[xcntktn]

I don't know why you're being downvoted for that; your interpretation, while uncharitable, is still most likely the correct one, given Apple's history.

Not to mention the games market for the iOS App Store is very saturated and most of the money has likely been sucked out of it for the time being, so now Apple finds they don't have much to lose by allowing the possibility of OpenGL-based games for iOS which bypass the App Store.

In case anyone is quick doubt or dismiss the above criticism, just recall that for years Apple's iAd framework officially supported WebGL, but Safari and UIWebView did not. This implies that Apple could have released WebGL support in Safari and/or UIWebView any time they wanted; they simply chose not to for for non-technical (i.e., business) reasons.

[0x0]

I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.

Although I disagree that it was purely non-technical limitations. Quite possibly they didn't want to enable webgl in the wild until they had the out-of-process, super sandboxed webview implementation.

Btw, I did pretty much call this one out two weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7783137

[madeofpalk]

Well, the statement was kind of wrong.

Metal isnt really an OpenGL replacement. Most people would use it in their apps - you don't write games in metal, you write game engines in it.

[0x0]

The end result is the same though? If you want to publish a game through the web, your game (or your game engine) has to target webgl. If you go native, your game (or your game engine) can target metal instead and gain a massive performance advantage.

[madeofpalk]

No, you don't target metal - you use the Unreal engine which is now using metal underneath in an implementation detail that most developers wont worry about.