Apple missing from list of companies supporting OpenXR AR and VR spec

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 29
    michelb76michelb76 Posts: 612member
    Why would they? VR/AR authoring doesn't happen on macs anyway at the moment, if at all. Right now it's a niche at best. Very cool, but a niche.
  • Reply 22 of 29
    Apple has better technology that it wants to merge with excellent hardware. The mainstream developers will only come over once Apple makes an excellent pair of Glasses. So it’s cool that there is a lower quality alternative to that option, but it’s not really important like the open web. The Apple Watch doesn’t even need the open web that much ,even though it has gained WebKit support.
    Coming from a "I currently get paid to create content in VR, for VR, and wish I could do it on a Mac" point of view... That's not a very realistic appraisal of the situation, to me.

    Apple's problem with VR isn't the glasses, it's that they have a continued tendency to use low end, garbage graphics hardware on their products.

    Their top of the range desktop, has barely half the graphics horsepower when it comes to VR, of some windows laptops (Vega 64 Vs. dual Nvidia 1080). They don't even have a laptop that can do VR without lugging along an eGPU. AMD has nothing on its horizon that's likely to offer users a credible alternative to Nvidia, when it comes to generating immersive 3D environments.

    No form of glasses will solve that, and the evolutionary path of graphics hardware isn't going to level out until image quality meets the resolution of the real world (maybe a decade at least).

    Go look at Steam - non-game VR apps for macOS - 3 (one of the headline apps they used to show off VR on the iMac Pro at launch still hasn't been released for macOS (it's on Windows) as far as I can see). For Windows, 200+

    Developers will go where the users are, and the users are where the fastest, and cheapest-to-replace GPU tech is. That's still based around motherboard slots. Thunderbolt is sufficient for computation / rendering, but it's not good enough to compete for real-time immersion performance.

    "But Windows VR is just games" Game engines are the general-purpose operating environment for VR software. Good game-engine performance is table-stakes to play. Your VR painting environment, your VR media compositor, your VR network topology viewer all use game engines to deliver their user experience (as do a growing number of CAD apps etc).

    "But macOS has Pro Apps". Not in VR it doesn't - VR isn't a place to view content created on a 2D screen (the Final Cut worldview), quite the opposite - tools for VR content creation are VR tools, and if anything, we go in the opposite direction - 2D screens are for consumption of media created in VR. In this new, levelled playing field, macOS doesn't offer anything, because the operating system is effectively just a dumb pipe between your VR app (which handles the UI) and the 3D hardware. Windows having a janky file explorer compared to Finder simply doesn't matter - you don't use it. Our VR stations boot, auto launch Steam, one press of the VR icon, goggles on, and we're in Steam, or Viveport - launching the app we want to work in. We don't even "use" Windows.
    edited March 2019 avon b7
  • Reply 23 of 29
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    If you’ve no idea how to create a product, release a standard.  Apple probably won’t jump too soon as they’ll look to release an integrated product until they’ve nailed the design.  
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 24 of 29
    nhtnht Posts: 4,522member
    melgross said:
    mjtomlin said:
    melgross said:
    Apple needs to get on the ball with these standards. They’re very shaky about supporting them. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. There’s no evidence that not supporting a standard is giving Apple a boost. It just makes it more difficult for developers to get aboard Apple’s platform.

    Developers didn't complain about DirectX (vs. OpenGL)
    Developers don't complain about nVidia CUDA (vs. OpenCL)

    It doesn't make it difficult for developers to get on board to a platform with a device base of a billion and counting.
    Yes they do. They complain all the time. It’s one reason why Apple’s platform has fewer games, and poorer performance for CAD and other software. No matter what you think, Apple’s is still a small minority platforn.
    They have fewer games on iOS?  Nah.  And if you need to run something on a Mac you can boot into windows...for DirectX.

    In any case, devs don't complain about CUDA vs OpenCL...they complain that the proprietary CUDA API isn't as well supported on MacOS.

    OpenGL and OpenCL are inferior to the proprietary alternatives so the assertion that Apple "needs" to support yet another so-so standard is very suspect.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 29
    melgross said:
    StrangeDays said:
    melgross said:
    Apple needs to get on the ball with these standards. They’re very shaky about supporting them. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. There’s no evidence that not supporting a standard is giving Apple a boost. It just makes it more difficult for developers to get aboard Apple’s platform.
    And there’s no evidence that supporting it gives Apple a boost. Why does Apple “need” to?

    (anytime I read a comment that begins with “Apple needs to...!” I cringe. Usually it’s just a substitute for “I want Apple to...”)
    Well, if they’re not supporting it, then you can’t look at evidence the other way, can you? But we can look to the dearth of certain types of graphics dependent software. And developers do complain about it. Games, for example, are difficult to move over because Apple’s own graphics software standards don’t support a lot of what these do. When they do, it’s differently. So it has to be rewritten.

    and what’s the point? Just saying that a-les solution is superior isn’t saying much, even if it were true. Often, being slightly better is inferior to agreeing on a standard. And Apple could influence those standards if they belonged to the bodies, or were just a major implementer. Apple sits on a number of standards bodies, so it’s not as though they never bother.
    Still, why does Apple “need to” get on the ball by supporting a standard I’d never even heard of before today? What is the source of the proposed need?
    That’s the real question, isn’t it?
    Khronos Group touts OpenXR as vitally important, but so far, it is not the center of the AR/VR universe. Content creators are using Unreal or Unity or what-have-you to power VR games and apps. So it’s not because OpenXR has any momentum. Instead, OpenXR promises a rosy future where devs can, what? Target any device without writing code? Isn’t that what Unity and Unreal do for content makers already?

    This sort of “one API to rule them all” hasn’t exactly met with success, but we always hear from the Usual Suspects claiming that if Apple doesn’t join, it is surely doomed. A decade ago it was Adobe Flash. The idea was that the grass was greener on the other side, and Apple was missing out because devs couldn’t just use ActionScript and publish on Adobe Flash or Adobe Air.
    edited March 2019 watto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 29
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    melgross said:
    mjtomlin said:
    melgross said:
    Apple needs to get on the ball with these standards. They’re very shaky about supporting them. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. There’s no evidence that not supporting a standard is giving Apple a boost. It just makes it more difficult for developers to get aboard Apple’s platform.

    Developers didn't complain about DirectX (vs. OpenGL)
    Developers don't complain about nVidia CUDA (vs. OpenCL)

    It doesn't make it difficult for developers to get on board to a platform with a device base of a billion and counting.
    Yes they do. They complain all the time. It’s one reason why Apple’s platform has fewer games, and poorer performance for CAD and other software. No matter what you think, Apple’s is still a small minority platforn.
    That still minority platform was selling a lot of ArchiCAD and Power Mac bundles 30 years ago and is still selling. Apple has never been ignored by mainstream CAD developers and in contrast is actually further supported by their commitment to the iPad Pro, not to mention iMac Pro. Regarding games, Apple is the creator of the biggest mobile gaming platform, so... anyway...
    That’s just wrong. 
  • Reply 27 of 29
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member

    melgross said:
    StrangeDays said:
    melgross said:
    Apple needs to get on the ball with these standards. They’re very shaky about supporting them. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. There’s no evidence that not supporting a standard is giving Apple a boost. It just makes it more difficult for developers to get aboard Apple’s platform.
    And there’s no evidence that supporting it gives Apple a boost. Why does Apple “need” to?

    (anytime I read a comment that begins with “Apple needs to...!” I cringe. Usually it’s just a substitute for “I want Apple to...”)
    Well, if they’re not supporting it, then you can’t look at evidence the other way, can you? But we can look to the dearth of certain types of graphics dependent software. And developers do complain about it. Games, for example, are difficult to move over because Apple’s own graphics software standards don’t support a lot of what these do. When they do, it’s differently. So it has to be rewritten.

    and what’s the point? Just saying that a-les solution is superior isn’t saying much, even if it were true. Often, being slightly better is inferior to agreeing on a standard. And Apple could influence those standards if they belonged to the bodies, or were just a major implementer. Apple sits on a number of standards bodies, so it’s not as though they never bother.
    Still, why does Apple “need to” get on the ball by supporting a standard I’d never even heard of before today? What is the source of the proposed need?
    Just because you have t heard if it doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

    boy, I read all the sycophants here, sad.
  • Reply 28 of 29
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member

    (anytime I read a comment that begins with “Apple needs to...!” I cringe. Usually it’s just a substitute for “I want Apple to...”)
    Why don't you just take it that way then?  Save yourself some trouble.
    gatorguy
  • Reply 29 of 29
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    crowley said:

    (anytime I read a comment that begins with “Apple needs to...!” I cringe. Usually it’s just a substitute for “I want Apple to...”)
    Why don't you just take it that way then?  Save yourself some trouble.
    Ok, so it’s me that said it this time. I rarely do that. It must have slipped through. But we all have our thought’s as to what Apple is doing, and what we think they should be doing. And no, it’s not always “I want Apple to...” based on something we personally want. I often talk about things I don’t personally want, but that I think Apple should do for others. Anyone who thinks Apple is always right is pretty screwed up. They make mistakes, and thay have from the very beginning.

    but there’s nothing wrong with someone saying that they think Apple should do this or that. That’s why we’re here, after all.
    gatorguy
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