Why they should? Because it it would improve portability for their platform and Linux. And it weakens Microsoft. What we've instead, three competing APIs. Apple labled OpenGL deprecated and many rely now upon MoltenVK. At the same time Apple switched to ARM. Both in combination are problematic because AAA-Titles are closed-source. For the same reasons Apple supports OpenGL they also support Vulkan.
I wonder about the reasons of Valve to the decision to support Linux (Vulkan) and Windows (Direct3D) with native ports of CS2. But not MacOS. I'm happy because Linux is supported but the Mac people are obviously not so happy. AFAIK Source2 was already used in the past on MacOS.
PS: Thanks to Valve for the native port of CS2 on Linux :)
Because of the Steam Deck
You mean it was ready when it was ready, and Apple released it. When Apple released it, Vulkun was not even an idea.
> Why they should? Because it it would improve portability for their platform and Linux. And it weakens Microsoft.
Why would Apple care about that?
The rest of that paragraph reads like a loosely connected stream of consciousness with no reasons for Apple to drop Metal and go all in on Vulkan.
To remind you, again, the timeline:
- Metal has been available since June 2, 2014 on iOS devices powered by Apple A7 or later
- The Khronos Group began a project to create a next generation graphics API in July 2014
- Vulkan was formally named and announced at Game Developers Conference 2015
- Metal has been available since June 8, 2015 on Macs (2012 models or later) running OS X El Capitan.
- On December 18, 2015, the Khronos Group announced that the 1.0 version of the Vulkan specification was nearly complete
- The full Vulkan specification and the open-source Vulkan SDK were released on February 16, 2016
By the time Vulkan was just released, Apple had already been running Metal on its devices for two years. By the time Apple released Metal 2 in 2017 Vulkan was 1 year old
> For the same reasons Apple supports OpenGL they also support Vulkan.
Apple doesn't support Vulkan.
Metal was version 1.0 and used in production a year before there was even a proposal for Vulkan.
Why would Apple go all in on Vulkan?