I posted my thoughts about this a few weeks back. Just going to copy it here:
I felt reasonably certain that the recency of Apple’s initial rollout of eGPU support was an indication that it would not be phased out just two years later, and became even more confident with Apple’s re-iterated support for Thunderbolt v. USB4 earlier this week.
There have also been a number of recent articles about Apple’s ongoing development of VR/AR headsets. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/19/...-external-hub-jony-ive-bloomberg-go-read-this
Maybe there will be an additional widget to provide the necessary GPU horsepower, maybe not, but Apple obviously sees VR/AR as a big item on the horizon of computing.
Fair to say that not very many people are using VR headsets today, and most of those who are, are doing it for gaming. How much Mac-native VR is going on? Mac VR gaming? Not a lot...pretty niche.
Now go look at the eGPU Apple
support page. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544
First sentence of the article mentions VR. Interesting for such a niche use case to feature so prominently. And what are all the wonderful things an eGPU is good for with an Apple computer?
(1) making applications run faster. A very mainstream reason to use an eGPU.
(2) Adding additional monitors and display. Another super common reason to use an eGPU.
(3) Use a virtual reality headset.
...
I think the eGPU page is a dead giveaway Apple has something planned for VR, and an acknowledgement that they need a way to provide the necessary graphical capability to macbook and imac purchasers that don’t have that internal GPU capability.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I felt reasonably certain that the recency of Apple’s initial rollout of eGPU support was an indication that it would not be phased out just two years later, and became even more confident with Apple’s re-iterated support for Thunderbolt v. USB4 earlier this week.
There have also been a number of recent articles about Apple’s ongoing development of VR/AR headsets. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/19/...-external-hub-jony-ive-bloomberg-go-read-this
Maybe there will be an additional widget to provide the necessary GPU horsepower, maybe not, but Apple obviously sees VR/AR as a big item on the horizon of computing.
Fair to say that not very many people are using VR headsets today, and most of those who are, are doing it for gaming. How much Mac-native VR is going on? Mac VR gaming? Not a lot...pretty niche.
Now go look at the eGPU Apple
support page. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544
First sentence of the article mentions VR. Interesting for such a niche use case to feature so prominently. And what are all the wonderful things an eGPU is good for with an Apple computer?
(1) making applications run faster. A very mainstream reason to use an eGPU.
(2) Adding additional monitors and display. Another super common reason to use an eGPU.
(3) Use a virtual reality headset.
...
I think the eGPU page is a dead giveaway Apple has something planned for VR, and an acknowledgement that they need a way to provide the necessary graphical capability to macbook and imac purchasers that don’t have that internal GPU capability.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.