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by bicubic 4400 days ago
Regarding alternative browsers, yeah I think they might be. Safari and UIWebView intentionally disable webgl (http://atnan.com/blog/2011/11/03/enabling-and-using-webgl-on...).

The official reason is security but given that webgl has been running on Android and desktop browsers without incident and that its present in Safari Mobile and merely disabled, its more likely that Apple doesn't want to have webgl based apps taking from app store sales. A true alternative browser would open the doors to breaking the app store monopoly on games.

1 comments

WebGL works in iOS8, no longer disabled :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7837899

Yeah I got the news an hour ago. That's amazing, very happy about it! Been working on a webgl pet project and concerned about adoption with the iDevice market out of reach.

It also partly invalidates my point earlier.

iOS has definitely been a sore point for selling WebGL solution until now because the only option was doing it as an app, so that was limiting 3D

It might still need some tweaks here and there but I'm already amazed this demo for a customer of mine from January works as-is (except I need to tweak the background shader, it was a quick test anyway), in the browser without plugin or app on an old iPad 2: https://twitter.com/wildpeaks/status/473672792689639424

The pattern increasingly seems to be Apple try stuff out with their own apps then release to the wider community as they get comfortable.

I can understand why that frustrates developers but I can understand why Apple do it.