elijahg

auxio said:

elijahg said:

auxio said:

@cloudguy It's clear you feel strongly about Apple moving to proprietary technologies like Metal, but I don't hear the same complaints about Microsoft and Direct3D.  Sure you can use OpenGL on Windows, but no one does because it's not well supported.

Direct3D actually has a huge market, with millions of users and developers. It has also been around forever, so many devs know it inside out and APIs are well optimised.

But my point is that Microsoft had a choice at the time they created Direct3D too, and they chose to create a proprietary technology (as they've always done in the past).  So why not the same uproar?

They did, but is pointing out that Apple has followed in Microsoft's footsteps really a favourable comparison? MS actually tried to unify the OpenGL and Direct3D APIs after uproar, but the partnership between MS and SGI failed eventually. Either way, when Direct3D was created OpenGL wasn't intended for games, and it wasn't open source. So MS couldn't just use and improve it, like Apple could with open source Vulkan. 

auxio said:

@cloudguy It's clear you feel strongly about Apple moving to proprietary technologies like Metal, but I don't hear the same complaints about Microsoft and Direct3D.  Sure you can use OpenGL on Windows, but no one does because it's not well supported.

Direct3D actually has a huge market, with millions of users and developers. It has also been around forever, so many devs know it inside out and APIs are well optimised. Devs are moving to Vulkan though, which is not MS owned and is open source. Apple will probably change their mind about Metal in a few years, announce something new and and expect devs to switch to their Next Best Thing overnight. Also OpenGL is used in pretty much every engineering program on Windows (and macOS and Linux).

Fidonet127 said:

elijahg said:

For a long time this kind of thing has been worrying me. I have some of the games on that list, and I hope it's not the start of a trend for games and other apps.

There is a disproportionately large number of games and cross platform apps available for macOS considering its market share, which is great news for us Mac users. But Apple doesn't make it easy to be an indie coder on macOS. They're so out of touch with the indie devs, and how common it is for indie devs to write apps as a secondary income to their main jobs. Apple just assumes devs have unlimited resources to follow their whims to the Next Big Thing™ and an expectation that devs will always follow along, they unfortunately seem to take them for granted - but in a lot of cases it was these very devs that stuck with Apple though its dark ages.

To name a few recent anti-developer Apple policies:

• Apple's regular deprecation of significant cross platform technologies (OpenGL)
• Their silence on deprecated technologies and APIs (little more than a warning that the "API is deprecated in <macOS version>")
• Announcement of something as the Next Big Thing (VR, external GPUs) and then silence on the subject, and eventual dropping of support.
• Onerous App Store rules with arbitrary application of those rules.

Also, and it's a big one - Apple's expectation that devs spend a disproportionate amount of time on Apple's proprietary APIs like Metal, for a platform whose marketshare is pretty tiny. With a lot of open source apps, engineering and games especially, OpenGL is key. Apple has always lagged far behind with OpenGL support, but a few macOS versions ago it was deprecated. OpenGL support makes supporting macOS little more than a tickbox. But the threat of OpenGL's removal resulting in a rewrite and subsequent maintenance of two graphics engine branches is simply untenable for most devs, so the result is macOS support is dropped. So ultimately Apple ends up harming Mac users, again.

I'd hardly call Metal a tiny market share as you have iPhones, iPads, AppleTVs, and Macs. You are talking over a billion devices. I'd say Apple is listening to devs, as they are making it easier to run Apps across their devices. With the ability to run iPad/iPhones apps natively on the Mac, plus Catalyst etc, this should enable more developers to develop for the Mac. The deprecation of OpenGL and requirement of Metal has been in effect for years now. Prior to that, Apple as warned about requirement of Metal and deprecation of OpenGL for years. 

On desktop, its market share is almost non-existent outside of pre-existing engines, which ports don't usually use. I am not aware of any devs that complained about the difficulty of running the same app/game on macOS and iOS, but I am aware of many that complain that Apple's direction makes it harder for them to run or port games/apps to macOS. And whilst it wasn't easy to port from iOS to macOS, it wasn't almost impossible as it is to port something that uses the Vulkan API to Metal. Not only that, the Windows to Mac ports are often serious desktop applications for business and engineering, and sometimes high-end games, not silly iOS mobile games and lightweight mobile apps blown up to a desktop display.

For a long time this kind of thing has been worrying me. I have some of the games on that list, and I hope it's not the start of a trend for games and other apps.

There is a disproportionately large number of games and cross platform apps available for macOS considering its market share, which is great news for us Mac users. But Apple doesn't make it easy to be an indie coder on macOS. They're so out of touch with the indie devs, and how common it is for indie devs to write apps as a secondary income to their main jobs. Apple just assumes devs have unlimited resources to follow their whims to the Next Big Thing™ and an expectation that devs will always follow along, they unfortunately seem to take them for granted - but in a lot of cases it was these very devs that stuck with Apple though its dark ages.

To name a few recent anti-developer Apple policies:

• Apple's regular deprecation of significant cross platform technologies (OpenGL)
• Their silence on deprecated technologies and APIs (little more than a warning that the "API is deprecated in <macOS version>")
• Announcement of something as the Next Big Thing (VR, external GPUs) and then silence on the subject, and eventual dropping of support.
• Onerous App Store rules with arbitrary application of those rules.

Also, and it's a big one - Apple's expectation that devs spend a disproportionate amount of time on Apple's proprietary APIs like Metal, for a platform whose marketshare is pretty tiny. With a lot of open source apps, engineering and games especially, OpenGL is key. Apple has always lagged far behind with OpenGL support, but a few macOS versions ago it was deprecated. OpenGL support makes supporting macOS little more than a tickbox. But the threat of OpenGL's removal resulting in a rewrite and subsequent maintenance of two graphics engine branches is simply untenable for most devs, so the result is macOS support is dropped. So ultimately Apple ends up harming Mac users, again.

I pass judgment of the name itself, but this exactly is what keeps catching the ire of regulators, and getting Apple into hot water. Something that has apparently been fine for years is suddenly not, either due to a reinterpretation of the existing rules which haven’t changed; or more likely someone in a higher position at Apple has noticed the name and doesn’t like it. It’s not fair.