In addition to OpenGL for OS X, there are OpenGL implementations for Windows, Linux, Irix, Solaris, and many game consoles. The specification for OpenGL is controlled by the Khronos Group, an industry consortium whose members include many of the major companies in the computer graphics industry, including Apple. Applications can harness the considerable power of the graphics hardware to improve rendering speeds and quality. Every implementation of OpenGL adheres to the OpenGL specification and must pass a set of conformance tests.
The OpenGL client-server model abstracts hardware details and guarantees consistent presentation on any compliant hardware and software configuration. OpenGL is an excellent choice for graphics development on the Macintosh platform because it offers the following advantages: OpenGL greatly eases the task of writing real-time 2D or 3D graphics applications by providing a mature, well-documented graphics processing pipeline that supports the abstraction of current and future hardware accelerators. OpenGL is an open, cross-platform graphics standard with broad industry support. To create high-performance code on GPUs, use the Metal framework instead. Important OpenGL was deprecated in macOS 10.14.
