One of the things that surprises most people when they first start graphics programming with OpenGL on the Mac or OpenGL ES on iOS is that, until very recently, there wasn't any Apple-provided libraries for loading or managing objects or scenes. You had to roll your own code for loading objects, doing skeletal animation, and managing all your objects.
In iOS 5 we got GLKit, which added a lot of higher-level functionality missing from OpenGL ES. It notably does not include object loading or scene graph management, two of the most fundamental needs of 3D programs.
Then, in one of the early Mountain Lion previews, something called SceneKit showed up. I'd been hearing bits and pieces about SceneKit before it was released, but had honestly assumed it was going to show up on iOS. The documentation for SceneKit was (and still is) pretty sparse, but the functionality looks really promising.
Unfortunately, as of right now, SceneKit is a Mac-only technology. I've seen been no evidence yet that SceneKit will be included in iOS 6. It's still possible, but I'm not holding my breath. If not, well… fingers crossed for iOS 7.
Even as a Mac-only technology, SceneKit is a very cool framework. Let's take a look at what it does and how it works.
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