Apple OS X El Capitan(apple.com)
apple.com
Apple OS X El Capitan
http://www.apple.com/live/2015-june-event/40d96cf4-33a4-48ca-9335-815af736ce39/
20 comments
And it's 40% faster! .... Of course they forgot to mention that OGL drivers on OS X were about 30% slower than OGL/DX drivers on Windows on the same hardware running same scene. So instead of updating their OpenGL 3D performance they just kept it back and now you're forced to use a proprietary walled garden API for full performance.
This kind of behaviour makes me really really sorry to be an Apple customer :/
This kind of behaviour makes me really really sorry to be an Apple customer :/
> This kind of behaviour makes me really really sorry to be
> an Apple customer :/
Well, don't be then. I don't get this cry about walled gardens. Feel free to roam in the jungle if you don't like them.
Well, don't be then. I don't get this cry about walled gardens. Feel free to roam in the jungle if you don't like them.
Well, I already do own a Mac and I actually like using it. Are you telling me I'm not allowed to be annoyed and complain about having 3D performance crippled on the OS X as opposed to Windows? Are you telling me I'm not allowed to be annoyed about having to reboot my machine constantly to get the most of 3D performance?
To borrow your words - I don't get why are you criticising me when I express opinion about a one aspect of the product. OS X / Mac combination isn't just 3D - I do like other aspects of the combination that I will not get on other machines. I don't get why would you like to take away my right to express opinion about scummy Apple practices.
To borrow your words - I don't get why are you criticising me when I express opinion about a one aspect of the product. OS X / Mac combination isn't just 3D - I do like other aspects of the combination that I will not get on other machines. I don't get why would you like to take away my right to express opinion about scummy Apple practices.
3D performance for what? Are you a gamer?
For a computer that costs thousands of dollars. Is that too much to ask that Apple make proper drivers for the one new model of discrete graphics cards they ship every year?
I’ve talked about this with one of the guys at Apple who writes graphics drivers. Basically vendors give them their Windows drivers and they change them to work against IOKit. No idea what my point is, besides, “it’s probably not that easy”. But they are on the Vulkan team and probably now have experience providing a similar API, so I’m hopeful the Macs get great adoption for Vulkan.
OSX renders UI with OpenGL - and now in El Capitan it will render using Metal. The performance overhead affects more than just games.
> Well, don't be then. I don't get this cry about walled gardens. Feel free to roam in the jungle if you don't like them.
I really don't get why people pull this "if you don't like it, leave" argument (in everything from politics to tech). There are lots of reasons someone might want to use a mac (I do), one is perfectly entitled to complain about aspects of Apple's approach to try to make the argument for change.
I really don't get why people pull this "if you don't like it, leave" argument (in everything from politics to tech). There are lots of reasons someone might want to use a mac (I do), one is perfectly entitled to complain about aspects of Apple's approach to try to make the argument for change.
I think it originates from misunderstanding what a walled garden is and why they are great for customer retention. The whole point of walled garden is locking people in.
Avoiding a walled garden can only happen before you invest in the garden. Once you have spent money in iTunes or the store (or e.g. even have a long list of contacts in some IM client) you are stuck unless you are happy to lose those purchases/data.
Avoiding a walled garden can only happen before you invest in the garden. Once you have spent money in iTunes or the store (or e.g. even have a long list of contacts in some IM client) you are stuck unless you are happy to lose those purchases/data.
I had this experience leaving the Apple walled garden about six years ago and moving on to Ubuntu (with Windows for gaming purposes in free time). I just kind of ate the costs. I suppose technically I still have access to my video content purchased on iTunes, but I'd have to boot to Windows or use a VM to get to it.
My rationale was kind of along the lines of avoiding the sunk cost fallacy: just because I'd been invested in the Apple ecosystem for 20-some years and buying iTunes stuff for more than half a decade didn't mean that I should just keep doing that when I was unhappy with other things. But that cost-benefit calculus might work out differently for other people. The lock-in is very real if you don't want to lose your stuff. It's a reason that I still refuse to buy movies from any online service. Only discs that I can rip or DRM free downloads for me from now on, so I don't end up walled-in again.
Eventually I was able to rescue all my protected music at least by paying what ammounted to a $25 ransom for a year of iTunes Match (or whatever they call it now) so I could download DRM free versions of the music I'd already paid for.
My rationale was kind of along the lines of avoiding the sunk cost fallacy: just because I'd been invested in the Apple ecosystem for 20-some years and buying iTunes stuff for more than half a decade didn't mean that I should just keep doing that when I was unhappy with other things. But that cost-benefit calculus might work out differently for other people. The lock-in is very real if you don't want to lose your stuff. It's a reason that I still refuse to buy movies from any online service. Only discs that I can rip or DRM free downloads for me from now on, so I don't end up walled-in again.
Eventually I was able to rescue all my protected music at least by paying what ammounted to a $25 ransom for a year of iTunes Match (or whatever they call it now) so I could download DRM free versions of the music I'd already paid for.
I did a similar "switch" where I kept my macbook/retina display laptop hardware but switched to Windows 8 for the OS.
It's been a good experience except for one thing: Apple delivers no drivers for the integrated video, disables it in EFI from Bootcamp, so it runs hot and has a short battery life when not in OS X. I haven't seen anyone reporting success working around this problem, and it's been going on for years for us "switchers" to Windows.
It's been a good experience except for one thing: Apple delivers no drivers for the integrated video, disables it in EFI from Bootcamp, so it runs hot and has a short battery life when not in OS X. I haven't seen anyone reporting success working around this problem, and it's been going on for years for us "switchers" to Windows.
that is strange, as other macbooks that only have an iGPU work fine on windows 8.
Former Mac / iOS user (since pre-G3 Macs and the iPod touch), it's not that hard to switch. My main devices are now a Surface Pro and a Z3 Compact.
With how much data has moved off of devices, losing data isn't a huge concern anymore. My mail, calendar, photos, etc. were already hosted elsewhere on services with cross platform support.
Cost of replacing apps is the bigger issue, and for me it worked out to something under $50. That was cheaper than the (~$200) cost premium of a 64 GB iPhone over the Z3C and a microSD card.
EDIT: If you've tied yourself into HomeKit or Apple's photo system, things would be worse. Maybe I'm atypical there?
With how much data has moved off of devices, losing data isn't a huge concern anymore. My mail, calendar, photos, etc. were already hosted elsewhere on services with cross platform support.
Cost of replacing apps is the bigger issue, and for me it worked out to something under $50. That was cheaper than the (~$200) cost premium of a 64 GB iPhone over the Z3C and a microSD card.
EDIT: If you've tied yourself into HomeKit or Apple's photo system, things would be worse. Maybe I'm atypical there?
>The whole point of walled garden is locking people in.
No, the whole point for me is keeping the weeds out and have a comprehensive experience where stuff works together well.
It's 2015, there's nothing much to keep me locked in in any "walled garden".
I can use another client for my IMAP emails (or export and re-import them in 20 ways), I can move my photos out of Photos app, I use Chrome to begin with but I could very easily export Safari bookmarks too, my iTunes music files are not locked, so I can play them on Linux/Windows, etc.
What the apps? Those were always non portable between platforms, walled garden or not. And in the last 10 years, a lot of those are run on the web in the first place, or offered for free/near free anyway with the OS, or are subscriptions (e.g. the Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office 365, etc.), so I can move those about freely between OS X and say Windows.
No, the whole point for me is keeping the weeds out and have a comprehensive experience where stuff works together well.
It's 2015, there's nothing much to keep me locked in in any "walled garden".
I can use another client for my IMAP emails (or export and re-import them in 20 ways), I can move my photos out of Photos app, I use Chrome to begin with but I could very easily export Safari bookmarks too, my iTunes music files are not locked, so I can play them on Linux/Windows, etc.
What the apps? Those were always non portable between platforms, walled garden or not. And in the last 10 years, a lot of those are run on the web in the first place, or offered for free/near free anyway with the OS, or are subscriptions (e.g. the Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office 365, etc.), so I can move those about freely between OS X and say Windows.
The very start of this thread gave an example of lock-in, being a custom API to get 3D performance to match other vendors. Judging by the size of the gaming industry, 3D performance is something people are interested in.
So Apple's grand plan is to get better gaming performance to lock people in?
First of all, gamers don't prefer Mac in the first place.
Second games are transient. You play them, and then you mostly forget them as new ones come out. You could jump to a new platform (that would be Windows) and buy new games and it wouldn't be a problem that your old Apple stuff doesn't work in Windows. So that's not much of a lock-in.
Third, if with the custom API they get "3D performance to match other vendors" then that's not a tempting proposition that can lock people in: it's "a match".
If, OTOH, they got performance many times that of other vendors with Metal, then that would be the GOOD kind of lock-in, the one where a platform is so much better that you use that.
First of all, gamers don't prefer Mac in the first place.
Second games are transient. You play them, and then you mostly forget them as new ones come out. You could jump to a new platform (that would be Windows) and buy new games and it wouldn't be a problem that your old Apple stuff doesn't work in Windows. So that's not much of a lock-in.
Third, if with the custom API they get "3D performance to match other vendors" then that's not a tempting proposition that can lock people in: it's "a match".
If, OTOH, they got performance many times that of other vendors with Metal, then that would be the GOOD kind of lock-in, the one where a platform is so much better that you use that.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html
Argument By Dismissal:
Argument By Dismissal:
an idea is rejected without saying why.
Dismissals usually have overtones. For example, "If you don't like it, leave the country" implies that your cause is hopeless, or that you are unpatriotic, or that your ideas are foreign, or maybe all three. "If you don't like it, live in a Communist country" adds an emotive element.[deleted]
Yeah, feel free to sideload sketchy apps to your Android if you have no qualms being pwned. There is a reason Google recommends only Play Store downloads and it is not just because they want to lock you in their garden.
I wonder if you're getting downvoted because there's been plenty of malware in the Google Play Store?
We don't know if they have increased OpenGL 3D performance. You are just speculating.
(Metal is already in iOS8)
For the first time in history we have OpenGL, OpenES and WebGL on all platforms including iOS8 and IE11. And then all these companies kiss the open APIs good bye by releasing all the proprietary next-gen APIs whereas the successor to OpenGL isn't even ready. So multiplatform will have to stick with OpenGL/OpenES/WebGL or bit the granite and code for several different APIs :(
The WWDC announcements are great, don't get me wrong.
For the first time in history we have OpenGL, OpenES and WebGL on all platforms including iOS8 and IE11. And then all these companies kiss the open APIs good bye by releasing all the proprietary next-gen APIs whereas the successor to OpenGL isn't even ready. So multiplatform will have to stick with OpenGL/OpenES/WebGL or bit the granite and code for several different APIs :(
The WWDC announcements are great, don't get me wrong.
Most studios use middleware and there is zero support for OpenGL in game consoles anyway[0].
So it looks like Apple is saying goodbye to OpenGL, given that all their accelerated rendering has been moved over to Metal, at least from the keynote presentation.
[0] No sane studio ever bothered with PSGL on the PS3, the only console ever supporting an OpenGL variant.
So it looks like Apple is saying goodbye to OpenGL, given that all their accelerated rendering has been moved over to Metal, at least from the keynote presentation.
[0] No sane studio ever bothered with PSGL on the PS3, the only console ever supporting an OpenGL variant.
I think this benefits DirectX 12.
This benefits game engines in general. I fail to see why it would favour only DX 12.
Apple saved OpenGL from extinction when it was chosen as the iOS 3D API, as the API never had a foothold on game consoles.
Apparently now they are done with it and with no plans on adopting Vulkan.
Apple saved OpenGL from extinction when it was chosen as the iOS 3D API, as the API never had a foothold on game consoles.
Apparently now they are done with it and with no plans on adopting Vulkan.
Do you have a source for "no plans on adopting Vulkan"? Apple is definitely on the Vullkan working group (logo is part of the image at the bottom of https://www.khronos.org/vulkan).
It is a gut feeling from an old dog that has seen corporations change their stances in technology too many times.
Why adopt Vulkan given their investment in Metal, to the point that they have moved their accelerated 2D stack to Metal.
What is the point to rewrite it again for Vulkan?
Even if they adopt Vulkan, most likely would be a layer on top of Metal.
As for being in the group, Sony is also and they don't use OpenGL on their consoles.
Why adopt Vulkan given their investment in Metal, to the point that they have moved their accelerated 2D stack to Metal.
What is the point to rewrite it again for Vulkan?
Even if they adopt Vulkan, most likely would be a layer on top of Metal.
As for being in the group, Sony is also and they don't use OpenGL on their consoles.
I'm sure Valve is thrilled to see the largest OpenGL desktop OS abandoning OpenGL for their own API right now. Just thrilled to pieces.
I don't see where Apple said they were abandoning OpenGL.
They just moved over to Metal for AppKit operations which naturally would always be faster than a common abstraction layer.
They just moved over to Metal for AppKit operations which naturally would always be faster than a common abstraction layer.
Apple more or less abandoned OpenGL years ago. The state of OpenGL on OS X is a trainwreck. It's outdated by about 5 years.
Just look at the supported version list: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202823
Note that there's a lot of hardware on that list that supports OpenGL 4.5 and indeed has drivers for that on other platforms but on OS X all top out at 4.1. That may not sound like a big deal, but OpenGL 4.3 brought full compatibility with GLES 3.0. That's a biggie if you're, say, an indie game dev that wants to do a cross-platform game that can span from mobile to desktop. And 4.5 brings the robustness support that allows for secure WebGL.
Just look at the supported version list: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202823
Note that there's a lot of hardware on that list that supports OpenGL 4.5 and indeed has drivers for that on other platforms but on OS X all top out at 4.1. That may not sound like a big deal, but OpenGL 4.3 brought full compatibility with GLES 3.0. That's a biggie if you're, say, an indie game dev that wants to do a cross-platform game that can span from mobile to desktop. And 4.5 brings the robustness support that allows for secure WebGL.
I'm sure OS X will retain its current support for OpenGL. But I think this means that Metal, not Vulkan, is going to be the equivalent to DX12 for OS X development.
I'm going to continue to get downvoted but oh well.
Apple was always going to support Metal on OSX in order to allow for iOS apps to transition back. It would be stupid not to.
That doesn't necessarily mean they are abandoning OpenGL. Just seems a little early to be getting the pitchforks out.
Apple was always going to support Metal on OSX in order to allow for iOS apps to transition back. It would be stupid not to.
That doesn't necessarily mean they are abandoning OpenGL. Just seems a little early to be getting the pitchforks out.
Yes, but unlike either of those it's in widespread production use (Mantle is still beta, Vulkan was just announced). It shipped last year on iOS 8 – this is just the expected next step of offering it on OS X as well:
https://developer.apple.com/metal/
https://developer.apple.com/metal/
FYI: Mantle is probably never going to go widespread public in any meaningful way. AMD is going to focus on DX12 and Vulkan instead.
https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2015/05/12/o...
https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2015/05/12/o...
Right, that makes sense. However the desktop dev market is a completely different beast when compared to mobile - it's been a hard enough (and un-won) battle digging DX out. The chances of Apple pulling off what Khronos couldn't are slim - in my opinion.
If I were Apple the best I'd hope for is their mobile games porting over to OSX. However, with the added performance of desktop is Metal really needed? If it works on a tablet I'd say there's a fantastic chance it would work on desktop with mere OpenGL.
If I were Apple the best I'd hope for is their mobile games porting over to OSX. However, with the added performance of desktop is Metal really needed? If it works on a tablet I'd say there's a fantastic chance it would work on desktop with mere OpenGL.
Just because something works now doesn't mean it wouldn't be preferable to have the performance to fully support a 5K display or consistently run at higher frame rates and/or on a higher quality level.
Developers increasingly treat iOS as a must-have platform but OS X hasn't hit that level. In particular, many games are ported but noticeably slower than the same game running on Windows. This seems like an easy way to avoid requiring a bunch of OpenGL-specific tuning which wouldn't be needed for either iOS/Metal or Windows/DirectX and will thus not be a priority for many studios.
Developers increasingly treat iOS as a must-have platform but OS X hasn't hit that level. In particular, many games are ported but noticeably slower than the same game running on Windows. This seems like an easy way to avoid requiring a bunch of OpenGL-specific tuning which wouldn't be needed for either iOS/Metal or Windows/DirectX and will thus not be a priority for many studios.
> The chances of Apple pulling off what Khronos couldn't are slim - in my opinion.
Apple has a large and loyal customer base, and it's typically people who are willing to spend money on apps and games for their devices. Apple doesn't have to try and satisfy a bunch of legacy CAD vendors who don't care about consumer 3D graphics at all. And when Apple announces Metal, they don't mean they have a spec, they have an implementation that is going to have a significant installed base in under a year. They have a lot of advantages Khronos doesn't.
Apple has a large and loyal customer base, and it's typically people who are willing to spend money on apps and games for their devices. Apple doesn't have to try and satisfy a bunch of legacy CAD vendors who don't care about consumer 3D graphics at all. And when Apple announces Metal, they don't mean they have a spec, they have an implementation that is going to have a significant installed base in under a year. They have a lot of advantages Khronos doesn't.
OS X has a lot going for it, but when it comes to the desktop gaming market it's just not the top dog in revenue generation that iOS is for mobile apps. I'd assume (not an expert) that Vulkan's support from Intel, nVidia and AMD on PC could mean more to professional game developers and publishers than Metal's OS X support.
I don't think there's going to be a major game developer that supports OpenGL/Vulkan on Windows over DirectX, outside of perhaps Bethesda/iD. If Vulkan isn't present on the second-most used desktop OS, and it's not best-of-breed on the operating system used on over 90% of desktops, I don't see where it makes major inroads on the desktop.
Valve is certainly interested in Vulkan, partly as a means to target Chinese Dota players running Windows XP. Even a second-place position on PC may amount to more than star status on OS X. (Though OTOH the relatively easy port could draw people looking for some extra income for their iOS game.)
(In any case, is it yet certain that Apple won't support Vulkan on OS X? It wouldn't have been ready for El Capitan's launch this Autumn regardless. Maybe Apple will try to deprecate it (in the non-technical sense) as a compatibility option but support it anyway?)
(In any case, is it yet certain that Apple won't support Vulkan on OS X? It wouldn't have been ready for El Capitan's launch this Autumn regardless. Maybe Apple will try to deprecate it (in the non-technical sense) as a compatibility option but support it anyway?)
Valve is an oversight, yeah -- I did mention them in another comment here. I don't really think of them as a game developer anymore, but I'm probably being unfair.
If Apple supports Vulkan but with worse drivers than Metal, I'm not sure that's any better. OSX has roughly four times the penetration of Linux in the latest Steam hardware and software survey. I'm not sure it's worth it for most developers to deliberately target the second-best choice on OS X in order to pick up the handful of Linux gamers who can't/won't dual-boot Windows.
If Apple supports Vulkan but with worse drivers than Metal, I'm not sure that's any better. OSX has roughly four times the penetration of Linux in the latest Steam hardware and software survey. I'm not sure it's worth it for most developers to deliberately target the second-best choice on OS X in order to pick up the handful of Linux gamers who can't/won't dual-boot Windows.
I was talking more about Vulkan's second-place position on Windows than about Linux (Vulkan is likely to have some advantages on Windows, like being less tied to the Windows roadmap than DirectX, or indeed OpenGL), and if Apple provided bad Vulkan support I think they'd just be letting themselves in for bad Vulkan-based ports. But overall I don't think we're really disagreeing very much here.
(EDIT: see below.)
(EDIT: see below.)
Did you mean Vulkan where you said "Mantle's second-place position on Windows?" As far as I can tell, Mantle is pretty much DOA -- Nvidia and Intel aren't going to support it on any platform, and Nvidia has 52% of the PC market according to the latest Steam user survey[1], and Nvida/Intel combine for roughly 80%. Even AMD is deprecating Mantle in favor of DX 12/"GLnext"[2].
[1] http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey [2] https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2015/05/12/o...
[1] http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey [2] https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2015/05/12/o...
Yes, of course I meant Vulkan, sorry. IIRC though Vulkan is effectively Khronos-standardised Mantle, so it's not all that fair to say that Mantle has died exactly.
> Valve is certainly interested in Vulkan, partly as a means to target Chinese Dota players running Windows XP.
That seems like a far fetched theory to me. AMD and NVIDIA haven't released drivers for XP for ages. Vulkan support in Source Engine is nowhere near done, if it has even started. In the meantime Chinese players will move on...
That seems like a far fetched theory to me. AMD and NVIDIA haven't released drivers for XP for ages. Vulkan support in Source Engine is nowhere near done, if it has even started. In the meantime Chinese players will move on...
Did they mention how far back the Mac line will support the new Metal api? I'm assuming it only supports relatively recent chips? Can't find any information on this.
You probably won't use it yourself. You'll use Unity or UT4 which uses Metal under the hood.
> You'll use Unity or UT4 which uses Metal under the hood.
Why do I have to use those engines?
Why do I have to use those engines?
As anyone in the industry knows, either you make a game engine or a game.
There are plenty of successful studios that have their own in-house engines. Naughty Dog, From Software, ex Kojima Productions...
Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost.
I understand what you're saying, but I don't like how you make it sound a simple, already-made-for-you decision, when reality is much more nuanced. Each case is a case, and no one should turn down their critical sense when making these decisions, there are no rules.
Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost.
I understand what you're saying, but I don't like how you make it sound a simple, already-made-for-you decision, when reality is much more nuanced. Each case is a case, and no one should turn down their critical sense when making these decisions, there are no rules.
> Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost.
I don't think the pricing of $0-$75/month is a huge cost. They made some big changes to their fee structure this year.
I don't think the pricing of $0-$75/month is a huge cost. They made some big changes to their fee structure this year.
Engines bring their overhead, but they also bring expertise small studios most likely lack. It's easy to cripple your performance with a single error. This can also happen to you while using an engine but even more so when writing your own engine.
Or put differently: Simple games probably have so sleek game logic code that the engine overhead can safely be ignored.
I don't say custom engines are pointless, but for the hundreds of games that are released on the App Store daily, a ready to use engine is "enough".
Or put differently: Simple games probably have so sleek game logic code that the engine overhead can safely be ignored.
I don't say custom engines are pointless, but for the hundreds of games that are released on the App Store daily, a ready to use engine is "enough".
Yes, I understand that, the expertise point is very pertinent indeed. I am not against using available engines at all.
My main point is still that this should be a decision that you make when starting a project, not one that has presumably been made for you. Team members expertise, project cost, for how long you'll be using the tech you're developing, etc. should all be taken into account.
A practical example: Imagine trying to optimize loading times when the whole resource system is a massive generic thing that has been made for you. Now imagine having to support a new platform. You could be in a bind simply because you're using third-party tech (especially if closed-source).
My main point is still that this should be a decision that you make when starting a project, not one that has presumably been made for you. Team members expertise, project cost, for how long you'll be using the tech you're developing, etc. should all be taken into account.
A practical example: Imagine trying to optimize loading times when the whole resource system is a massive generic thing that has been made for you. Now imagine having to support a new platform. You could be in a bind simply because you're using third-party tech (especially if closed-source).
Simple games will be simple enough to be able to move without too much cost/time.
The big companies with their in-house engines will be able to pay someone to do the job.
The big companies with their in-house engines will be able to pay someone to do the job.
> There are plenty of successful studios that have their own in-house engines.
None of which develop for Mac.
None of which develop for Mac.
"Besides, for simple games, using those engines are a huge overhead and an unnecessary cost."
For simple games, you're probably not going to be reaching down to the Metal layer anyway. You're probably gonna stay up at the CoreGraphics layer, use SpriteKit/SceneKit, or something like Cocos or something similar.
For simple games, you're probably not going to be reaching down to the Metal layer anyway. You're probably gonna stay up at the CoreGraphics layer, use SpriteKit/SceneKit, or something like Cocos or something similar.
Having gotten lots of Gamasutra postmortens and GDC presentations, is why I just oversimplified the statement.
Well not necessarily. I work in a large games studio for one of the largest publishers in the world, and pretty much all of our games are made using our own engines. No Unity or UT in sight. But working on those engines is a huge part of every project, it wouldn't be possible if we didn't have hundreds of programmers working on it.
> But working in those engines is a huge part of every project, it wouldn't be possible if we didn't have hundreds of programmers working on it.
Yes, but was my point. I just oversimplified it.
Without a big team, resources are soaked up developing the engine, as so many Gamasutra Postmortens testify.
Yes, but was my point. I just oversimplified it.
Without a big team, resources are soaked up developing the engine, as so many Gamasutra Postmortens testify.
You don't have to, but they reduce development cost by reducing the impact of per-device differences such as those between various versions of OpenGL ES, various versions of OpenGL, various manufacturer-specific implementation quirks of OpenGL, D3D, the existing desktop below-OpenGL APIs and now, presumably, metal.
I was being slightly sarcastic: the point is that there are people who enjoy doing both (and indie games are for the most part a work of love/enjoyment). If Mac drops OpenGL (or never adds Vulkan) there is a chance that someone simply won't bother making their engine+game work on Mac - meaning lost potential on the platform. Who's to say the next Minecraft (which is an engine+game) won't support Mac because it doesn't support Metal and instead went the Vulkan route?
Apple can port Metal, it makes sense: there are tons of mobile games that would pose immediate value for the platform; adding Vulkan into the mix (or even fixing their completely broken OpenGL implementation) would have been a much stronger message.
Apple can port Metal, it makes sense: there are tons of mobile games that would pose immediate value for the platform; adding Vulkan into the mix (or even fixing their completely broken OpenGL implementation) would have been a much stronger message.
Getting people to finally start porting games to OS X was hard enough... and now Apple just threw a wrench into all that by forcing them to code against another API.
Since no one already mentioned about it, here's an update to WebKit in Safari 9.0[1]. Just to pick a few:
* Force Touch Trackpad Mouse Events
* Content Blocking Safari Extensions (bytecode-compiled content blocklist for both iOS and OSX)
* SFSafariViewController for iOS (as an alternative to UIWebKit and WKWebKit)
* ECMAScript 6 support
* CSS properties are now unprefixed (including flexbox!)
I'm excited about the content blocking extension; it replaces the existing canLoad API that needs to be called on every request (which may result in some performance hit) with a JSON ruleset that will be bytecode-compiled and blocked by Safari itself. The better news is that an iOS app could also provide the JSON block list, so this works on Mobile Safari too.
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releaseno...
* Force Touch Trackpad Mouse Events
* Content Blocking Safari Extensions (bytecode-compiled content blocklist for both iOS and OSX)
* SFSafariViewController for iOS (as an alternative to UIWebKit and WKWebKit)
* ECMAScript 6 support
* CSS properties are now unprefixed (including flexbox!)
I'm excited about the content blocking extension; it replaces the existing canLoad API that needs to be called on every request (which may result in some performance hit) with a JSON ruleset that will be bytecode-compiled and blocked by Safari itself. The better news is that an iOS app could also provide the JSON block list, so this works on Mobile Safari too.
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releaseno...
Looks like some of the most useful ES6 features (such as lambda arrows and rest/spread/destructuring) are still not supported, so Babel isn't going away any time soon.
Also interesting to see that they redesigned Dev Tools again. I'm guessing enough people found the new ones so much harder to use than the original (that Chrome is still iterating on) that they felt the need to make it look more like what people were used to.
Finally, it looks like they're introducing a filter variant called backdrop-filters. It's in the Apple-edited CSS Filters spec, but I don't see any noise about it from the Chrome or Firefox evangelism teams. I wonder if it will be Apple-proprietary, or if other vendors are interested in it:
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=497522
Also interesting to see that they redesigned Dev Tools again. I'm guessing enough people found the new ones so much harder to use than the original (that Chrome is still iterating on) that they felt the need to make it look more like what people were used to.
Finally, it looks like they're introducing a filter variant called backdrop-filters. It's in the Apple-edited CSS Filters spec, but I don't see any noise about it from the Chrome or Firefox evangelism teams. I wonder if it will be Apple-proprietary, or if other vendors are interested in it:
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=497522
I'm very curious about Content Blocking Safari Extensions
as well.
The old mechanism, that is the non-standard "beforeload" DOM event + synchronous messaging via canLoad, had it's issues. But the new one is entirely different from the hooks Chrome and Firefox provide to intercept requests. So I'm certainly not a fan of it either, as this makes it even more elaborate to port extensions relying on content blocking to Safari, and massively reduces the amount of code that can be shared between the respective Chrome, Firefox and Safari extension.
But even more importantly, I fear that it will have some shortcomings when it comes to blocking requests depending on its context (e.g. frame hierarchy). At least I'd be very surprised if they do a better job than Google did with Chrome's declarativeWebRequest API.
If somebody knows any more details about that new API please let me know.
The old mechanism, that is the non-standard "beforeload" DOM event + synchronous messaging via canLoad, had it's issues. But the new one is entirely different from the hooks Chrome and Firefox provide to intercept requests. So I'm certainly not a fan of it either, as this makes it even more elaborate to port extensions relying on content blocking to Safari, and massively reduces the amount of code that can be shared between the respective Chrome, Firefox and Safari extension.
But even more importantly, I fear that it will have some shortcomings when it comes to blocking requests depending on its context (e.g. frame hierarchy). At least I'd be very surprised if they do a better job than Google did with Chrome's declarativeWebRequest API.
If somebody knows any more details about that new API please let me know.
It looks like an incremental release. Not a bad idea considering how many bugs / issues Yosemite had. Hopefully, El Capitan fixes most of them.
Same, I'm still on Mavericks, and Yosemite still feels like "bleeding edge" to me.
I have to support an elementary school full of Macs, and Yosemite has been my ongoing nightmare. (Well, that and the bad joke known as OS X Server.) I won't update during the year for obvious reasons, but I'm still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to have to fragment my environment again (after just getting it all together with 10.9, finally). The incentive from Apple is very strong to install 10.10, but it just runs like utter garbage on all our older machines. And we can't run out and buy new ones whenever they feel like killing all hardware more than about 3 or 4 years old.
I'm still trying to convince people that our younger kids can learn just fine using the web browser on Windows and that we're overpaying money for these Macs (about double what we'd pay for a comparable Windows machine from our vendors) and wasting our tight budget. But there are a few people who just will not let them go. It's a real PITA running this mixed environment without another person to do sys/net admin stuff, or someone to handle more front-line support.
At this point, I'd take Apple just putting a stop to releasing these updates for iOS and OS X out at the beginning of the school year. It would be so much better if they'd do it about 4 months earlier.
I'm still trying to convince people that our younger kids can learn just fine using the web browser on Windows and that we're overpaying money for these Macs (about double what we'd pay for a comparable Windows machine from our vendors) and wasting our tight budget. But there are a few people who just will not let them go. It's a real PITA running this mixed environment without another person to do sys/net admin stuff, or someone to handle more front-line support.
At this point, I'd take Apple just putting a stop to releasing these updates for iOS and OS X out at the beginning of the school year. It would be so much better if they'd do it about 4 months earlier.
>The incentive from Apple is very strong to install 10.10
And what incentive is that? Unless you need to latest Xcode to develop iOS apps, I don't see a reason to use Yosemite. I, for one, am happy to have stayed on 10.9 and will stick with it until El Capitan proves to be an "upgrade".
And what incentive is that? Unless you need to latest Xcode to develop iOS apps, I don't see a reason to use Yosemite. I, for one, am happy to have stayed on 10.9 and will stick with it until El Capitan proves to be an "upgrade".
> And what incentive is that?
For one thing, they won't sell you Mavericks anymore. If you didn't buy it while it was out, it is simply unavailable for you to purchase. They obviously could sell it to you, but they won't. It's a matter of intentional policy to make sure you don't buy in at any point earlier than the current one.
(Take that in, BTW. That means someone at Apple made the judgment that it is literally more important that you have their latest than it is for everyone to have a stable, reliable OS.)
For one thing, they won't sell you Mavericks anymore. If you didn't buy it while it was out, it is simply unavailable for you to purchase. They obviously could sell it to you, but they won't. It's a matter of intentional policy to make sure you don't buy in at any point earlier than the current one.
(Take that in, BTW. That means someone at Apple made the judgment that it is literally more important that you have their latest than it is for everyone to have a stable, reliable OS.)
Ah come on. Yosemite is not a stable, reliable OS? That's just hyperbole...
Running 10.10.3 on half a dozen machines, mostly older ones, and it's stable, reliable and working just fine. MBPro's, Mac Mini's, MBAir, iMac.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not ...
Overall OS stability has gone down with Yosemite. I have to restart far more often than I should -- usually after coming out of sleep mode.
Overall OS stability has gone down with Yosemite. I have to restart far more often than I should -- usually after coming out of sleep mode.
Apple refuses to fix a critical security vulnerability[0] in non-Yosemite versions of OS X
[0]https://truesecdev.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/hidden-backdoor-...
[0]https://truesecdev.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/hidden-backdoor-...
> it just runs like utter garbage on all our older machines.
interesting, it runs better on my dads 2011 11" MBA than on my 2013 13" rMBP, probably due to the retina display
It would be nice if Apple could get around to fixing FaceTime audio, which has been broken since the initial release of 10.10. But I'm not holding my breath.
http://www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/ is the right link.
When Apple switched from the big cats naming scheme to "places in California" I predicted (mostly to my adult children, who all have Apple computers): "How much ya wanna bet it's gonna be a cold day in hell when they name a build after someplace in SOUTHERN California?" If I'm wrong, I suppose the first build named after something in SoCal will be called "Joshua Tree" -- nice tie in with U2.
OSXI Tijuana? Let's go international.
I'm looking forward to OS X 10.12, La Brea.
Considering how 10.10 traps machines older than about 3 years in the digital equivalent thereof, they missed their chance.
I don't know. Considering that Apple's entire notebook line is now un-upgradeable, I think the future may yet yield many opportunities for older machines to get good and stuck.
Yeah, tar pits are cool!
El Segundo?
People call the Bay Area "Northern California", but it's really pretty central and it'll probably take even longer before Apple goes north for a name than it does to go south.
There are some good ones there too...Shasta, Lassen and Tahoe are all scenic (for the desktop background) and easy to remember. Other good candidates south (and east) of SF: Joshua Tree (already mentioned), Big Bear, Mammoth, Whitney, Buttermilks and Salton Sea.
Unfortunately, some of the parks in SoCal have names that simply won't work. Calling an OS "Death Valley" would be awkward and Windows already ruined "Mojave" as an OS name.
There are some good ones there too...Shasta, Lassen and Tahoe are all scenic (for the desktop background) and easy to remember. Other good candidates south (and east) of SF: Joshua Tree (already mentioned), Big Bear, Mammoth, Whitney, Buttermilks and Salton Sea.
Unfortunately, some of the parks in SoCal have names that simply won't work. Calling an OS "Death Valley" would be awkward and Windows already ruined "Mojave" as an OS name.
If they're going to name something after the Salton Sea they'd better hurry -- it may not survive the drought, seriously.
Anyone know what Python version comes bundled with El Capitan? I assume it's still 2.7.x, but one can always dream they have moved to Python 3 :)
Apple's core stuff is generally several minor versions behind:
aaron@longview bin % ./python -V Python 2.7.6 aaron@longview bin % pwd /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin
aaron@longview bin % ./ruby -v ruby 2.0.0p481 (2014-05-08 revision 45883) [universal.x86_64-darwin14] aaron@longview bin % pwd /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin
I know you're asking about Python, but with Mavericks, it had Ruby 1.8, so I thought it'd make a good point that they keep older stuff for a long time. (That's why I included it.)
aaron@longview bin % ./python -V Python 2.7.6 aaron@longview bin % pwd /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin
aaron@longview bin % ./ruby -v ruby 2.0.0p481 (2014-05-08 revision 45883) [universal.x86_64-darwin14] aaron@longview bin % pwd /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/usr/bin
I know you're asking about Python, but with Mavericks, it had Ruby 1.8, so I thought it'd make a good point that they keep older stuff for a long time. (That's why I included it.)
Answering my own question:
$ python --version
Python 2.7.6Welp... it looks like OS X is about to discover tiling window management lite. ;)
On a serious note: if you need automatic window tiling in OS X, you should check out Amethyst [0] (available via homebrew cask). I mention this everywhere I can because I spent a lot of time searching for and testing various window management software for OS X myself, and Amethyst is only easy, fully functional alternative I've found that works out of the box.
[0]: https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
[0]: https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
What about BetterTouchTool? I don't like window tiling in general, so I only use it for the gestures, but from what I've seen the tiling features seem pretty complete.
I haven't really used it, but from what I can tell it seems to serve the same purpose as Moom/SizeUp/Divvy/Spectacle/Slate/ShiftIt with regard to windows (i.e. moving and resizing).
Amethyst (an automatic or dynamic tiling window manager), on the other hand, automatically arranges windows according to predefined tiled layouts (like XMonad, Awesome, etc.).
What I'm trying to explain might become more clear if you watch [0], wherein you can see that all windows on the (virtual) desktop are adjusted in size and position in response to opening or closing other windows.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyNkBLhIpQk
Amethyst (an automatic or dynamic tiling window manager), on the other hand, automatically arranges windows according to predefined tiled layouts (like XMonad, Awesome, etc.).
What I'm trying to explain might become more clear if you watch [0], wherein you can see that all windows on the (virtual) desktop are adjusted in size and position in response to opening or closing other windows.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyNkBLhIpQk
I use it also. It's a fantastic way to keep everything visible and organized. There's a few quirks and it can be annoying sometimes to have the whole desktop rearranged when opening a new window, but the quirks are overshadowed by its usefulness.
Or get Hammerspoon[0] and roll your own window manager with Lua.
[0]: http://www.hammerspoon.org/
[0]: http://www.hammerspoon.org/
Sorry, amethyst is nowhere near real tiling window managers. Hopefully with this we'll see real tiling window managers.
In what way? What functionality do you think that Amethyst is missing?
As for "Split View", it looks more like a simple two-window extension of the existing full screen functionality to me.
As for "Split View", it looks more like a simple two-window extension of the existing full screen functionality to me.
I haven't had a chance to try reverse engineering the APIs, but on the surface nothing has changed with the accessibility framework, which means we're not going to get much progress towards better window management.
Unfortunately seems heavily mouse based. I'll stick with Spectacle myself.
Spectacle was about the only way to make my multi-monitor OSX experience work. It was maddening. Nice to see them catch up to at least acknowledge that everyone doesn't like the messy overlapping windows look.
I've been using slate for a while now. Highly recommended.
https://github.com/jigish/slate
https://github.com/jigish/slate
The original jigish/slate project hasn't been updated since Feb 2013. The mattr-/slate fork has been solid for me since 10.9+ and is maintained regularly:
https://github.com/mattr-/slate
https://github.com/mattr-/slate
I love slate and have used it for years... it's no longer actively maintained and has a lot of performance bugs. I've started using other window managers like https://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst
I use Divvy on Mac and Windows. It's fantastic.
It is amusing how they are touting 'faster app switching' for the new release, when it was instant a few versions ago and has got steadily slower over the last few OSX releases (even on the latest hardware). It's good they are finally addressing some of the performance issues, but it's a bit embarrassing that things got to this point.
I wonder if discoveryd will come back or if it's gone for good.
Hooray for native window snapping. This is one less utility app I need to install on a fresh copy of OS X.
Any word on minimum specs from people who've got the beta?
I'm guessing that moving the system graphics frameworks over to Metal will result in the minimum specs being bumped to whatever they've written Metal drivers for.
I'm guessing that moving the system graphics frameworks over to Metal will result in the minimum specs being bumped to whatever they've written Metal drivers for.
At minimum it would be supporting whatever Yosemite did.
And surely the OS would be falling back to existing behaviour if Metal is not supported.
And surely the OS would be falling back to existing behaviour if Metal is not supported.
I didn't see a list of supported hardware. Anyone know if a mid-2009 Macbook will be supported?
Also, I'm really hoping Apple supports ed25519 in ssh in 10.11... No reason why this is not available at this point.
Also, I'm really hoping Apple supports ed25519 in ssh in 10.11... No reason why this is not available at this point.
Here is the list for the preview:
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releaseno...
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releaseno...
Im pretty sure they said its the same hardware support as Yosemite
In the same boat here, still running Mavericks on my MBP 17" from mid-2009.
Wonder how the performance is gonna be...
Wonder how the performance is gonna be...
Yosemite on the MacbookPro mid-2009, slowest CPU is surprisingly spry on a SSD (Samsung EVO). The only two things I really miss are AESNI speed FileVault and updated SSH.
It's not going to set any records but totally usable for more normal tasks. What I really want is an up to date SSH without having to do ports/homebrew etc. so that I don't have to have exceptions for my setup.
It's not going to set any records but totally usable for more normal tasks. What I really want is an up to date SSH without having to do ports/homebrew etc. so that I don't have to have exceptions for my setup.
I say bring it! I moved all my development into a linux VM, so i'm shielded from them totally mucking things up further. Will be just another upgrade for me, instead of a nightmare.
Apple wants more entrenchment; to make it even harder to switch to something else. I'm already stuck on OSX because of itunes purchases and iphone sync, but that's really all it does for me at this point.
I definitely gave up features when switching to linux, And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The less I rely on OSX, the better off I am. I've just been bitten too many times by attempts at innovation that only hinder me, and running old OSX because the newer version has problems or issues is not really a great solution either.
Apple wants more entrenchment; to make it even harder to switch to something else. I'm already stuck on OSX because of itunes purchases and iphone sync, but that's really all it does for me at this point.
I definitely gave up features when switching to linux, And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The less I rely on OSX, the better off I am. I've just been bitten too many times by attempts at innovation that only hinder me, and running old OSX because the newer version has problems or issues is not really a great solution either.
Intelligence is a pretty nifty feature.
I'm seeing a slide with almost no information. Is there a better link for this?
For now, I think this is the link http://www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/
http://www.apple.com/osx/ will be updated when the keynote is over.
I was probably stupidly hoping this might finally be the release where they actually did something about their awful antiquated filesystem. Maybe next year.
I've been hoping for exactly the same thing.
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will we be able to change the zoom on the font in an email without increasing the font size? Huge PITA on Mac compared to Windows.
Right-click in the window's toolbar (or title bar), choose "Customize Toolbar...", and drag the "Smaller"/"Bigger" pair of control into the toolbar.
I agree this is not very discoverable compared to the usual Zoom In / Zoom Out menu items. Mail suffers from its age in many ways.
I agree this is not very discoverable compared to the usual Zoom In / Zoom Out menu items. Mail suffers from its age in many ways.
thanks for responding, I will try this out at home. Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 does not have this functionality, although the Windows version has for years.
I figured other users might have this type of problem as well but for all the downvotes...I guess not.
This minor feature was enough to drive me away from Mac Mail, and Outlook for Mac, over to Outlook on a Windows Virtual Machine.
Having a high-res 27" monitor is a blessing in many ways, but a literal headache in others, particularly late night.
I figured other users might have this type of problem as well but for all the downvotes...I guess not.
This minor feature was enough to drive me away from Mac Mail, and Outlook for Mac, over to Outlook on a Windows Virtual Machine.
Having a high-res 27" monitor is a blessing in many ways, but a literal headache in others, particularly late night.
gotta love the adoption rate being percentage and not numbers. osx would show as a flat line...
Using numbers for adoption rate would make no sense at all. There would be no context for it. The comparison is how many installs are on the latest version. It would have to be X number out of Y number of installs in order to find out how many installs are running the same version. And then if you're doing X out of Y, you might as well normalize Y to 100, then you get a percent.
If you're looking to see how many of your users are on the latest version, percent is the only thing that makes any sense.
If you're looking to see how many of your users are on the latest version, percent is the only thing that makes any sense.
I think the point is, if Apple (or Google or whoever) would be the clear market leader, they'd probably show total count and be like "whoa, look, our last OS was the fastest growing from since beginning of time!!!!" (showing X units sold/year instead of percentage/months). And all fanboys would go "woohhooo, AppGooSoft is so awesome, everybody buys it!".
And that would be true in that case, but why would anyone take time from a keynote to highlight a metric they're not good at? What Apple is doing right is getting the majority of their devices upgraded to the latest version as soon as possible. They're doing better than Google in that regard. Meanwhile during Google's keynote, they would say how many Android devices are shipping compared to iOS devices, and say nothing about how quickly people are upgrading.
Toyota is showing off their Prius and say that it gets 100mpg. You're sitting in the back saying "yeah but the Vayron goes 200mph, why don't you show off how fast your car goes?" Everyone is good at something and not good at everything.
The actual point the parent was trying to make is that Apple sux and Google rox, which is massively off topic.
Toyota is showing off their Prius and say that it gets 100mpg. You're sitting in the back saying "yeah but the Vayron goes 200mph, why don't you show off how fast your car goes?" Everyone is good at something and not good at everything.
The actual point the parent was trying to make is that Apple sux and Google rox, which is massively off topic.
you develop for people. not percentages. the numbers means everything.
If 100% of mac users are on the latest version but that accounts for 1million users, and windows is split between 7 and 8. and heck, even XP... but the lowest is already 5 billion, then it is a no brainer that supporting one or two versions of windows makes more sense.
If 100% of mac users are on the latest version but that accounts for 1million users, and windows is split between 7 and 8. and heck, even XP... but the lowest is already 5 billion, then it is a no brainer that supporting one or two versions of windows makes more sense.
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I'm guessing this is yet another API like Mantle/Vulkan that is also seated comfortably in the Apple walled garden and increases the development costs: awesome!