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Many PS4 apps and UI elements built in WebGL

A

Angelus Errare

Banned
Correction. The OS is built on FreeBSD, but the UI itself is based on WebGL.

And just like WebOS and Facebook's early iPhone app proved. Native app > Web apps.
 
M

mr2xxx

Banned
Is that a good or bad thing? Does it limit its ability to do certain things? I'm guessing this great for the IOS/Android apps since it accesses the same info without much hassle.
 
E

EightBitNate

Member
Oh that's interesting. I think the OS is ridiculously fast, but it takes forever to load content from the internet (friends list, store). Hopefully this is due to the servers being hammered because the experience as a whole is being reduced by it.
 
C

Corto

Member
Pain said:
This.

Is this good? Bad?

I thought it was built on Linux or something.
Click to expand...

FreeBSD but then some apps/features run from the browser. Imagine a PC running windows with the Steam Client managing your games library, your social interactions, marketplace, community, etc. It's somewhat similar.
 
A

Angelus Errare

Banned
EightBitNate said:
Oh that's interesting. I think the OS is ridiculously fast, but it takes forever to load content from the internet (friends list, store). Hopefully this is due to the servers being hammered because the experience as a whole is being reduced by it.
Click to expand...

Mostly likely the reason, the tiles are always hitting PSN servers to get game/social information.
 
Finster

Finster

Member
What this means to me, is that as an app developer, if they already have a WebGL ecosystem running on the box, then that means there's already a known set of API's for building out UI in that world.

This is very cool for developers.

I can almost guarantee that Xbox One UI will be a kludge of who-knows-what... at least based on my experience building services for 360 media apps. Microsoft always wants to do things the hard way and would rather re-engineer the wheel, then use OpenWheel API's or whatever.
 
C

coolasj19

Why are you reading my tag instead of the title of my post?
Does this mean the best versions of apps? I enjoyed the Youtube and Netflix apps immensely.
 
S

SPDIF

Member
Finster said:
What this means to me, is that as an app developer, if they already have a WebGL ecosystem running on the box, then that means there's already a known set of API's for building out UI in that world.

This is very cool for developers.

I can almost guarantee that Xbox One UI will be a kludge of who-knows-what... at least based on my experience building services for 360 media apps. Microsoft always wants to do things the hard way and would rather re-engineer the wheel, then use OpenWheel API's or whatever.
Click to expand...

It'll be using WinRT. Hardly what you'd call "a kludge of who-knows-what".
 
P

phosphor112

Banned
Aeana said:
Wasn't the original PS3 PSN store running in the browser, and then they made it a native app and it became immeasurably worse?
Click to expand...

Store 1 (shitty original store) = PS3 browser
Store 2 = App
Store (most recent) = App based on WebGL, sadly PS3 isn't suited for WebGL.
 
S

SolsticeZero

Banned
Aeana said:
Wasn't the original PS3 PSN store running in the browser, and then they made it a native app and it became immeasurably worse?
Click to expand...

Kind of. The original store was web based and terrible. The second store was an app and useable. The third (current) store was shitty and slow.

2 > 3 > 1
 
M

Massa

Member
You can check the software Sony used to build the PS4 OS here.

It's pretty much FreeBSD based, and the version of WebKit they're using is very recent (when they first implemented it on the PS3, they were lagging by years).
 
P

plainr_

Member
Aeana said:
Wasn't the original PS3 PSN store running in the browser, and then they made it a native app and it became immeasurably worse?
Click to expand...

The second PSN store which came after the web version was the fastest and the best one. When they turned it into an app is when it became immeasurably worse.
 
S

Somnid

Member
I don't think anyone in this thread has an idea of what's going on so let me explain:

WebGL is a javascript API for making OpenGL calls. First, this assumes you are using a web programming stack which I don't doubt at all since nearly everyone is moving this direction. However, if you're in the web stack then WebGL does nothing for you in terms of UI, that's all HTML/CSS that's the reason HTML/CSS exist and this is why you'd even bother using the web stack, otherwise you are re-implementing the same thing in an inception manner and killing performance. But not only that, if you rewrote the entire UI layer in WebGL why not just make it in plain old OpenGL because you aren't using the web stack at all? It doesn't make any sense to do it like this.

My guess is he means that the engine they picked (most likely webkit) supports WebGL and this is used in some places for special effects.
 
Z

Zutroy

Member
So does this make it more or less likely that I'll get a native plex app?

You know, after we get dlna
 
E

EvB

Member
Somnid said:
My guess is he means that the engine they picked (most likely webkit) supports WebGL and this is used in some places for special effects.
Click to expand...

I'd assume things like Dynamic backgrounds and watching 1080p streams would perform better with WebGL?
 
Finster

Finster

Member
SPDIF said:
It'll be using WinRT. Hardly what you'd call "a kludge of who-knows-what".
Click to expand...

WinRT + whatever xbone-specific BS Microsoft decides platform developers have to conform to in order to have an app certified.

It's not as simple as saying "It's using WinRT". WinRT gets you about 20% of the puzzle.

FreeBSD/WebGL gets you about 60-80%.
 
S

SPDIF

Member
Finster said:
WinRT + whatever xbone-specific BS Microsoft decides platform developers have to conform to in order to have an app certified.

It's not as simple as saying "It's using WinRT". WinRT gets you about 20% of the puzzle.

FreeBSD/WebGL gets you about 60-80%.
Click to expand...

The 360 that you worked on was never designed with app development in mind. At least not from third party app developers. So it should have come as no surprise to you that development wasn't exactly the easiest. The XB1 is completely different. If you know how to write a WinRT app, you know how to write an XB1 app. So yes, at least from a technical aspect, it is as simple as saying "it's using WinRT". It certainly gets you a lot more than 20% of the puzzle anyway.

As for the bolded, well, refer to my first sentence. Any BS that you came up against was likely because of that. The fact that they've pretty much openly advertised that Windows 8 / WinRT apps can easily port over to the XB1 should give you enough confidence that they're not going to throw many extra hurdles your way.
 
S

satam55

Banned
Finster said:
WinRT + whatever xbone-specific BS Microsoft decides platform developers have to conform to in order to have an app certified.

It's not as simple as saying "It's using WinRT". WinRT gets you about 20% of the puzzle.

FreeBSD/WebGL gets you about 60-80%.
Click to expand...

Does that mean devloping apps for the PS4 is easier than the Xbox1?
 
S

satam55

Banned
wsippel said:
It means pretty much nothing. All three systems use web apps.
Click to expand...

Which means everyone acting like Xbox1 is gonna have big app ecosystem advantage over the PS4 because Windows 8/RT/Phone 8 apps are easily portable to Xbox1 doesn't know what they're talking about, right?
 
A

AmyS

Member
I wonder when Youtube will work in the web browser, almost all videos say the required plugin is missing.
 
J

JaggedSac

Member
Finster said:
What this means to me, is that as an app developer, if they already have a WebGL ecosystem running on the box, then that means there's already a known set of API's for building out UI in that world.

This is very cool for developers.

I can almost guarantee that Xbox One UI will be a kludge of who-knows-what... at least based on my experience building services for 360 media apps. Microsoft always wants to do things the hard way and would rather re-engineer the wheel, then use OpenWheel API's or whatever.
Click to expand...

You can use HTML 5 and JavaScript to build Windows 8 applications, and thus Bone applications.

But, you can also code applications using C# and XAML.
 
J

JaggedSac

Member
CRD90 said:
So does this make it more or less likely that I'll get a native plex app?

You know, after we get dlna
Click to expand...

Holy mackeral, has anyone tried visiting the web portal for your Plex server via the PS4 or Bone yet? I am out of town so I can't test it.
 
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