
Apple Introduces ‘Metal for VR’ in MacOS High Sierra - salimmadjd
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/05/apple-introduces-metal-for-vr-in-macos-high-sierra/
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oliwarner
I wonder how many wheels they'll reinvent before they realise they should have
embraced Vulkan.

Feels like such a missed opportunity to really stick it to Direct3D.

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omarforgotpwd
Metal was released before Vulcan, IIRC.

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oliwarner
It was, but they knew even then that the vendors were working towards pulling
their compute platforms into better graphics APIs. Mantle (which became the
foundation for Vulkan) was being tested a good year before Metal was out the
gate and was very much designed for bridging console and PC and devices.

Since then, Vulkan has been leading the way, both in API development and broad
hardware support. The later is important if you're a developer considering
your market.

I think at some point being stubborn here is going to hurt Apple. But drawing
it out is hurting all of us. A bit of rare unification behind an open API
would help its quick adoption and make cross-platform 3D development a little
easier in the future.

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drzaiusapelord
>it has partnered with Valve to bring SteamVR SDK support to the Mac

Interesting to see Oculus drop the ball like this. Perhaps further evidence
that Oculus has little interest in PC VR in the long run and a mobile Facebook
VR is its endgame. Rumors claim all of Carmack's talents have been used on
their upcoming mobile product, so it sounds plausible.

That said, its wonderful SteamVR is now the defacto standard for PC VR.

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shas3
Given the R&D firepower of Oculus and Facebook, they are in a better position
to execute. I'd bet on them winning the VR/AR/MR race. I think with continuing
hardware developments, PC VR will plateau and become a commodity and the real
battle will be on mobile VR where Oculus will win. If I had to bet, Valve may
never venture into that space.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>where Oculus will win

Daydream is going to be hard to beat. Google is poised to release standalone
Daydream headsets soon. They control Android. How many people bought the
"Facebook phone" compared to the many other Android phones available? I think
Facebook is in far more trouble in mobile than you assume. There are no givens
right now, but I do agree thats the arena they should be competing in.

My gut feeling is that Facebook VR will just end up being a Daydream app and a
Facebook branded Daydream headset.

~~~
lnanek2
Last set of numbers I saw, Samsung Gear VR sold 5x Daydream and PlayStation VR
sold 6x Daydream. The new HTC U11 isn't even compatible due to lack of OLED.
So, unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a flop. The biggest players,
Samsung being the largest Android manufacturer, have their own headsets and
the smaller players like HTC aren't even going all in. The hardware wasn't
even well designed. Covering the back of phones with cloth led to overheating.

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abakker
Worth dropping this article here, too. [https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/11/hands-
on-powering-the-macbook...](https://9to5mac.com/2017/04/11/hands-on-powering-
the-macbook-pro-with-an-egpu-using-nvidias-new-pascal-drivers/)

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skdotdan
I thought they would introduce their one VR platform, since they have enough
brand/market power and relationship with developers to do so.

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erikpukinskis
This is just a dev kit. There's not really any point for Apple to get into
consumer VR this generation. A dedicated VR space with room sensors and a
beefy PC is still a hard sell to consumers. And mobile VR can't do high
quality positional tracking yet, which is a requirement.

Once they can put high quality positional tracking in an iPhone, the whole
problem is basically solved, they can throw it in a GearVR-like chassis, add
VRKit to iOS and instantly be the biggest VR platform in the world. They'll
simultaneously be the biggest AR platform in the world with hand-held iPhone-
based AR. They're technically already there with Pokemon Go.

One can quibble about the handful of areas where iPhone can't compete with
other more specialized AR/VR hardware (head mounted AR, high performance
realtime graphics, etc) but content creators are adept at overcoming
limitations like that. An iPhone 8 or 9 with positional tracking will be
basically Good Enough for any <1hr experience you could think up. Content
creators will adapt to the device market, and the best content will run on
iPhone, probably iPhone first, with lots of indie experimentation happening on
PC but big brand name experiences generally starting on mobile.

I'm hard pressed to think of a seven figure audience who would need head-
mounted AR or high performance realtime graphics. Airplane mechanics, gamers,
etc, will stick to Windows/PlayStation, but all of the mass market stuff will
be iPhone first. Even if the iPhone is mostly limited to composed prerendered
light fields, I don't think that's going to hurt them. PC gamers overestimate
the importance of GPU flops because current VR engines are new and
unoptimized. Once we get the next generation of engines, hardware won't be
nearly as big of a limitation.

As for competition, maybe Google somehow gets in their first, but I'm just not
sure they can package it as slickly as Apple and get the content creators on
board. We'll see, Google is trying to pick up those skills. I don't see Oculus
or Valve really competing in the mass market space because allegience to
gamers is in those companies DNA.

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Const-me
> Once they can put high quality positional tracking in an iPhone, the whole
> problem is basically solved

Not a big fan of Apple, but AFAIK they have a decent camera on the back of
that thing capable of high-FPS video capture (google tells me on iPhone 7 it’s
240 fps for 720p video).

You fix e.g. 3 balls in your room near you, from that image it should be
possible to track position by looking at the video stream. In robotics, balls
like this are sometimes used for similar application:
[http://www.precisionballs.com/Satin_Finished_Balls.php](http://www.precisionballs.com/Satin_Finished_Balls.php)

You can even go without special objects in the view, if the background is
contrast enough, ain’t too far and ain’t too close.

Not sure about latency, though.

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photojosh
This camera tracking is already being used for the ARKit object placement and
plane detection announced today.

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/arkit)

~~~
Const-me
Right, the idea is kinda obvious.

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DaiPlusPlus
What's most surprising is Apple's endorsement of eGPUs via Thunderbolt 3 -
given only a few months ago Apple seemed to be simply _aghast_ at the concept
of external GPUs: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/06/transcript-phil-
schiller-c...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/06/transcript-phil-schiller-
craig-federighi-and-john-ternus-on-the-state-of-apples-pro-macs/)

> Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch): What’s your philosophy on external GPUs?

> Craig Federighi: I think they have a place.

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k-mcgrady
How do you get 'aghast' from 'I think they have a place'??

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DaiPlusPlus
I meant to link to another piece that described how it looked like Apple
explicitly disabled eGPU support in TB3 on Macs, instead of merely not-
supporting it.

