Competition is great, sure. But Apple are anti-competition here. Competition would mean choosing between using Vulkan or Metal on their system. Where is that choice (wrapper is a workaround, but besides)?
All those lock-in proponents are actually scared of competition. So we are not in disagreement. Competition is indeed good. Lock-in however is not, and lock-in is anti-competition.
> The only reason they had to react with Vulkan was competition from private companies
It's the other way around. The only reason MS and Apple suddenly woke up is because AMD was planning to open up Mantle (which resulted in Vulkan). Except they reacted in their usual manner. Instead of helping the shared effort they pushed for more lock-in.
I am not scared about Apple getting a monopoly. They are not going to sell as much as Android because they only care about the high margin stuff.
I am more worried about Microsoft though, with Windows and Xbox they force millions of people to use DirectX.
Yeah, we agreed on that . It took millions for our company to support OpenGL/CL only because we did not want to make our code dependent on just one provider. It was tough to justify that decision (financially). Decision that only started to pay back with Android popularity.
The good part is, since all of them (Vulkan as well as DX12 and Metal) have roots in Mantle, they have a lot of similarities, which makes creating translation layers easier. So I wouldn't be surprised if we'll see Vulkan → DX12 layer in addition to Vulkan → Metal one. As well as other way around.
> As though its of no cost to Apple to make Metal available on every platform, or support other products on their platforms?
It was of no cost for them to simply copy most of the ideas from Mantle to make Metal, saving all that huge effort on initial design, isn't it? Somehow that doesn't surprise you. But when they are criticized for not doing it in the opposite direction (by sharing the effort and supporting the common API), you are surprised.
Competition is great, sure. But Apple are anti-competition here. Competition would mean choosing between using Vulkan or Metal on their system. Where is that choice (wrapper is a workaround, but besides)?
All those lock-in proponents are actually scared of competition. So we are not in disagreement. Competition is indeed good. Lock-in however is not, and lock-in is anti-competition.
> The only reason they had to react with Vulkan was competition from private companies
It's the other way around. The only reason MS and Apple suddenly woke up is because AMD was planning to open up Mantle (which resulted in Vulkan). Except they reacted in their usual manner. Instead of helping the shared effort they pushed for more lock-in.