OpenGL ES 1.0 or 2.0

Question

Recently I want to learn OpenGL ES. But I don't know which version should I learn. I have tried OpenGL ES 2.0. You have to implement much functions that build-in OpenGL ES 1.0. The Programmable Pipeline is trouble, despite it's powerful.

OpenGL ES 2.0 have been used in cocos2d 2.0. Which version is widely in use? Which one should I learn.

I'm a iOS developer.

Answer 1

As an iOS developer, you should probably allow yourself not to worry about devices on versions of the OS prior to iOS 5, meaning that you can really on Apple's GLKit to provide all the functionality that's in 1.1 but removed from 2.0. iOS device sales continue to grow exponentially and iOS 5 is available for devices from the 3GS onwards and so by the time you're up to speed you'll be losing very little in terms of potential audience.

GLKit supplies:

• as many matrix stacks as you want (plus quaternions)
• prepackaged shaders that match most of the ES 1.1 fixed functionality effects
• standard bindings between OpenGL and UIKit (so you never need write your own UIView subclass for OpenGL again)
• prebaked code for texture loading, synchronously and asynchronously

This is Apple's head documentation page for GLKit (and it's worth expanding the 'more'). iOS 5 and GLKit is quite new so external resources are still a little disorganised, but this one looks good enough.

Apple's intention is explicitly to allow someone who would otherwise stick with ES 1.1 because it does so much for you to get a working ES 2.0 implementation with very limited extra effort, with which they can then take advantage of the programmable pipeline in any way they see fit as they learn more about it. So I'd say that you should put your faith in Apple, take advantage of their code and learn ES 2.0 + GLKit right off the bat.