versions, both Chrome stable and canary have been completing the WebGL Conformance Test without crashing. There is probably something wrong on your end, if it won't run on your rig.
daformat 12y ago
Did not get that apple was finally unleashing webGL on mobile Safari, that's awesome! Thanks for the investigating on the beta and helping in making it better. I can't wait to be able to have Three.js working on iOS. Though, I feel disappointed that the promises of "web app" were not really held so far (just look how you can't even open an external link in the browser from a webapp now), in favor of native apps, and hope that webGL in the browser isn't gonna be just another bittersweet thing. I guess we can simply wait to see how the tickets you linked to will go to have a good sense about that.

49 points by espadrine 12y ago

0x0 12y ago

So... It's a beta and some limits aren't up to native spec because of things like the UIWebView currently being backed by an OpenGL ES 2.0 surface (instead of 3.0, which is only available on the iPhone5s)?

illumen 12y ago
The author is doing a great service to WebGL by actually testing the beta, and reporting bugs to Apple.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

Why limit the iPad to iPod levels?

maccard 12y ago
Because it's still not finished?

fit2rule 12y ago

I think its fascinating that the embrace and extend (and wall-off in a garden) strategy being applied by Apple is still producing, nevertheless, a very pliable audience even in this day and age. I see the 'heading off of open standards' play of Apple in a cynical light, because I believe Apple are playing platform games here. These breaks/incompatibilities are another reason for developers to not bother with other platforms, or at least limit themselves in a way that makes platform-dependent tooling inevitable. Basically, it's developers getting screwed by hardware guys, over and over again.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 12y ago
Cross-platform is not the be-and end-all in software. Cross-platform has the covenience (and bigger market), but it's also crippled by catering to the lowest common denominator. You won't get stuff that takes full advantage of a platform if it's cross platform. Some people like native dedicated apps. I, for one, like cross platform stuff for common infrastructure (servers, unix userland, etc), but prefer platform specific and integrated desktop apps that take full advantage of my OS (whether OS X, Windows or Linux).
- fit2rule 12y ago
  To me, 'native dedicated apps' just means: letting someone else do the GUI for you, even though it may suck.
  - rimantas 12y ago
    What does it mean, exactly?
    - leonatan 12y ago
      To me it reads like complete nonsense.
    - fit2rule 12y ago
      It means let Apple do all the GUI work for you. And then let them change their designs, and the design of your app of course, according to their whims. Its okay, I understand I'm getting downvoted for not following along with the groupthink that Apple can't do anything wrong in the GUI department, and therefore native is far superior to anything else, but I've still got the opinion that the native GUI toolkits/frameworks for each platform are really designed to lock users - and developers - into the platform. Far better to avoid this issue completely, and do cross-platform development with custom GUI controls, if you want to have an app that works wherever your users will run it ..
      - demallien 12y ago

rmrfrmrf 12y ago

Apple has made it known through its chip design (and subsequent underclocking), app development limitations, etc. that battery life is of utmost importance. I suspect that some of these limits are an attempt to keep websites from draining mobile devices of energy. Is WebGL over a browser typically as performant as native code? I would suspect no, but I'm not familiar enough with WebGL to know.

0x0 12y ago
It's unlikely to be battery concerns. If anything, lack of extensions and low limits means webgl code would have to perform multiple passes of a scene to achieve the same visual effects, thereby increasing the battery drain. Also, why allow these features for native apps if it's not good for the battery? And if you click through to the webkit bugtracker, it looks like almost all the issues listed already have patches committed.
overgard 12y ago
Performance wise it's about the same. The work is mostly done by the graphics card, so if you're able to feed it enough data without stalling it it doesn't particularly matter what platform you're invoking it from.

overgard 12y ago

Apple's support of OpenGL has been notoriously bad performance and feature wise for quite a while (at least on OSX, not sure of the mobile story), so I'm not that surprised that their webgl implementation isn't brilliant. It would be the most un-apple thing ever, but I wish they'd just leave it up to the device manufacturers to provide a GL implementation directly in the same way microsoft (generally) does. Apple has so far proven to be awful at it.

comex 12y ago
Today on mobile, device manufacturers' GL implementations are notoriously awful: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013/09/26/dolphin-emulator-and-opengl-drivers-hall-fameshame/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013/09/26/dolphin-emulator-and... It sounds like Apple is doing well by comparison, but I don't deal with this stuff myself at present, so I'm not sure.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Lerc 12y ago

I just ran the Conformance test under Firefox (30.0) and Chrome (35.0). Firefox crashed completely. Chrome popped up a "Rats! WebGL hit a snag". So in a sense, iOS has reached feature parity :-)

slacka 12y ago
While, Firefox has been crashing for the past few versions, both Chrome stable and canary have been completing the WebGL Conformance Test without crashing. There is probably something wrong on your end, if it won't run on your rig.

daformat 12y ago

Did not get that apple was finally unleashing webGL on mobile Safari, that's awesome! Thanks for the investigating on the beta and helping in making it better. I can't wait to be able to have Three.js working on iOS. Though, I feel disappointed that the promises of "web app" were not really held so far (just look how you can't even open an external link in the browser from a webapp now), in favor of native apps, and hope that webGL in the browser isn't gonna be just another bittersweet thing. I guess we can simply wait to see how the tickets you linked to will go to have a good sense about that.