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Native visionOS platform support

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Re: Native visionOS platform support

#141

Post by p_ing »

bigyabai wrote: post #58
eksu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenGL is quite dated for VR/AR. In the Apple ecosystem they supported OpenGL 4.1 for quite some time before moving to Metal, which was announced 2 years before Vulkan. If you spent the time developing an in house graphics API since open standards weren’t moving forward, why would you rewrite everything a second time just a few years later? Shouldn’t you expect to get a decade or two out of your existing API and only…

In an ideal world, Apple would have just built DirectX and sold the Xbox too. But you can't look at it from an executive's perspective, you have to look at it from the developer's point-of-view. This insistence on high-investment, low-ROI APIs is why the Mac doesn't have games. If you run the Metal playbook with VR again, you will have developers outright abandon you. We've already seen what happens. Apple's GPUs sup…

APIs are the last reason there aren't 'major' games on macOS. You've got architecture changes; PPC to Intel was a big loss of game compatibility, and then again when x86-32 support was removed from OS X nuked most of a user's Steam library.

And there's the chicken/egg problem of gamers just not being present in large enough numbers on macOS. The platform already has a fairly small marketshare in the overall PC space, the number of gamers are vanishingly much smaller; Steam stats put macOS at 1.58%, less than Linux.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

All of the major game engines support Apple's Metal, so API compat from that perspective isn't an issue.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#142

Post by viraptor »

jeroenhd wrote: post #139
andsoitis wrote: post #27

Godot already supports VR via OpenXR. OpenXR is the Khronos-maintained industry standard for VR/AR devices—supported by SteamVR, Oculus, Vive, Pico, Windows Mixed Reality, Quest. Notably absent is visionOS / Vision Pro. I would insist Apple conforms to the industry standard. More scalable, open.

> I would insist Apple conforms to the industry standard Insisting Apple conforms to anything is useless, unless you're in control of government regulations. You can stick to Apple's ridiculous custom APIs, or you can release your software without Apple support. Luckily, VisionOS seems to have gone the way of the Apple Pippin, so I don't think many people will care much about Apple's headsets not being supported by V…

It's a pretty well self regulating issue, isn't it? If there is no maintainer available, there's no market either, so it could be dropped. If there's enough people to develop for this expensive uncommon system, then surely there's enough money going round to pay someone.

Right now it looks like they have enough first party support and third party dyi efforts to at least give it a go.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#143

Post by mattlondon »

zapzupnz wrote: post #110
mattlondon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This to me smells of desperation - not so much as "prioritising gaming" and more "prioritising anyone making any kind of content at all please please please someone make something for our device".

It no more smells of desperation than when Apple contributed modern ScreenCaptureKit support to OBS Studio. They want great experiences for their own platforms and sometimes that means reaching out to other projects. It's true that the Vision Pro hasn't seen the uptake that Apple's other platforms did at launch, like the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc. — but it's nearsighted to think that Apple can't play a long game…

I think there is "playing the long game" and there is "flogging a dead horse".

I still can't believe that both apple and meta bet the farm on VR and screwed up so spectacularly. It was fairly clear that VR was never going to be mainstream for the same reasons that 3D movies and TVs vanished after all that fanfare and marketing a few years ago: people don't want to wear the glasses, and they don't want to pay extra either. We've been there and tried this - people are happy with 2D screens and don't see any real benefits of 3D glasses/headsets worth paying for (...apart from the nerdfactor).

Sure there might be some sort of market for "smart glasses" and people are continually releasing various iterations of those (and I'd be up for a pair too FWIW), but if the vision pro is any indication of what the tech is capable of today, we're a very very long way away from normal-glasses-style form factor units (i.e. size, weight, battery life, discreetness, price, nausea etc).

Tl;Dr - nice try doing something new, but if I were an apple investor I'd prefer they went back to what they knew and not waste further billions upon billions "playing the long game" on a dead-end because they can't accept they made a mistake.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#144

Post by solarkraft »

jeroenhd wrote: post #139
andsoitis wrote: post #27

Godot already supports VR via OpenXR. OpenXR is the Khronos-maintained industry standard for VR/AR devices—supported by SteamVR, Oculus, Vive, Pico, Windows Mixed Reality, Quest. Notably absent is visionOS / Vision Pro. I would insist Apple conforms to the industry standard. More scalable, open.

> I would insist Apple conforms to the industry standard Insisting Apple conforms to anything is useless, unless you're in control of government regulations. You can stick to Apple's ridiculous custom APIs, or you can release your software without Apple support. Luckily, VisionOS seems to have gone the way of the Apple Pippin, so I don't think many people will care much about Apple's headsets not being supported by V…

Apple wants Godot to support the Vision Pro, hence the PR. Hence Godot has some leverage here (though possibly not enough).

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#145

Post by jbverschoor »

andsoitis wrote: post #65
willtemperley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard. Why the vitriol? Apple did in fact initiate and co-create the WebGPU standard [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGPU Edit to include quote of parent comment.

I don’t know that that is relevant. In this context, what’s relevant is OpenXR. Apple’s visionOS does not natively support OpenXR, the open standard developed by the Khronos Group for cross-platform AR/VR development. Apple has not indicated any plans to adopt OpenXR, choosing instead to promote its proprietary frameworks such as ARKit, RealityKit, and PolySpatial for spatial computing on the Vision Pro. What Apple i…

Ahhh Khronos. Lovely Fahrenheit where Microsoft strung SGI along to make Fahrenheit fail (now Open Scene Graph) and incorporate the IP in Direct3D.. Shitty tactics.

It's a miracle they actually allowed Microsoft to be a member of the Khronos group.

I should try an make an image of Fahrenheit's beta cds some day.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#146

Post by troupo »

jsheard wrote: post #130
willtemperley wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because getting angry about things that are false is insane. WebGPU is still in progress in Safari - it is available as a technology preview. The same is true for Firefox.

> WebGPU is still in progress in Safari That's kind of the point, Chrome shipped it across multiple platforms two years ago, while Safari still has no timeframe despite having a much narrower set of APIs and hardware to support. Firefox at least has the excuse of needing broad compatibility like Chrome but with a fraction of the development resources. Apple are just dragging their feet.

> That's kind of the point, Chrome shipped it across multiple platforms two years ago

Chrome ships a lot of things. Even now WebGPU is marked as experimental technology on MDN.

WebGPU didn't even become a Candidate Recommendation until December 2024 (half a year ago)

> Apple are just dragging their feet.

Or they are not in any rush to implement APIs that haven't reached consensus, haven't passed reviews, are subject to change etc. Chrome has very very cavalier attitude towards shipping APIs.

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#147

Post by arjonagelhout »

This indicates to me that the Apple Vision and visionOS product line and OS are not canceled internally and that Apple is still committed to its future.

While the Apple Vision Pro itself is not a good or successful product, progress in display technology will enable Apple to build a more attractive consumer product, in the form of light, comfortable and unobtrusive AR glasses.

In this line of thinking — not just focusing on the flopped AVP but looking at the product line on the long term - I think it makes sense for this OS to be added to Godot.

I do think the concern for who will carry the maintenance burden is valid. In my experience, Apple hasn’t been the most responsive company when it comes to obscure bugs or issues with their API (e.g. with Cocoa). I would be wary of depending on continued support from a large tech company that can change its goals at any time.

All that being said, this is exciting!

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#148

Post by [deleted] »

arjonagelhout wrote: post #147

This indicates to me that the Apple Vision and visionOS product line and OS are not canceled internally and that Apple is still committed to its future. While the Apple Vision Pro itself is not a good or successful product, progress in display technology will enable Apple to build a more attractive consumer product, in the form of light, comfortable and unobtrusive AR glasses. In this line of thinking — not just focu…

[deleted]

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#149

Post by gbear605 »

ykl wrote: post #120
tormeh wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my impression that the WebGPU spec design team went to extreme lengths to accommodate Apple's wishes, and Apple in turn does not even support WebGPU in Safari. Why not express vitriol? Apple does not seem to act in good faith.

WebGPU works just fine in Safari on my iPhone. It was enabled by default starting with iOS 18.2.

It’s disabled still on my iPhone on iOS 18.4.1. Either it was enabled specifically on 18.2, and then disabled, or you enabled it manually. (Or some other weird thing, like it’s only enabled on iPhone Pros.)

Re: Native visionOS platform support

#150

Post by lillecarl »

dan_can_code wrote: post #127
latexr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB-C has been in use on MacBooks for at least a decade.

Thank god they brought back MagSafe charging recently.

I agree with you, but in practice I've never had a problem with USB-C at all and everything mobile I own has USB-C except my face trimmer, and the next one will be USB-C for sure.

If you're worried about the port in a classroom environment you can use a short extension that you plug in on the device end, it will make the connection separate much easier if something unfortunate happens.

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