While I have your attention - what can be done to improve the state of Vulkan and OpenGL on the mac - its the single biggest reason for me to ragequit the OSX platform every time I try to give it a shot.
I think you'll want to talk to Apple Developer Relations and see if they can put you in touch with the teams responsible for the GPU-level stuff. We as the browser team can't do much with this feedback.
I will try do do this, though I remain sceptical that this will lead to anything. Not supporting external graphics APIs and Apple effectively controlling the drivers seems to be more of a business decision to me than a decision from a tech / dev relations team. Unless someone high up at Apple takes a call that supporting something like Vulkan / OpenGL is the path forward I doubt that this can be solved in a bottom up manner.
Hi om2, this is completely off-topic, but I'm so intrigued that Safari devs are actually chatting openly about their product, I figured what the heck I'd ask something.
A few years ago, I tried my hand at making an HTML5 application using the apple-mobile-web-app-capable, apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style, apple-touch-icon-precomposed META tags and the apple-touch-startup-image LINK tag.
It was so slick how the iPhone put my webapp's icon on the home screen and had a very beautiful startup splash screen as well. It felt very native and I could feel Jobs' influence on the way that presented, especially because it reminded me of his original iPhone reveal where he hinted that one would write apps for the iPhone using HTML5 (this was prior to the appstore.)
Ultimately, I had to give up on offering my webapp as a homepage app because of differing behaviors of my page in application mode versus in Safari.
For one, if the user switched applications and switched away from my html5 application, it would fully unload. Whereas the same web page would only pause/suspend if safari lost focus (I assume this is iff there is enough memory to keep the tab alive/passivated, which is of course reasonable.)
I can't have my webpage unload/reload on focus changes because it's a single-page webapp and keeps a lot of transient state.
Second, if I recall correctly, there was some oddities about the browser chrome that differed between application mode and safari mode whereby you stole some extra screen real-estate in application mode with an opaque bar and I needed that space for my layout. This second issue I think would be already addressed because your devices post iPhone5 have larger screens.
It would be so neat if these limitations were lifted on HTML5 applications and I could offer it to my users! Are there new/recent improvements to the system that you can share with me? Are there any super secret toggles I might add to my meta tags to tell the iPhone to preserve my HTML5 app's context as aggressively as Safari?
Thanks for talking even though people here are dogging on your proposal!
I appreciate the list of issues affecting home screen web apps on iOS. We're looking into improving how they work. I can't promise any specific set of improvements or timeline but we are aware of the issues you mention.
Appreciate the willingness to address it, it would be the completest thing if HTML5 Apps worked as well as safari tabs. Very empowering thing for you to do for us web devs, thanks!
If you can share any history or stories about the origins of that feature landing on the iPhone, I would be grateful. I find it all fascinating.
It is a serious problem for the future of Apple that they have almost completely lost the support of software developers. It used to be that most software developers had MacBook Pros and, the ones that didn't wished they did. Now software developers are generally buying non-Apple machines and running Linux or Windows. In the short term, this is only a tiny market so the loss of sales is irrelevant but, these people are people that other people look to when they are deciding what to buy and, they are people that develop software that other people use. If there is no decent software for Mac OS because none of the developers who would otherwise write it and release it use it anymore, it will make it much harder for other people to use. Both of these are long term effects and, it is too soon to show their effect on sales but, they are important. Since the release of Mac OS X, it has been an attractive platform for developers but, this has completely changed in the last couple of years and, the only reason to use it now is for iOS development IMHO.
Windows has done an awful lot to make itself more attractive to developers recently because they get that it is vital for their future. I hate Windows but, even I have to admit, it has got way way better.
Apple's decision to stop producing things like AirPort Extreme or monitors is a stupid decision in the long run too. Even if these don't make any money on their own, part of what makes Apple an attractive platform to people is that they can buy everything from Apple and it work together so, even if these lose a bit of money, they make sense to do.
There are an awful lot of reasons to not use Mac OS so, it has to get the reasons to use it right and, it is quickly losing them. Fair enough, most of their money comes from selling iPhones but, sales of these will be seriously harmed in the long run if Apple can't sell other systems that integrate well with them. For example, Microsoft would not have to port or update Office on iOS if there wasn't the possibility that it could weaken their hold on the market if there was a Mac and iOS Office alternative. As it is, they would be insane not to support it on iOS but, without Mac OS and Macs, not doing so would be an option and, it would be a serious selling point for Windows phones. Apple's strategy is seriously broken and, it is going to be a serious problem for the company in the long term if it doesn't fix it soon, if it isn't already too late.
I don't say it is already too late, I say it might be. That may be overly dramatic but, unless you refute that there is a problem with an actual argument, you are hardly arguing against that.
FWIW, I agree with you. The most recent macbook 'pro' release has caused a majority of the devs I know say 'screw this' and trade their macbooks in for surfaces. Not exaggerating. Apple should be concerned.
Perhaps I was being unclear- I don't doubt that they sold a ton of them. The length of time since the previous update alone would ensure pent-up demand.
What I don't think they did is sell many to developers or programmers. Although small in number compared to the overall size of the market, Apple's losses there are important. Mindshare matters when you're talking about the people you expect to build the software for the platform you sell.
Not true on Apple selling a record amount of Macs. Apparently they added 7 days to the quarter versus a year before and therefore Mac sales declined again. For 2016 Mac sales also declined compared to 2015. Apple Mac sales declining is tied to the lack of new OS X software, IMO. Otherwise why decline?
Not the person to whom you are asking, but this is my perception of Apple.
The state of OpenGL will never improve: if you've followed Apple at any point over the last 25 years, it's pretty clear that they disengage very quickly from any technology that is starting to look deprecated/not the future. It works for hardware and software: first iMac with only USB and Ethernet, dropping the floppy drive, dropping CD/DVD drives, avoiding Blue-Ray entirely [1], only USB-C on last MacBook Pro, flash, etc. So my opinion is that OpenGL will never be developed further at Apple. They will probably drop all OpenGL support at some point in the next few years.
The other thing that is clear is that Apple doesn't like having their hands tied by third parties. The lack of adequate Kaby Lake processors for the launch of the last MacBook Pro, and the subsequent heat/hatred directed towards Apple because of it [2], is probably making quite a few people think that at some point they will really have to move the whole Mac line to Apple made ARM processors.
Apple started to ship a working Metal implementation to iOS developers before Vulkan was more than a draft [3]. This freedom to move at their own pace is worth a lot to Apple. Vulkan is a great piece of technology, but I don't have high hopes for it to be supported by Apple anytime soon.
[1] There were some licensing issues there, but had Apple thought the future of media consumption to be BR I'm sure they would have found a comprise. Instead they found an excuse to promote streaming / the Apple TV.
[2] Including on HN, where I would have thought the average reader to be a little bit more sophisticated on these technical matters.
[3] I don't have the exact timeline in head, so I might be wrong.
