Like the comments said there are also concerns about maintaining it in the long term.
Having made games in Godot, I'm quite excited by the prospect of making the games within vision OS and playing them in a virtual 3D space. But Apple has only shown its vision for it and the future prospects are very uncertain due to the economic climate and affordability.
It isn’t much work to bridge from a metal renderer to the ar compositor. There are nice, if under documented c apis for Compositor Services in visionOS. I don’t think this will end up being a heavy maintenance burden, but they should donate some headsets as the second vertex amplification doesn’t run in the simulator. The max threads per thread group also differ. So real hardware is needed to measure performance.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/compositorservices...
Meanwhile, Apple could garner way more sales if they simply put a video input on the Vision.
Hahaha already downvoted by iPologists.
I don't see people buying headsets, I don't see VR features in new major games, it's just not a thing outside of a probably shrinking niche.
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.
Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard. They even failed to follow the Godot contribution guide for the PR itself.
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 do the massive rewrite when the benefits become more substantial?
Vulkan & OpenGL applications can translate to Metal with MoltenGL and MoltenVK, respectively.
Apple's GPUs support a decent chunk of the Vulkan featureset, you can go boot it up on an M1 with Asahi. Same goes for OpenXR. These are things that Apple neglects because they want to use their customerbase as leverage to market proprietary APIs. This hurts users, because Apple has neither industry-leading standards nor the leverage to force the industry to adapt. And they sure as hell lack the humility to just support both in the name of fair competition.
Yeah, that's why iOS doesn't have any games either. /s
Vulkan and DirectX are the favored graphics rendering technologies for VR.
Godot supports Vulkan rendering via OpenXR.
To get a vibe for Apple’s general posture in this regard it is worth noting that Vulkan rendering through OpenXR on macOS is technically possible via MoltenVK, but macOS does not have an official OpenXR runtime. You’d need to use third-party workarounds or wait for broader support.
Why is this the dichotomy? Why not support both?
Better get some blankets because Apple has made significant contributions to many open standards - for example, USB-C. And, back in the day, OpenGL.
Its a mistake to think of a large company like apple as if it were a person, with their own goals and ideas. Apple is just too big for that. I mean, they have 164,000 staff. Thats big enough that "small" business units will still have thousands of people. So each area will end up creating its own culture, and have its own way of doing things.
The graphics division - these days - seems very intent on doing their own thing. But that doesn't tell us much about the rest of apple. 164 000 people is a lot of people. That's an awful lot of different opinions about open standards.
Apple makes great things for their users when they collaborate with the industry. That's why we're concerned when they abandon standards and demand convergence on suspicious centralized cloud crap.
Is DirectX a standard? Is Playstation NDK (or whatever it's called) a standard?
Vulkan is not a "standard". It's a designed-by-committee API that arrived on the scene years after "non-standard" APIs.
Apple is a top-down hierarchy with ruthless business strategy. Not a value judgment; merely a fact to keep in mind when entering a business relationship with Apple.
Mike Rockwell, serves as the Vice President of the Vision Products Group. Rockwell has been instrumental in spearheading the Vision Pro project and the underlying visionOS platform. His leadership has been pivotal in advancing Apple’s spatial computing initiatives.
To think he and his team have not made intentional choices to support/advance or undermine OpenXR would be naïve in my view.
I'm sure their choices are intentional. But thats just one business unit. Apple is a huge company. And different areas have different priorities.
I agree with your point - Apple clearly wants Metal & friends to be their own thing. But the comment I was replying to above commented on Apple and standards. It didn’t mention graphics at all. I replied, discussing Apple as a whole.
Because they already have their own graphics API called Metal. Why aren't you asking Microsoft to drop DirectX and start first-party support for Vulkan?
I can empathize with Apple’s desire to get more adoption of Metal, but I predict it is an uphill battle to insist on it on platforms like spatial computing that is already having a very hard time to win adoption.
And then refused to use it until the EU forced them
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.
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 is finding, however, is that there’s virtually no consumer or developer appetite for visionOS / Vision Pro.
> Hell would freeze over before Apple conformed and contributed to an existing open standard.
This is patently false given the fact I posted.
From an article talking about their decision to build WebGPU[1]. I was definitely being dramatic, but do think that Apple's overall vibe doesn't mesh well with open standards.
The PR from Apple also adds support for "flat" Godot games/apps running on Vision Pro.
Now that doesn't mean it would be the wrong choice for the Godot project, they don't have to support visionOS.
Even if Godot insisted on needing OpenXR support , you’d still need to land this PR to get the engine itself to work first.
Amongst other signals, the PR comment says: “To support creating Immersive experiences by using a new Godot's visionOS VR Plugin.”
Instead we get a pretty arrogant and presumptive interaction from the Apple crew.
It should be noted that Apple is struggling with visionOS and Pro adoption amongst consumers and developers, so their arrogance is unwarranted and they cannot rely on market power.
Point to the arrogance involved. From all your comments I can see you have an intense distaste for Apple and I honestly feel it’s colouring your perception of this change.
The only person who seems upset is you. The Godot maintainers are positive, Miguel is positive.
Should contributors never open PRs until they’ve discussed it first? What if they want to get feedback on an idea in code form?
Didn't even put up an issue first haha.
I think it's a very valid question to ask, as many open source projects I've seen in the past that had to interface with Apple on the developer tooling front had to go through constant pain, as Apple isn't willing to e.g. provide references for certain .plist files, forcing many project to try and reverse-engineer what they do. More precisely there are usually people inside Apple willing to do that, but incapable to do that due to internal structures that result in a lack of clearly defined ownership.
So given that, I would say that if/once the original contributor of this PR moves on(/is made to move on) from that project, there is a good chance that this would also mark the end of cooperation from Apple's side.
Laughably, it looks like the PR didn't even compile...[1]
> When you try and bundle, it will fail. The library paths are incorrect.
[1]: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/105628#pullrequest...
I think Apple can do good here but they should definitely communicate better. For open source, early and often is a good idea. (Though also good to follow through... I have been guilty of many licked cookies purely by accident and poor focus.)
They gave some cash money to CodeWeavers, the company that created wine. It's called the Game Porting Toolkit: https://developer.apple.com/games/game-porting-toolkit/
As I understand things, proton allows windows games to just work (pun intended) on Linux. No porting, no rebuild - just download and run.
Who is going to bother doing all the extra work to port their game for Mac?! Time and time again there have been loads of articles on here over the years with developers saying it is simply not worth the hassle to support Linux and Mac.
So far at least Ubisoft, CAPCOM, Remedy, Kojima Productions and Hello Games.
That should tell us something about the appetite to support visionOS.
Personally, I'd wish for more extensive Vulkan support, but I have been informed that this is likely not as easily done considering Apples GPUs with TBDR differ somewhat from the industry standard.
At the end though, if Apple truly wanted, they could simply spent money on studios and incentives ports. None-Mobile-Gaming remains no priority for them, simple as that. I haven't seen any indication that the AVP has changed that in any way and I wouldn't be surprised if they view GoDot not as a game engine, but rather another way to create experiences.
1. Give Godot some money.
2. Implement visionOS support via an extension not directly into core OR conform to industry standard OpenXR.
You cannot build this as an extension. It’s a different OS and Godot needs it to be done this way, as many people in the PR have commented as well. An extension would not cover it, and people suggesting that are probably used to the PC VR development model where VR is an extension of an existing supported platform, not a platform in and off itself.
Beyond that, even if Apple supported OpenXR, you’d still need this PR first because it’s covering build support first. It doesn’t cover any of the XR/Spatial rendering elements.
This is the crux of the issue, both for Apple and for Godot.
In Apple’s case, they’re finding that their vision does not resonate with consumers or developers. So they’re searching for ways to expand chances of success but not entering with an equal partnership mentality. Thats their prerogative but I would argue the arrogance blinds them to reality.
From Godot’s perspective, the question is whether all this distraction is worth it for a platform that has for all intents and purposes failed to prove itself. There’s an opportunity cost and likely constraints that would flow from supporting Apple’s divergent and unproven vision.
In my books it seems clear that it would be a mistake for Godot to invest energy in supporting a niche, heretofore unsuccessful product that is not aligned with Godot’s technical and product roadmap.
andsoitis•3h ago
If you officially support visionOS, it now requires all product and engineering innovation to take it into account, slowing down velocity for very little gain, if any.
solardev•3h ago
andsoitis•3h ago
What you want to do is first decide whether it is strategically valuable to be on this platform. If it is important, then you want to make sure there’s ROI in approach. Doing things in reverse, I.e. seeing whether there’s a cost-effective path to support another platform before deciding whether to support is is misguided in my opinion.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
999900000999•3h ago
If they want to maintain this, the Godot foundation needs to be extremely clear about that. You're talking about an extremely niche platform that will require tons of ongoing maintenance.
I would have hoped Apple also spent time working on the general engine and maybe tackling some bugs. Maybe they did maybe they didn't.
andsoitis•3h ago
dewey•3h ago
andsoitis•2h ago
In what way?
As far as I know, iOS support on Godot is almost entirely community-driven. If true, Godot has nothing to gain. Apple is struggling with adoption so they have most to gain from Godot support for visionOS, but is not obvious that visionOS support would benefit Godot in any strategic manner.
One strategic heuristic is that you don’t want to undertake the work to enable another company’s success on a product line, unless you depend on it or believe you have a strategic advantage against other competitors.
For example, if Godot negotiates for exclusivity or primary status for game engine positioning on visionOS and they believe VR is a material future footprint, that might be interesting. Anything less is in Apple’s favor and not in Godot’s.
dewey•2h ago
spencerflem•2h ago
andsoitis•2h ago
klausa•2h ago
Yes, and now it has gotten to the point where it clearly has been noticed by Apple; and they're eager to contribute back to it too.
Is that not... the ideal scenario here? You have community contribute a port for a big platform, the company notices, and starts contributing too.
andsoitis•2h ago
To think Apple is interested in the success of Godot would be a mistake. It might feel like a compliment, but it would be a trap because Apple’s interest stems from increasing the chances of visionOS success and will be happy to externalize the ongoing maintenance tax to Godot.
Unless Godot feels they need visionOS then it isn’t in their interest to entertain Apple’s PR. If anything they should respond saying they already support standard interface in the form of OpenXR.
dewey•2h ago
andsoitis•1h ago
Additionally, if Godot accepts this PR and related ongoing work, it would signal to me poor strategic judgment.
Many an open source project progress slows down under the burden of supporting immaterial platforms.
dagmx•1h ago
Beyond that, have you even looked at the PR here to see what your supposed distraction would be? Most of the PR is shared infrastructure between the Apple embedded platforms.
andsoitis•1h ago
nopakos•3h ago
macintosh-hd•2h ago
dynjo•2h ago
andsoitis•2h ago
Even when it comes to TV, Apple realized they had to create an Apple TV+ app for other platforms to extend the reach of their investment in shows/movies beyond their own hardware.
KeplerBoy•2h ago
So, if you're making an app that benefits from a big screen and your customers are willing to buy a cheap dedicated device to easily use your app on a big screen, supporting apple tv might be a very sensible choice.
andsoitis•2h ago
Compared to other HDMI-connected devices (e.g. Google Streamer fka ChromeCast, Amazon FireTV, Roku) or major TV platforms like Android TV or Samsung and LG, the market share that Apple TV commands is dwarfed. Apple TV devices are also very expensive.
A startup like Zwift that bets on Apple TV as a key GTM strategy is making an error in judgment. Apple TV is extreme long tail footprint.
KeplerBoy•2h ago
But yeah, I'm not an Insider and I'd love to know why they're supporting the apple tv but don't offer the Android App on the Google tv platform. Maybe something about non universal remote inputs or the wildly varying hw capabilities leading to support nightmares (but that's always an issue on Android).
andsoitis•1h ago
Presentation form factor and input modality is different on LRUD compared to touch, 10’ vs handheld.
There’s an opportunity cost: it is better to improve the user experience on the vast majority of TV devices (eg Samsung or Android TV or Fire tv) than it is to support a tiny market share device like Apple TV that you now also need to keep up to date.
nopakos•1h ago
But the support from Google is abysmal. No search functionality, developer hostility when trying to publish something etc.
troupo•29m ago
Apple TV is just a tale of so many missed opportunities.
drexlspivey•18m ago