But as usual, the issue with Apple is an absence of information, and that’s what’s problematic. It’s not open, and it won’t run on other platforms.ĭescribing OpenGL and OpenCL as “legacy” is indeed fine.

Metal is fine technology, but it’s specific to iOS and Mac OS.

They’re also deprecating OpenGL ES on iOS, with the same logic. Similarly, apps that use OpenCL for computational tasks should now adopt Metal and Metal Performance Shaders. Games and graphics-intensive apps that use OpenGL should now adopt Metal. From the announcement to developers regarding macOS 10.14:Īpps built using OpenGL and OpenCL will continue to run in macOS 10.14, but these legacy technologies are deprecated in macOS 10.14. Cross-platform code is growing, not shrinking, as artists, researchers, creative professionals, experimental coders, and other communities contribute new generations of software that work more seamlessly across operating systems.Īnd Apple has just quietly blown off all those groups. They’re also joined by a new industry standard, Vulkan. OpenGL and OpenCL, while sometimes arcane technologies, enable a wide range of advanced, cross-platform software. This is relevant to an ongoing interest on this site – those technologies also enable live visuals (including for music), creative coding, immersive audiovisual performance, and “AI”-powered machine learning experiments in music and art. OpenGL and OpenCL are the industry-standard specifications for writing code that runs on graphics architectures, for graphics and general-purpose computation, including everything from video and 3D to machine learning. Apple’s decision to shift to its own proprietary tech for accessing modern GPUs could hurt research, education, and pro applications on their platform.

Gpu with metal support