Sun Debuts Java 'iPhone'

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that this week at the JavaOne Conference, Sun debuted it's answer to the iPhone. While it is still months away from being a reality this phone is set to put them in direct competition with some of the top cellphone vendors. "Java Mobile FX is "a complete desktop-scale environment that puts the network in your hand," said Richard Green, executive vice president of Sun's software group, announcing the product in his keynote address. Sun ported the Savaje code to a Linux kernel and is expanding the applications programming interfaces and set of developer tools that will ship with it. It plans to make the code available on other platforms in the future. Sun has no licensees for Java Mobile FX yet. However, it is in conversations with carriers and handset makers now and hopes to see cellphones using the software ship in early 2008. "

Comments

j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[A nonymous Coward]

Guess Daddypants didn't read his email.

Re:j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[eneville]

Java itself is ok using the J2SE, what I found when working with J2ME was that there are so many things that would be useful when working in limited memory that just are not available that it makes developing for this platform a real strain. I think that this 'FX' series will be much of the same and make it difficult to do anything useful. I seriously hope that this is not the case and that FX can do most of what is available in the SE editions.

Re:j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[AKAImBatman]

I've been studying FX since the announcement yesterday, and I think that Sun is overhyping it to the extreme. As it turns out, all JavaFX is is a new scripting language formerly known as F3. The purpose of this language was to offer control over the Java2D and Swing APIs in a manner that is easy to use and fast to develop. Because of the control provided, developers are able to create richer GUIs.

Somewhere along the way, the concept got derailed. Sun must have seen the iPhone and started worrying about what would happen to J2ME should it take off. So they yanked F3 off the shelf to show how similarly impressive GUIs could be created for cell phones. But before they could announce it, Microsoft jumped in the fray with their Silverlight announcement. (Silverlight being a powerful multimedia technology solution in search of a problem.) Not to be outdone, Sun somehow managed to convince the press that if you throw F3 (nay, JavaFX!) scripts into an Applet, you have a strong competitor to Silverlight. A rather incredible claim, IMHO, as JavaFX is lacking in the streaming video department. Even more telling is the fact that none of the JavaFX examples are actually applets!

Thankfully, Sun seems to be hedging their bets. None of the pages on the JavaFX site even mention Silverlight, almost making it look like the entire idea was a press invention. Sun's pages make a few passing references about running the technology in an Applet, but nothing firm.

My verdict? I think that F3/JavaFX is the GUI layout technology that Swing developers have been waiting for. With any luck, the technology will create a new market for Java Desktop Applications. The rest of Sun's claims can be safely ignored.

Re:j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[djh101010]

Guess Daddypants didn't read his email. I've submitted maybe a dozen things to that email address, and never once have any of the serious problems been fixed. So I stopped. Not sure what the point is of asking for help and feedback if they don't read it. So now I make the process so much more efficient by not sending it.

Re:j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[metamatic]

I've been studying FX since the announcement yesterday, and I think that Sun is overhyping it to the extreme.

No, really? Sun overhyping Java technology? Whatever next?

Anyone remember Jini, the incredible Java technology that was going to enable every device to talk to every other device? Or JXTA, the Java technology that's going to revolutionize P2P?

Re:j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[AKAImBatman]

Jini was actually a good idea. Unfortunately, Sun was not in a position to exploit it, and wanted too much money for licensing anyway.

Completely agree on JXTA. I remember watching the introduction and thinking, "WTF?"

Re:j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[MS-06FZ]

But in Latin, "Jehovah" begins with an 'I'!

Re:j-phone, for Java, not i-Phone

[rmadhuram]

Well said. One more serious contender and probably one that has a better chance of succeeding is Flashlite.

but

[mekane8]

does it run Lin- errr... Does it run jav- errr... Will it let me see pr0n?

more than a replacement

[xzvf]

While most people just want something that works, there is no 'good' reason why the iPhone needs to be a totally closed platform. If Sun's new product is based on open standards and not locked and still gives a good customer experience, it will be far more than an iPhone.

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

If it's anything like my experience with Java, you'll have to use version 7.4.2-6 of the cell phone communication protocol, because 7.4.2-7 has some changes that break the phone in confusing ways, and 7.5.0 is right-out. The phone will default everything to a hideous grey interface that ignores the styles that you set for all of your other devices, and will insist on making you do the most basic phone operations in the "Java" manner. It will ignore half of the capabilities of the underlying phone hardware in a failed attempt to be cross-platform, and your calls will run at a tenth the speed that they do on other phones. For makers of add-on modules, there will be half a million libraries, and you'll have to dedicate years of your life to be able to get past being a novice developer.

There will be 86 editions of the Java iPhone. For your particular uses, you want Enterprise J2Mobile3EE JCC, release 3. Don't use release 2 of the phone; it's deprecated.

The Java iPhone will become an immediate success in that businesses, after reading ads about it, will mandate that their employees all use them at work.

Re:more than a replacement

[whisper_jeff]

How can you consider a phone with a fully-functional web browser in an era where people can write fully-fuctional web applications a "totally closed platform." Write a web app. Browse to said web app. Presto. I might agree with "more or less closed platform", but "totally" is FUD.

Re:more than a replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

.While most people just want something that works, there is no 'good' reason why the iPhone needs to be a totally closed platform. If Sun's new product is based on open standards and not locked and still gives a good customer experience, it will be far more than an iPhone. Huh. That's the same reasoning I used when I married my wife.

Re:more than a replacement

[alexj33]

I don't understand... regular Java is nothing like that. (..begin masking hysterical laughter..)

Re:more than a replacement

[Wesley Felter]

What if you need to call 911, and some strange app crashes your phone?

Then your phone is defective and you should return it for a working one that uses a real OS. Strange apps don't crash OS X; why would they crash OS X Lite?

Re:more than a replacement

[aichpvee]

I don't know about strange apps crashing OSX, but normal ones crash on it all the time. What's to say that normal apps (say, I don't know, the DIALER!) wouldn't crash all the time on OSX Lite, too?

Re:more than a replacement

[Heembo]

I've been writing Java on the server since the 1.0.2 days. Java on the server is a pleasure for large enterprise applications. Now, Java on the client? What a hellish, insecure, ugly monstrosity. Keep it on the server for large enterprise apps only, where it belongs!

Re:more than a replacement

[Ilgaz]

What if you need to call 911, and some strange app crashes your phone? I think that's at least part of the reason Apple has closed off the iPhone.

Now, picture a Java phone. You are in trouble and need to call 911. Man, it's so slow from that bloated framework that the buttons respond 1 second after I press them. Then- *crash!* There are 2 BILLION phones having sort of Java and the Java apps in phones are very strictly watched by the device itself. There hasn't been a single java related system freeze on phones since they are coded exactly that way, considering the emergency device nature of the platform.

Java applications never run at background or the system itself could never get effected by Java. Java runs on a seperate subsystem. All phones you see are regulated by very very strict organisations before they hit the market.

Here are some stats for Java:

over 800 million PCs
over 1.5 billion mobile phones and other handheld devices (source: Ovum)
2.2 billion smart cards
plus set-top boxes, printers, web cams, games, car navigation systems, lottery terminals, medical devices, parking payment stations, etc.

  If you like iPhone, buy it. I personally won't because my bank requires J2ME for password generation. Just don't excuse for Steve Jobs.

As owner of 3 Macs, let me tell you something: Apple HATES Java, always hated and that is why we are stuck on Java 5 while the people using platform which tried to kill Java are enjoying Java 6 final release.

If you put Java to a device, you lose control of end user. That is why. Nobody dieing, nobody falling from roof, no device exploding, no network downing because of J2ME, a platform which is used on 1.5 billion devices.

You know iTunes interface? It will have "Apple iPhone Software" tab, that is why Apple doesn't put Java in it.

Re:more than a replacement

[Wesley Felter]

There a difference between an app crashing and an app crashing the entire system. If Delicious Disco goes up in smoke, then you can still call 911. Of course, we are talking about third-party apps. If something that comes with the phone (like the dialer) doesn't work then the phone is just defective and banning third-party apps won't help.

Re:more than a replacement

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I call that a work-around at best.

What will happen to your "app" if you step into a dead zone? Can it possibly be as responsive as a native, local app? It will do the job, but I don't think that the user experience would be up to snuff.

I like a lot about the iPhone idea, what I'm waiting for is an actual launch and an actual announcement on how they will handle third party apps. I'm pretty sure the January Newsweek article covered the fact that Apple plans to allow third party apps, but the question was about how much control they will exert in the process.

Re:more than a replacement

[mustafap]

>What if you need to call 911, and some strange app crashes your phone?

Oh for God sake, we did live ok without bloody mobiles you know.

Re:more than a replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

While most people just want something that works, there is no 'good' reason why the iPhone needs to be a totally closed platform. If Sun's new product is based on open standards and not locked and still gives a good customer experience, it will be far more than an iPhone. It is not Sun's phone, it is "openmoko" which I never heard before this article. It is pure open source phone which will ship in months time for a very good price ($350) http://openmoko.com/press/index.html

I got a Nokia 9300 here right now which I will give to service tomorrow just to get its horrible outdated firmware (OS) updated. Mix with "Apple says Java can kill you, glad they don't put it in" comments, I started to consider that pure Linux phone/pda very seriously as Mac only user.

Let me tell, I have never ever liked the idea of Linux Desktop but for mobile device, it is a very serious choice, not just some nerd alternative.

Re:more than a replacement

[Ilgaz]

How can you consider a phone with a fully-functional web browser in an era where people can write fully-fuctional web applications a "totally closed platform." Write a web app. Browse to said web app. Presto. I might agree with "more or less closed platform", but "totally" is FUD. You are commenting like Safari is some state of the art webservice optimised browser. It is not. I am posting this comment using it and my licensed browser is based on its core engine, I am not a Safari hater, I just say it is sadly behind in web services.

Anything serious requires Firefox or Camino. Just go to Google Docs for example. There is Thinkfree.com which allows Safari thanks to Java/Ajax mixed nature of it. Java won't be included in iPhone because it will cause argameddon (!).

A fully functional mobile browser which people even pay for it is: Opera. Heard anything about iPhone from them recently? If they dare to speak about possibility of porting Opera to iPhone Steve Jobs will claim that poor thing can bring down entire west coast because of 404 error. :)

Re:more than a replacement

[hobo sapiens]

and of course, the act of dialing numbers will chew up all of the memory on your phone for about five minutes. But other than that, and the few trivial items you mentioned, this will be great! Everyone else uses Java, therefore it should be used everywhere, right?

Re:more than a replacement

[Ilgaz]

Ever run a single J2ME application? There is nothing like that. Even on Desktop, apps look for a major version and they work. There is even Java Webstart which doesn't exist in any other language, a single click install/run and secure same time.

For J2ME? You just send .jar as a message to phone. Nothing else. It asks if you really want to install it, bitches about certificate at worst scenario. What if you got impossible to run .jar file? It says "can't execute, exception" and continues its life.

Now things are even better, Sony Ericsson phones having "Walkman" thing can auto update their own firmware including Java subsystem. Automatically.

I just installed Putty (Ssh) to Series 80 Symbian before I read this article via drag and drop using OS X Finder. As far as I see, my GSM network is still up and running :)

Re:more than a replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehehehehe... Is it the same J2ME that exists in three basic versions (MIDP1, MIDP1FP1, and MIDP2) and a myriad of vendor specific flavors? Is it the same J2ME where you have to modify your .JAR application for each phone, depending on its screen size and feature set? :) Or are you talking about some idealized J2ME, akin to a spherical horse in vacuum?

Re:more than a replacement

[ady1]

and will insist on making you do the most basic phone operations in the "Java" manner. Can't wait to dial a number: PhoneCall call = new PhoneCall("1-900-TOLL-FREE");

Damn, now what does this compile error means? oh good it has a web browser to browse the documentation.

Re:more than a replacement

[alexj33]

So I dare question the almighty Java, and get modded down to 'Troll'. Nice.

I merely project what I see from Java on the desktop to a phone. So I'm now a troll?

Re:more than a replacement

[thinksInCode]

I don't understand... regular Java is nothing like that. (..begin masking hysterical laughter..) Hm, let's review 1) Java SE 2) Java EE 3) Java ME That's only 3. Do you even know anything about Java, or are you simply hopping on the "OMG JAVA IS SLOOOOOW" bandwagon? Why don't you read up on Java performance, especially in the recently released Java 6. I would expect someone to actually do some research before posting stuff like this, but then I remembered this is Slashdot...

Re:more than a replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

That's offtopic and heavily opinionated.

Re:more than a replacement

[Ilgaz]

Hehehehehe... Is it the same J2ME that exists in three basic versions (MIDP1, MIDP1FP1, and MIDP2) and a myriad of vendor specific flavors? Is it the same J2ME where you have to modify your .JAR application for each phone, depending on its screen size and feature set? :) Or are you talking about some idealized J2ME, akin to a spherical horse in vacuum? Professionally written applications like Opera Mini doesn't have such needs. 2 versions, basic or advanced. So it can be done even on such advanced application if you know how to code.

Amateurs managed to confuse end users because they were lazy enough to fetch the phones profile from its wap browser and direct to related jar file. Opera can do it,why they couldn't? They didn't. Basic as that.

The article mentions even more basic java (like Java lite) optimised for end user+web 2/3 feature needs which can be coded by anyone who understands the concept. No pro needed.

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

Oh, no -- phone calls must be created through factory methods. Plus, what about all of the exceptions that you're not catching? phone.dailer.HangupException, phone.dialer.BusyException, etc? Besides, each call has to be inside a class...

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

Here is what Sun is currently offering, not counting the countless older releases and offerings by vendors other than Sun.

Every time I've had to deal with Java applications (which is frustratingly too often), no matter what version I have, it's always the wrong version. Oh, you have version A? You need version B for Program 1. Oh, you have version B? You need version C for Program 2. Oh, you have version C? You need version D for program 3. Almost every freaking time. And the failure messages are never helpful. Here, let's go ahead and run one program with the wrong version of Java:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: ui/gui/Main (Unsupported major.minor version 49.0)
                at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass0(Native Method)
                at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
                at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(Unknow n Source)
                at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
                at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(Unknown Source)
                at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
                at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
                at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
                at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
                at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
                at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
                at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)


Yeah, thanks a lot, Java. That tells me an awful lot. Amazing how Java always manages to give you pages of info, of which 99% of it is irrelevant.

I wonder where these people who have good experiences with Java are coming from?

Re:more than a replacement

[kaffiene]

That *is* a troll you dumb fuck. As was pointed out to you, Java already runs on hundreds of millions of phones without the situation you describe ever happening. Spreading FUD makes you a troll. Deal with it.

Re:more than a replacement

[thinksInCode]

Every time I've had to deal with Java applications (which is frustratingly too often), no matter what version I have, it's always the wrong version. Oh, you have version A? You need version B for Program 1. Oh, you have version B? You need version C for Program 2. Oh, you have version C? You need version D for program 3. Almost every freaking time. And the failure messages are never helpful. Here, let's go ahead and run one program with the wrong version of Java: OK, I'll give you that the class versioning is not very intuitive. However, this issue is an issue of different versions of a JRE, not different packages that are available. Most of these problems are caused by the vendor of the application in question. A good Java app should be able to tell if you have the right version and, if not, tell you exactly what you need to download.

Re:more than a replacement

[maztuhblastah]

While most people just want something that works, there is no 'good' reason why the iPhone needs to be a totally closed platform. If Sun's new product is based on open standards and not locked and still gives a good customer experience, it will be far more than an iPhone.

Kind of. It's a matter of dev. tools alright -- Apple has them, Sun doesn't. Apple's iPhone dev kit is likely to have a cross-compiler functionality; write your software on the Mac, compile, load onto dev. iPhone. Sun has.... command line java compilers.

Re:more than a replacement

[ShinmaWa]

So you attempt to run code compiled for Java 5.0 environment in a Java 1.4 or earlier JRE and it blew up... surprise surprise. While Java is pretty good at being backwards compatible, it never made the claim of being forward compatible -- and its a little unfair for you to expect Java or any other language to be so. At least it told you in plain English why it failed ("Unsupported Class Version").

I suppose you are saying this is somehow worse than dynamically linking a C/C++ executable against the wrong version of a library where you get more helpful errors like "Segmentation Fault".

Re:more than a replacement

[mkiwi]

As owner of 3 Macs, let me tell you something: Apple HATES Java, always hated and that is why we are stuck on Java 5 while the people using platform which tried to kill Java are enjoying Java 6 final release.

I guess that doesn't bode well for Microsoft's or Balmer's feelings. He might have to pull out a Herman Millar to get the release he needs when Java gets more and more accepted.

Re:more than a replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

There hasn't been a single java related system freeze on phones since they are coded exactly that way I work as a J2ME developer. Do you realize how many phones have shitty JVMs? I've completely frozen phones from J2ME apps hundreds of times. The only really good J2ME JVM is Sony Ericsson's, and not the P990/M600 (they use symbian crap).

Re:more than a replacement

[kchrist]

You humorless bastard.

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

Huh? If a library isn't there, it tells you what library you're missing, unless you're doing something really funky. And if you want examples of Java programs not working in the other direction, I can give you those, too. The 1.4.x environment was because of a Tomcat servelet that refused to run on anything *newer* because they changed how certain functions behaved. Oh, and the Java change was made on a minor version, too.

Re:more than a replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun already has the dev tools. Check out NetBeans with the mobility pack. It has a nice screen layout tool and a phone emulator, so you can test the app, before you deploy it (To lots of phones already on the market). So no advantage to Apple.

Re:more than a replacement

[iron-kurton]

I never even knew about opera mini it before your post. I can't believe I suffered with my default browser for so long.. Anyway, thanks!

Re:more than a replacement

[ShinmaWa]

So recompile the 5.0 code with a VM target of 1.4 or fix whatever is wrong with the servlet that makes it incompatible with 5.0. Neither should be that hard to do.

Version incompatibilities is hardly a "Java only" thing. Try writing code for one version of Qt or GTK+ or some other library and link it with code with another version and watch the fun. Just the other day, the GIMP started to crash on my workstation because GAIM updated the shared GTK+ library to an incompatible version. I guess C++ and GTK+ sucks too.

Try running a Perl 5 script with objects inside a Perl 3 interpretter. Try running Python 2.0 list comprehension features inside Python 1.4. With Python 3.0, a LOT of stuff that's currently deprecated in Python will be removed altogether, meaning a lot of current Python scripts will no longer run in Python 3.0.

This is how things are. It happens with C, C++, Perl, Python, you name it. To single out Java for not being perfectly forward and backward compatible is being a little overly biased.

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

Yeah, someone writes an app, and I need to fix it because Java doesn't care for backwards compatability. Great Java selling point there.

I'm not talking about forwards compatability, but forwards compatability on features that aren't new and backwards compatability to earlier versions. I'm talking about Java from different distributor or even different versions from the same distributor not working, and failing with cryptic error messages. Almost every bloody time.

I also work with python all the time. Do you know when the last time I got a python app that didn't work with my python interpreter? A quarter after never. I've gotten it occasionally with Perl modules, but not often. Don't give me this "it's the same with all languages" nonsense.

Re:more than a replacement

[ShinmaWa]

The hell you aren't talking about forward compatibility. Your original post was you running Java code compiled for Java 5.0 in a Java 1.4 JRE, knowing exactly what would happen. Given that the JRE is a virtual machine and not an interpretter, what you did was exactly like compiling a C program for the P4 architecture and complaining that it crashes when run on a 386. Don't start changing your story now.

If you want to boil down your arguments to their core, you are really complaining that integrating code written against different versions of the API will break and somehow Java is the only environment where that happens.

You are being really disingenuous and you know it.

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

If you can't read "And if you want examples of Java programs not working in the other direction, I can give you those, too. The 1.4.x environment was because of a Tomcat servelet that refused to run on anything *newer* because they changed how certain functions behaved.", you're hopeless.

Re:more than a replacement

[ShinmaWa]

And that would be the "different APIs" that I just referred to. Here's a newsflash. There are API differences between 1.4 and 5.0. Most of them are backwards compatible. A few (such as the enum keyword) are not. The places where backwards compatiblity is not perfect is well-documented and ALL of them are easily fixed. Here's a page with the details: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/compatibility.html.

Running code written against the 5.0 API and attempting to integrate it with code written against the 1.4 API may cause you problems if you hit one of the snags listed in that page above -- just like attempting to integrate code written against one version of GTK+ with code written against another version might cause you problems. Integrating code compiled for two different platforms WILL cause you problems. Period.

You are just being obtuse at this point.

Re:more than a replacement

[M. Baranczak]

I'm a Java guy too, and I'm totally with you, except for the 'insecure' part. What sort of security problems with desktop Java are you talking about?

Re:more than a replacement

[StikyPad]

>Oh for God sake, we did live ok without bloody mobiles you know.

Not everybody still keeps a landline you know.

I'm not trying to give creedance to the idea that the phones will "crash", but your argument is like saying we got along fine before we had cars. Sure we did, but how many people still have horses?

Re:more than a replacement

[Heembo]

I'm talking more poor applet security than poor Java desktop security. Java 6 makes Java *applications* sizzle. But for applets...

1) Poor auto-update features for client-side JVM (People do not tend to update their Java client JVM)
2) A vulnerability in the JDK or Java plugin may move all your clients into the attackable surface
3) Older JVM's (in the past) could force the application to use an older vulnerable JVM if installed
4) Stuff like java.lang.Runtime().getRuntime().exec("cmd.exe")
5) 2006 hall of fame!
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/759996
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/17981
http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id =4396719
Intesting tidbit:
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/434001

PS: Consider taking http://www.sans.org/ns2007/description.php?tid=447

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

First off, by changing APIs, that's making it not backwards compatible. Ah, but if only it was that simple! It wasn't a change between 1.4 and 5.0. Oh no! It was a change between *two different releases of Java 1.4.2*. They considered it a bugfix, but it broke code that expected the old behavior. I forget what functionality it was in, but I could dig through my email history to find out. I believe release 04 was the last one that worked.

Re:more than a replacement

[Rei]

As for examples of forwards compatibility, let's just look at... oh, let's just say almost every modern language out there. If I write something in python 2, as long as I don't use features found only in python 2, I can run it in python 1. If I write something in C++, as long as I don't use the new C++ features, I can still compile it on a C compiler. Heck -- in C, many (if not most) C compilers now support some C++ features, just out of convenience!

But in Java? Oh no! Java, the language that has mastered changing standards, slight changes in implementation that break code, incompatibilities across versions... you name it, if it's negative, they've mastered it.

Re:more than a replacement

[mpesce]

Odd. I'm running Java 6 on OSX. It is available - in beta - but it's most certainly available.

Seems to work just fine.

Re:more than a replacement

[mhall119]

Java is no different here, if you write a Java program in Java 5, as long as you don't use any of the new features in Java 5, it can still be compiled by a Java 1.4 compiler.

What you are talking about is compiling it with Java 5, then trying to run it on Java 1.4. In that case, the Java 5 compiler generates a binary suitable for the Java 5 runtime, but not the Java 1.4 runtime. That is akin to compiling something against GTK 2.8, and complaining when it has problems linking to a GTK 2.4 library. There is a reason programs have dependencies on GTK 2.8 or higher you know.

Using Python as an example isn't a good comparison because it is compiled to the proper version of the interpreter each time it is run. You don't get version incompatibilities, you just get compilation errors. The same thing happens with Perl.

Re:more than a replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you need to call 911, and some strange app crashes your phone? I think that's at least part of the reason Apple has closed off the iPhone.

Now, picture a Java phone. You are in trouble and need to call 911. Man, it's so slow from that bloated framework that the buttons respond 1 second after I press them. Then- *crash!*

I had a windows phone this happened all the time, it would refuse to pick up calls and never ever told me when I had an answer phone message.

Re:more than a replacement

[SenseiLeNoir]

Now things are even better, Sony Ericsson phones having "Walkman" thing can auto update their own firmware including Java subsystem. Automatically. Make that pretty much *ALL* Sony Ericsson phones, since the K700i/S700i, which pretty much blew away a lot of people expectations with 3D games written in JAVA! IT didn't just start not just the Walkman :) I think SonyEricsson has been very good with Java support since those days, and my current K800 even has the ability to make Java Midlets that can run in the background!

And the P series with p-java, gave a almost native Symbian look to Java applications.

and the W880i (and even the slightly older W850i with its hardware 3D) that My sister has really looks likes is going to give the iPhone a serious run for its money when it comes out, the cheif advantages over the iPhone being:
- smaller
- available NOW
- Decent Headphones No matter how iconic the white headsets, it bears no touch to the Sony sourced in the ear sets that come with the Walkman phones (and are available on non walkman branded SE phones).
- 3g UMTS (iphone will not be 3G, Very important to markets outside the USA)
- "Drag and Drop" Universal Mass Storage access to songs. All sonyericssons support drag and drop, universal mass storage based for non-DRM protected tracks. No need for an itunes type software to put songs in.
- PushIMAP support. Blackberry like email access.. without the blackberry.
- Google Blogspot support.
- Decent Java support.
- Based on the Ericsson Mobile Phone platform (EMP), a company that has been making phones especially GSM for donkeys years.
- And Sonyericsson is really working hard with the operators here in UK

Re:more than a replacement

[SenseiLeNoir]

Small correction, On the new SonyEricsson k800i, it is indeed possible to run Java Midlets at start-up or even in the background, provided the user grants permission, and the midlet is coded to allow it. A VERY useful feature.

But as you said, the phone always prioritises its primary function (a phone) and the phone hardware/software has no hesitation to dump the JVM if it feels something is wrong.

My crashes so far has always been due to bugs in the phone firmware, not the java side of things.

Re:more than a replacement

[SenseiLeNoir]

I agree about the SonyEricssons, I love developing for the SE platforms (non symbian) and the best part is, SE provides a pretty decent developers website.

Remember hardware wise, SonyEricssons, despite the Sony part of the name, are at heart still Ericsson Mobile phones, and Ericsson has always been pretty good at using existing standards than trying to push its own standards, where existing ones existed.

For example, which nokia, et al, required proprietry software and formats for creating ringtones, pictures, etc. Ericsson used existing formats (wbmp, GIF, JPG, Midi, XML, MP3, MPA) and transfered via bluetooth, OBEX, or even simple infrared, requirign no special software. Its Themes, were simple a XML file, with a bunch of gifs/jpegs, and then TARed up with a thm extension. It was the first platform to support SVG.

Where they had to create their own standards, again they are usually good at being open. their iMelody format for monophonic ringtones is very simple to use and understand. They invented Bluetooth, and have one of the best bluetooth implementations on a phone, with Bluetooth PAN network, HCI, OBEX Synchml, and simply "just work".

So their Java has had a great head start, as the native firmware has pretty much a lot of stuff already, and the JVM uses native stuff where it can to implement the J2ME standard.

WHen developing for and SE i don't have to usually do hacks, that I have to do for other phones.

Re:more than a replacement

[_damnit_]

That's the point though. Java applications should be compatible with newer versions of the JRE, but they are usually not. Too often I have to load and unload one version after another until I find the version necessary to run some crappy GUI to administer a switch or array. It sucks ass! I worked for Sun and Java never worked right on internal apps either. Always throwing exceptions and other garbage onto my terminal screen.

Open-sourcing the JRE so IBM can brew up their own flavor isn't going to help much either.

Re:more than a replacement

[alexj33]

So it's safe to assume from your colorful language then, that you're a Java enthusiast?

Re:more than a replacement

[mustafap]

Bad Analogy. It's like saying we once got along without air.

OK, on reflection, so is that one :o)

We don't carry phones so that we can dial 911. We carry them so we can do work or keep in touch with our buddies.

If you are in the USA, I guess the gun you carry negates the need to call 911...

From TFA

[Vasco Bardo]

"Sun will sell the software only in a binary version to ensure compatibility across different systems. "

Can anybody explain this to me?

Re:From TFA

[Paulrothrock]

Can anybody explain this to me?

They tried to make trinary version of the software, but they found it was hard to make it compatible with various systems.

Re:From TFA

[Wesley Felter]

Sun used to give JVM source code to phone vendors, who would each add their own incompatible bugs. But now all JavaFX phones are supposed to run exactly the same firmware so they will all have the same bugs.

Re:From TFA

[bitrot42]

"Sun will sell the software only in a binary version to ensure compatibility across different systems. "

Um, wouldn't a binary-only release be LESS compatible across different systems?

Unless they mean "compatible with Sun's profit agenda"...

This is NOT a phone

[Andy_R]

It's an operating system for phones, so it's a competitor to the likes of the Symbian OS, not Apple's iPhone.

Re:This is NOT a phone

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an operating system for phones, so it's a competitor to the likes of the Symbian OS, not Apple's iPhone. If Symbian likes it, they can adopt in new generation. Symbian phones have great java stacks already. Some Symbian based phones are having "most complete J2ME implementation" (actual J2ME developers).

The issue is always the screen and j2me developers are afraid of the "pure C" competition and endless possibilities of OS specific programming. For the record, I already use a paid J2ME based RSS service on Series 80 (awfully incompatible brother of S60) phone (!).

It is only Microsoft and Apple who stays away from Java claiming some real funny reasons such as network going down or something. They just don't want average developer to independently code/ship their own freeware/shareware outside their channels. They want average developer at least download some huge SDK which will only work on their OS in their own terms with attached evil NDA/License. As Apple user, I am bit more understanding to Apple since it is their style of "common hardware/install/user interface" but Microsoft's reason is exactly "Java didn't die so we better torture anyone who needs it". Nothing else.

As Article submitter somehow tries to troll using Apple phone reference, I better get trolled and state some facts which even end user like me can see.

I really hope Sun makes sure NO enterprise, big iron guys get involved in a end user oriented platform this time. Please Sun, hire some desktop oriented people.

Re:This is NOT a phone

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an operating system for phones, so it's a competitor to the likes of the Symbian OS, not Apple's iPhone.

True, but the only good thing about the iPhone is the OS. Well, and maybe the touchscreen. Oh, and the snazzy Apple logo.

But if this OS is any good all it takes is a touchscreen and a good brand to be the "iPhone killer".

Re:This is NOT a phone

[mypalmike]

I believe that, more accurately, it's a platform consisting of an OS, a Java VM, and a software "stack" implementing the UI functionality of a cell phone. All the code for implementing a cell phone UI is written in Java: Dialing, contacts, profiles, skins, etc.

Re:This is NOT a phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, you know, the iPhone isn't actually running an operating system. There's a miniature man inside pushing the giant [to him] pixel around to make it work.

Oh wait, that's wrong. The iPhone is running it's own proprietary operating system based on OS X. Which means that (OMG) this new java operating system **IS** competing with it. Wow. This would have been more apparent had you RTFA.

can anyone say...

[KiLLa_TK]

cell phone market saturation anyone? Seriously while it is nice have 10k competitors all trying to sell you a cellphone, why are companies still trying to put their foot in there. Is there really that much incentive to do the same thing a ton of other companies are doing?

Re:can anyone say...

[Vasco Bardo]

Sun makes OS software, so this is pretty close to their core. Doesn't look like a bad bet on the face of it.

Re:can anyone say...

[AndersOSU]

cell phone market saturation anyone

Gee, now if someone would only compete on (service plan) price it might actually be good for consumers.

Pics

[jaavaaguru]

If Sun "debuted" it, where are all the good photos? We want to see it!

Re:Pics

[escay]

here's the webcast of the session the phone introduction starts at ~22.00 minutes into the video. It's a complete touchscreen interface, fits into the palm nicely (looks smaller than iPhone?) and has an icon-driven GUI that looks suspiciously similar to the iPhone.

Re:Pics

[cching]

Jonathan Schwartz's blog appears to have a pic:

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

Reality distortion field

[geek]

Why bother competing with the iPhone? 99% of it's features are useless to the average user. It's doomed to fail like the Mac Cube did. It targets an extremely small group of people, made smaller by vendor lock-in (via AT&T), you can't replace the battery which is a massive problem with something that needs to be charged as often as a color screened handheld device running a near full blown version of OSX. Don't get me wrong here, the idea is neat but with a 500-600$ price tag it's utterly pointless.

So why would Sun, or anyone for that matter, wish to compete in this market? There was an article recently, I believe on the NYT, I can't find it presently, that said cell use was declining. The novelty has dropped off. I know people will buy these devices but not nearly enough to make the market profitable.

Maybe it's just me. I personally hate cell phones and use mine only to talk to my girlfriend and parents or for roadside emergencies. Everyone else can wait till I get home. My 10 years of being on-call in the IT business probably biased me also. Regardless, I don't see the point to these devices.

Re:Reality distortion field

[Lazerf4rt]

99% of it's features are useless to the average user.

Care to list any of those features that fall into the 99%? Personally, the thing that I find attractive about the iPhone is that I probably would use most of its features, and the UI looks very slick.

Re:Reality distortion field

[furball]

I don't care what other features iPhone has. The ability to listen to voicemail in random access beats everything else that exists today.

Re:Reality distortion field

[CaptainPatent]

Before I begin I would like to state for the record that I dislike the iPhone and the concept behind it simply because of the problems which persist with the iPods. With that out of the way...

The reason the iPhone is worth the bother of competing against is it will most likely do decently despite a lot of the doomsday warnings I tend to find on here. The iPod initially sold for about the same price ($500-$600) and was only an MP3 player. Over the past few years the iPod has played a VERY critical role in the success of Apple. the iPod itself is a very easy to use device with pretty colors and lots of fluffy add ons that the trendy crowd loves (even though I have seen countless iPods break (battery, motherboard, hard drive, etc.) After their introduction the price will come down and there is a market push to create devices with multiple uses into a single, small device.

Sun (I would like to note) is not directly competing in this market. Their response is only an operating system which phones may later utilize. The appeal to this new phone is the open source aspect (depending on how sun implements the final design) This type of phone I find intriguing and I feel that most techies will.

Re:Reality distortion field

[petermgreen]

It's doomed to fail like the Mac Cube did.
while the cube didn't do too well thats understandable it was apples first attempt at small form factor (and indeed one of the first small form factor desktops arround). Its main downfall was that it was overpriced.

the similar but cheaper, smaller and more powerfull mini otoh has been a huge sucesss

i can see something similar happening with the iphone, the first generation probablly won't be all that popular but watch out for the second gen.

Re:Reality distortion field

[Knara]

The i-Phone, like many current Apple products, a fashion accessory as much as a functional device. That's as much of a reason as any why someone will pay $600 for a cellphone.

Re:Reality distortion field

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last time you replaced your phone battery or better still, do you normally carry spares around?
For my existing phone I have a wall charger and a car charger. I'd imagine the iPhone will have both.

Just like say, the iPod?

Re:Reality distortion field

[MrCrassic]

If that's the case, then you might want to check out CallWave's offering that allows the fetching of voicemail straight to e-mail (or SMS) in WAV files. To me, that beats Visual Voicemail hands down, since it is compatible with ANY carrier (VV only works on Cingular[?]) and allows you to check and save messages without even having to touch the phone. It even e-mails missed calls!

I never went back to regular voicemail after using this.

DISCLAIMER: I have NO affiliation with Callwave or its subsidiaries.

Re:Reality distortion field

[DocScience4]

So why would Sun, or anyone for that matter, wish to compete in this market?

It's huge, and even a small part of it is bigger than a lot of niche markets.
It's not getting any smaller.
Positioning selves for future growth in mobile computing, especially when "mixed use" devices become even more commonplace.
They need to create profit-making enterprises and this may allow them to recoup some of their Java investment, which is oriented to multiple platforms.

It least, that's how it seems to me. I like that they're trying to be more aggressive and more competition is good.

Re:Reality distortion field

[yoasif]

Thanks! A friend of mine used this, and I remember being impressed. I've been meaning to track it down, but this post was a nice pointer. :)

Re:Reality distortion field

[Ath]

Whatever you do, never get near Steve Jobs. If his reality distortion field comes into contact with your reality distortion field there could be a major disaster.

iToo!

[u-bend]

jPhone's cool too!

Good move, but in the wrong direction

[Magneon]

Great, Java the platform of interoperability and cross platform compatibility is fragmenting once more... They really need to try- to the best of their ability- to simply have a Java cell phone. Not Java XLG, or whatever they're coming up with this year. Java 1.3 anyone?

JavaFX Mobile - Free Software?

[thomas.galvin]

What concerns me is that the JavaFX Mobile platform itself appears to be a proprietary code base. Sun has made a lot of noise about JavaFX Script being available under the GPL, but is says that the JavaFX Mobile platform will be available with an OEM license. If that's true, this isn't really all that better than Flash, License-wise. I'd love to have the Java libraries available in a RIA, but if I have to kow-tow to Sun to get them...

Re:JavaFX Mobile - Free Software?

[FreeSpirit]

After reading Jonathon's Blog (http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/when_not_wher e/) it would appear that the all of JavaFX/mobile will be released under GPL in the future. I would have to assume that this will be
like the GPL versions of Java SE which not completely GPL yet but are missing a number of pieces of licensed code that is yet to be opensourced or replaced with opensource alternatives. Hence the need for an OEM licensed version to get a supported version with all the non-opensourced components present.

Re:JavaFX Mobile - Free Software?

[cching]

According to this, if you want to get involved in JavaFX/Mobile, you should join OpenJFX and wait apparently:

http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/mobile/getstart ed.jsp

"Join the Java community so you can participate in forums and discussions regarding the future direction of the JavaFX Mobile software system:"

Hard to tell for sure, but seems like it will be open at some point.

Maybe people should just wait

[rolfwind]

The iPhone has been declared dead so many times already that I am starting to think it's a Jesus phone for the amount of times it must have been resurrected. And there are so many iPhone killers running around loose that I don't dare step a foot out the door.

Maybe everyone should just hold there horses and see what Apple actually comes out with. I know one thing, this product is hyped beyond belief and Apple didn't have to pay a red cent for that advertising (have you ever heard of a Zune killer before or after that thing came out?)

Re:Maybe people should just wait

[gstoddart]

have you ever heard of a Zune killer before or after that thing came out?

Really, what's to kill?

It's gotten lukewarm treatment in the press. It's hardly touted as the must-have-thing or anything like that.

It's kind of like saying "We need to compete with broccoli for the hearts and minds of 5 year olds if we want our turnip/brussel sprouts hybrid to become popular". :-P

I agree with you, I'll be curious to see what the phone actually offers. I know someone who spent around $500 for a Sony/Erickson phone because it had a whole raft of features. Apple might actually make some headway on this -- their track record for putting out products people actually like of late is not to be completely discounted. Not everyone is gonna want one, but I bet it's got more of a potential market than we might think.

Cheers

Re:Maybe people should just wait

[sameeer]

You haven't heard of the Zune-killer?

It's called Zune.

Re:Maybe people should just wait

[Anonymous Coward]

And there are so many iPhone killers running around loose that I don't dare step a foot out the door.

Hey, Mr. iPhone, that's quite a feat - not even launched yet and already having more than 1k posts on /. You're sure to make a splash whenever it will be time for you to take that step out the door :-)

Re:Maybe people should just wait

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone has been declared dead so many times already that I am starting to think it's a Jesus phone for the amount of times it must have been resurrected.

Wasn't that only once?

Re:Maybe people should just wait

[drew]

I think the "Zune killer" was when Steve Ballmer starting talking about using it to "squirt".

But can it still slice a tomato?

[Lord_Slepnir]

So if Apple released the iPhone, will Sun, in keeping with their idiotic naming scheme for all things java, name it the jPhone? Will the next one run a KDE and be called the kPhone, or will they want to give it more character and name it the cPhone? Or will a Hungarian include a leather-strap handle and call it the hPhone?

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal, it's fantastic.

Re:But can it still slice a tomato?

[StikyPad]

Sorry, jphone is taken. The Japanese adopted the J prefix years ago, and it's probably even more ubiquitous in Japan than i/e-prefixed words are in the US.

Much like pornography...

[MrPerfekt]

I can't get excited about it without pictures.

Re:Much like pornography...

[gstoddart]

I can't get excited about it without pictures.

Think of it as more of a Penthous Letters scenario ....

The glistening, sleek case glinted in the moonlight, inviting me to reach out and caress it's luscious buttons. I longed to place a phone call, but decided to prolong my desire just a little longer and drink in it's plasticky smoothness ...

Or ... not. :-P

Cheers

Re:Much like pornography...

[StreetStealth]

Beyond whether it looks pretty or not, the interface is what's going to make or break the JPhone. There are hundreds of models on the market right now that run BREW; I don't really care about the technology of this phone so much as I care whether they actually had some smart interface designers and human factors people work on the UI.

Behind the shininess and bouncy animation of the iPhone are, from the looks of it, some solid usability principles sorely lacking in the mobile device market today. If this new phone can get that right, it'll be a contender. If all it gets right are shininess and animation, it's dead already.

Re:Much like pornography...

[iwoof]

Pretty Picture here http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/when_not_where

--Woof!

Re:Much like pornography...

[Wizzard]

The phone displayed is the FIC Neo1973 and was designed as part of the OpenMoko open phone project. Developer versions of the phone will be available shortly.

Re:Much like pornography...

[jc42]

The phone displayed is the FIC Neo1973 and was designed as part of the OpenMoko open phone project.

Yeah, I noticed that right off. I wonder which will be easiest for us developers to get our hands on and write software for? I've been wanting one since I first read of the openmoko project 6 or 8 months ago, but so far I don't yet have one.

Maybe we should all send messages to both projects asking for a phone and promising to write for whichever one gets to us first.

Of course, we might also add the qualification that we want not just the phone, but docs and prototypes of a few simple, working programs that talk to other programs across the Net. I recently gave up on a blackberry as a lost cause; an employer paid for it a couple years ago, but I was never able to get anything non-trivial working on it. (Maybe I'm an idiot, of course, but I'm able to write things quickly for other platforms, so that can't be the only problem. ;-) This does, however, illustrate the dangers of accepting a phone that requires a 2-year contract with a cell-phone company who has no motive to help you get your software working on it.

Grammar, grammar, grammar.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sun debuted it's answer to the iPhone."

Let's go ahead and remove that apostrophe, please. This isn't even tricky grammar.

Re:Grammar, grammar, grammar.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it wasn't "its'."

I see...

[nanosquid]

Sun will sell the software only in a binary version to ensure compatibility across different systems.

Evidently, the new Sun is like the old Microsoft.

Re:I see...

[gstoddart]

"Sun will sell the software only in a binary version to ensure compatibility across different systems."

Evidently, the new Sun is like the old Microsoft.

You mean, the phone we buy the software for will be proven to be nowhere near powerful enough to run the software and we will need to go out and get a new phone -- then we'll find out the license isn't transferable to another device?

Oh wait, that's still the current Microsoft. :-P

Cheers

Re:I see...

[FreeSpirit]

Have you read Jonathan Schwartz's Blog? http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/when_not_where / That seems to indicate that all of the Sun IP in JavaFX (not just JavaFX/Script) will be made available under GPL in the future.

How does this compare to OpenMoko?

[quixote9]

The OpenMoko folks have a prototype Linux phone out to developers in some kind of alpha testing phase. They're planning a release to the rest of us some time in November(?) Be nice if someone with Sun's resources worked *with* the rest of the open source crowd. Or is this Sun thing so much better there was no point? Anyone know how they compare?

Re:How does this compare to OpenMoko?

[fdawg]

It looks like the same phone and the article mentioned it was running linux. Chances are they are the same.

Re:How does this compare to OpenMoko?

[kripkenstein]

How do they compare? Sun's system is running on the OpenMoko hardware (FIC Neo 1973), i.e., they are one and the same. You can see it clearly from the pictures: OpenMoko Neo 1973 vs. new Sun offering. Plainly this is the exact same hardware.

I wonder why that wasn't in the Summary.

Re:How does this compare to OpenMoko?

[quixote9]

Hmph. Me too. I guess they expect me to actually click on the links and figure it out. Sheesh.

Re:How does this compare to OpenMoko?

[kensan]

This has been discussed in the #Openmoko IRC-Channel on Freenode and it seems that Sun is using photoshopped GUI-Mockups. Apparently Sun is not in contact with FIC/OpenMoko-Devs... *Disclaimer "hear, say" - no "official statement"*

Looks like the FIC OpenMoko

[Marcion]

They seem to have the same case, which would make a lot of sense, it being a Linux based reference model.

An early call:

[teknopurge]

i have this funny feeling that Sun is the new Apple.

Re:An early call:

[TheRaven64]

Sun and Apple are two of the companies that are seriously positioning themselves to be competitive in the ubicomp era. Samsung are as well, although to a lesser degree, and HP are trying to (although I am not convinced that they will succeed). None of the other major players seems to have yet acknowledged that we have passed the peak of the desktop era.

New Toy - Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another new toy consumer appliance that is designed litterly to last from 12 until noon.

Now my phone can prompt me to download critical java updates, and can run no doubt useless java crapplets.

Better yet, the phone will have a 5 minute boot time, and any dialing will take 2 seconds per digit, unless it can't find the classpath of course, or some useless library is missing

Like that's a good idea?

[Overzeetop]

Driving and talking is bad enough.

Re:Like that's a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

But how about those of us who take Public Transportation?

Re:Like that's a good idea?

[hcgpragt]

1) the fools die happy
2) The earth lives on without them happily talking away on /.
Perfect!

Re:Like that's a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the nature of this particular thread, you'll excuse me for thinking you wrote "pubic transportation" when I first read your post

Read my Lips... It's the interface...

[ahg]

Until users get the devices in their hands and can evaluate the "feel" of the device there's no way of knowing if either phone will be a flop or success. Apple has consistently performed in this area in the past few years. In terms of interface experience they are probably years ahead of Sun, who is used to making computers for a more elite "geek" crowd. No one can say yet if the iPhone will be a success, but if I were a betting man... my money would be on Apple topping Sun's sales by 2 to 1. Sun's more "open" device may be a geek's dream, but IMHO, unlikley to have mass consumer appeal.

My $0.02

Re:Read my Lips... It's the interface...

[Paulrothrock]

And considering how utterly hideous Java interfaces are, I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.

How is jPhone like iPhone?

[Lazerf4rt]

TFA says Sun has "debuted software for a high-end cellphone that looked very similar to the Apple iPhone" but there are no pictures. In fact, I combed the web for more stories about this and none seem to have any pictures.

Does it have a touchscreen or not? What kind of media playback? Visual voicemail? This story says they want to produce phones that can be sold for $30-$50, which pretty much means they'd be unlike the iPhone at all.

I guess what we have here is an iPhone name-drop with no meat to it. Which just adds to the iPhone buzz, really. Meanwhile, Sun's product (whether it's software or a specific phone) grabs a little attention, but goes back to being boring as soon as you're finished reading the article.

Re:How is jPhone like iPhone?

[mobby_6kl]

> How is jPhone like iPhone?

Well, maybe it will feature crappy talk time, a non-replaceable battery, and a useless, locked down OS?

Re:How is jPhone like iPhone?

[sim60]

TFA says Sun has "debuted software for a high-end cellphone that looked very similar to the Apple iPhone" but there are no pictures. In fact, I combed the web for more stories about this and none seem to have any pictures.

"Debuted Software" - You want pictures of the source code maybe?

Re:How is jPhone like iPhone?

[Lazerf4rt]

No, I wanted pictures of the "high-end cellphone that looked very similar to the Apple iPhone". You know, the other part of that sentence you quoted. The part which it makes sense to take a picture of.

Anyway, another commenter provided some links. Looks like a cute phone actually. However, the Sun guy's blog lays it on a little thick for a company that's just shoe-horning a VM and some libs into an existing phone. Or whatever. Actually, it looks like it was already a whole existing phone-family platform before Sun modified it.

Re:How is jPhone like iPhone?

[sim60]

No, I wanted pictures of the "high-end cellphone that looked very similar to the Apple iPhone".

Oh, right, fair enough. I blame the jet lag myself.

I love this...

[Jasin Natael]

This is the same kind of hype that surrounded Java itself at its inception. We were all going to have Java Thin Clients, and Java programming would be so universal and so compatible, that it wouldn't matter what kind of computer you chose to run -- the free OS could run Java, too, so there would never be a need to pay for Windows just so you could run the same amazing Java Apps! Scott McNealy and Larry Ellison were each talking about how Java would change the distribution model of software, so that you never "installed" software again, you just had client libraries that were synced into a cache on disk when you first used a particular feature in some software you obtained, and as necessary thereafter.

Java is slow. Java has had over 10 years to become what it claimed to be. Unless this phone is running compiled Java, either performance or battery life are going to suffer. And if it *is* running on compiled Java, then I just have to ask how that's any better than the iPhone's objective-C, no matter how optimal Sun's compiler settings are?

I love how everything is an 'iPhone killer', too. As if Apple doesn't have skilled engineers and designers, the pundits think that every new product announced to compete with it is already better, while Apple (who have been working on the thing for 2 1/2 years!) aren't yet satisfied with the phone's quality. Everybody remember "The Mythical Man-Month"? Just because Sun, or Oracle, or Microsoft, or any company has 12,000% more developers than the competition, doesn't necessarily mean they can produce a better product. Actually, it's almost invariably the opposite. So calm down. The absolute first moment when there can be an 'iPhone killer' is when there is an iPhone in consumers' hands to be killed. Until then, it's only a battle of proposed specifications.

Re:I love this...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Java is slow."

Completely worthless statement. Slow compared to what? Slow to do what? FUD. FUD. FUD.

I understand that you may not like Java but back it up with a real argument.

Re:I love this...

[Paulrothrock]

I've recently started programming web apps in Java for work and I have to say I'm unimpressed. In the time it's taken me to read instructions on how to get a development environment up and running on either Windows or OS X, I could have started doing actual work with PHP, Ruby on Rails, TurboGears or *shudder* ASP.NET.

I look at it and think "Jeez, does it really need to be this freaking complicated?"

Re:I love this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting paychecks working in .Net much...

Java not compiled :-D

BTW...how come I don't see stories on /. about the TUX 500 effort.

Re:I love this...

[gstoddart]

Java is slow. Java has had over 10 years to become what it claimed to be. Unless this phone is running compiled Java, either performance or battery life are going to suffer.

Who doesn't run compiled Java?

It's not exactly an interpreted language.

It's a real question, I'm not trying to be difficult. I've just never seen Java deployed in such a way that it wasn't compiled first.

Cheers

Re:I love this...

[glwtta]

"Jeez, does it really need to be this freaking complicated?"

That's a perfectly valid question that you should ask when picking a language/framework to use. If your webapp is simple enough to significantly benefit from what RoR provides, then anything from the Java stack is likely to be overkill. In other words, yeah, if the time to install your environment is noticeable compared to the total time you will spend on the project, then by all means go with the simplest thing possible.

When it's appropriate, J2EE can provide some damn nice tools, though.

Re:I love this...

[glwtta]

I think he must've meant natively compiled (ie JIT), though I don't see why Sun would disable that functionality in the phone VM either.

Re:I love this...

[Paulrothrock]

Well, that's all well and good, but how do you learn it? If it takes days to get an environment running, how do you learn the language in a reasonable amount of time? I remember a couple years ago I wanted to learn JSP because a lot of employers were asking for experience in it. By the end of the day, I was about halfway through configuring Eclipse before I gave up.

I saw the screen cast on Ruby on Rails and decided I wanted to learn it, so I sat down and followed a quick set of instructions and had my own application done in a couple hours. I've yet to find a screencast of someone going from nothing to a working blog engine in JSP or Spring/Hibernate.

Re:I love this...

[LDoggg_]

I've been doing java development for almost ten years now, so I may be a little biased, but it's not all that difficult to get started doing server and client side java.

You need 3 things: an app server, a JVM, and a good IDE.

Using all free(mostly speech,some beer) stuff here's an example:

Download and install the latest JDK. I recommend SE 1.6(no EE, or netbeans)
Download and unzip/untar the latest eclipse with webtools bundle.
Download and unzip/untar the latest tomcat

Now fire up the eclipse executable, go to the workbench and create a new project of type "dynamic web project". It'll ask you to select which app server, and you can point to tomcat from there.
Now you've got a dev enviroment for java, jsp, webservices, etc with all the goodies like debugging and code assist.

To deploy just right-click the project and export as a war file that you can place into another app server.

Re:I love this...

[glwtta]

By the end of the day, I was about halfway through configuring Eclipse before I gave up.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to learn about Eclipse than about JSP (which, of course, sucks donkey wang). Personally, I like to start with the basics when learning something new (ie plain text editor, build and package by hand, etc), before getting into the fancy IDEs that do everything for you. It's hard to keep track of what the IDE is doing if you don't know why it's doing it.

I saw the screen cast on Ruby on Rails and decided I wanted to learn it, so I sat down and followed a quick set of instructions and had my own application done in a couple hours.

Which makes sense, because RoR's raison d'etre is to make it trivially easy to throw together a trivial application. Other frameworks may "front-load" a lot more complexity in the expectation that your application will need to scale. At least that's the theory.

I've yet to find a screencast of someone going from nothing to a working blog engine in JSP or Spring/Hibernate.

I thought their little tutorial (http://www.springframework.org/docs/MVC-step-by-s tep/Spring-MVC-step-by-step.html) covered the basics pretty well. Though I think the only way to learn this sort of thing is in the context of a real (and non-trivial) project - if you reimplement a ~10 KLOC Perl/DBI CGI app in Spring/Hibernate, you might start seeing the advantages :)

Re:I love this...

[Paulrothrock]

That's part of the issue: There's too many freaking options. If you're running PHP, you have two choices. If you're running Ruby on Rails, you've got one choice. With Java there's hundreds of choices to make and without experience you have no idea where to begin. It took me weeks to figure out how to get a JSP page to query a database, and I'm pretty sure I'm doing it wrong.

And I've found that Eclipse doesn't "fire up" so much as "smolder."

Re:I love this...

[LDoggg_]

Competition is a good thing. I happen to like eclipse+tomcat right now, but I've used plenty others in the past. There may be hundreds of options, but you only have to pick the ones you like
There's actually plenty more PHP options than you may think as well. You can even use eclipse as the IDE(which runs fine on hardware less than 6 years old or so, BTW). I'm no rails expert, but if you say there's only one way to do it, I'm staying away from it for now.

It's funny that you mention that JSP database querying was difficult. This is one area that java clearly has php beat. Sure there's a million different frameworks for doing things at a high level, but at the low level, Sun has done a much better job at standardizing database connectivity. JDBC is typically pure java so connecting to it and running a simple SQL statement isn't the nightmare that say connection to oracle from a PHP page on a linux server is.

The thing is, once you've gotten to where you're wrtiting large applications in server-side java, you find that writing that type of code in JSP directly isn't nearly as productive as using a framework that just grabs a connection out of a pool and gives you an instance of an object that represents the data you want to manage and provides for Model-View seperation. Starting at that point may seem overwhelming, but you can always start just following simple things like JDBC tutorials on Sun's site.

mod up

[Billly Gates]

I was wondering about this.

Why buy a sun phone? And if Sun is ready for an ajax and flash killer with javaFX then it needs to be ported to other operating systems for phones. It makes sense to develop an OS.

However it would be nicest to just develop JavaFX for multiple operating systems so it can become a standard. Otherwise it will be usless like .net mobile. .Net mobile kicks ass but market share is way too limited to develop on it as it requires windows.

Re:mod up

[superpulpsicle]

Sun claims to have new innovations every week. Remember the java-oriented special processor that Sun wanted to release but never saw the light of day.

Re:mod up

[icknay]

The Sun phone is interesting because JavaFX is open and open source, while Flash and Microsoft Silverlight are both very proprietary. I would love a rich-UI environment for phones devices etc. that is a standard and has an open source implementation. That said, JavaFX has to prove it actually works well (I've seen Java run great on teeny devices, so I know it's possible ... probably by just dedicating a meg of ram to it)... ultimately the openness of the platform is potentially a real game-changing feature compared to Adobe/Microsoft lock-in.

Dude, I'll write this down somewhere, and

[melted]

Dude, I'll write this down somewhere, and post it on Slashdot by the end of the year. My prediction is, iPhone will sell like wildfire all over the world, easily outpacing the iPod sales. In fact, I'm so sure of this, I've put all my dough into Apple stock.

Re:Dude, I'll write this down somewhere, and

[Anonymous Coward]

I can save you time. Cingular/ATT won't be selling the iPhone "all over the world", primarily the U.S.

Killer app

[dazedNconfuzed]

A phone.

I just want a phone.

I just want to make/take calls.

Get the little things right.

Make it trivial - I mean easy like breathing - to place a call by numbers, voice, contact list, repeat/callback, etc., all mode-less.

Incoming calls should just happen. Dorking around with finding the phone and/or earpiece and determining which one is activated ... please just make that nonsense stop. Again, mode-less.

Get the order of things right. Don't show me "do you want to access voicemail?" before "these people called" - I don't want to waste time dorking around with voicemail when it could have showed me that the calls I missed are ones I don't want to deal with now. Don't display "you missed one call", show me who called.

Memory is cheap. There's no reason for the call history list to end, much less end at just 25 calls. Put that info to work - data-mine it! When scrolling thru contacts, show me the most common contacts first; alphabetical order means I see that entry every time even though I haven't called that number in two years. Help me get to the numbers I want; there's enough processing power, use it smartly. Keep every number incoming and outgoing, and go fetch related data ASAP to tell me more.

Stop teasing me with demo functions. I bought an appliance; don't treat it like the fourth toaster slot only works for 30 days, then I have to pay extra monthly for it.

Stretch that battery life. Cut the cuteness; give me something that works for a long time between charges.

It's not a TV, GPS, IM, etc. - just give me totally smooth PHONE functionality.

And for Pete's sake: show the current time while I'm talking! Why do phones suddenly lose the pocketwatch function right when I'm most likely to need it to make arrangements with someone? I finally had to go back to wearing a watch precisely because the phone wouldn't show the time when most needed, even though it shows time 99.99% of the time?

Re:Killer app

[hmarq]

I've no mod points, but +1

Well said.

Re:Killer app

[Anonymous Coward]

"I just want a phone."

This was the most important point in Jobs' Macworld premiere of the iPhone - he said that the killer app for this was the ability to make phone calls.

Re:Killer app

[gemada]

buy a business blackberry if you want something that "just works".

Re:Killer app

[drew]

If you want incoming calls to "just happen" without having to find your phone first, I think you need to start talking to some quantum mechanics researchers, not the electronics companies that make the current generation of phones.

Re:Killer app

[Anonymous Coward]

Where have you been? Under a rock?

Go to cnet, AT&T, Verizon, etc....get yourself the LG's VX8000 (it so new I bought it two years ago). It shows you the time while you're talking, I have a call history that goes back to January 1st....it use to go longer but I deleted it when I realized there was a reason I hadn't called those people in 2 years. I'd tell you to quite whining and lurking on slashdot and go do some freaking research, you might actually find your needs have already been met, but this is slashdot, I might as well be asking everyone to go outside and enjoy the sun (myself included).

Re:Killer app

[l0b0]

Some additional things which would be great:

• Easy switching between input languages when writing SMSes. Some people are multilingual. Also, if I can change the interface language to X, it should also be available for SMS typing.
• Configurable defaults. I very much disagree that sorting by last name is optimal.
• Get rid of all the cruft. Games & camera at least. Leave the browser and calendar, but make sure they can be hidden.
• Use a single USB cable to charge & connect the device. I really don't want another (otherwise) useless piece of hardware taking up another plug.
• Use existing standards. iCal and iCard are perfect for synchronizing devices.
• Cut down the boot time by suspending to memory. I don't want to wait 30 seconds for my phone to be usable.
• Never, ever show me a number if there is a corresponding name.
• I've got a French phone. Thus, I should not have to type the French country code if I'm in another country. Auto-negotiate or save the country code in the phone.

My POS Samsung D600 does none of these. Bastards.

Re:more than a feeling

[MS-06FZ]

What if you need to call 911, and some strange app crashes your phone? See, that's Apple's excuse - the reason they give so that customers will feel the decision makes sense for them. The actual reason they don't want the platform to be open is because they want to retain control. They don't want, for instance, users to install some video player that would reduce iPhone users' dependence on iTunes video service.

And, you know what, I have a Treo. I don't need "some strange app" to crash my phone, the built-in Treo software does a pretty good job of that already. It sucks how that happens. But you know what the answer is? When your phone crashes, you wait for it to reboot (about 15-20 seconds) and you call again. Sure, you don't want that happening in a real emergency situation, but if it did, there are effective ways of dealing with the problem.

Hungarian

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or will a Hungarian include a leather-strap handle and call it the hPhone?"

You mean the hStrLPtrPhone* dont you? (far pointer to a handle to a leader strap)

Anyway, the Hungarian variant should obviously be called the sarkoPhône.

Screw the phone

[us7892]

Excellent. I could not agree more. Exactly what I've been saying for a long time. There are so many usability issues. The same "mistakes" are made over and over and over again. And don't get me started on the actual "quality" of the call. And STOP nickle-and-diming me on everything!

Ya know, give me a cheap handheld web browser, that's what I want...screw the phone.

So why?

[fm6]

Which changes the question from "Why does Sun think it can compete with Apple" to "Why does Sun think there's room in the market for another Phone OS?" Carriers are already complaining that there are too many.

Come back when you have Nokia in board

[Iloinen Lohikrme]

I won't buy any hype about Sun's Java Mobile FX nor any hype about Apple's iPhone nor newest offering from Microsoft. The reality in the mobile phone market is that to make any everlasting impact in mobile phone industry, especially when we are talking handsets and software, is that you either have to have Nokias's support or Samsung, Motorola and Sony-Ericsson hoping in board of your technology. Yes the technology itself might be interesting and even working as it should be, but if you are only offering it via few manufacturers or have only few handsets, even if you can make it a hit product, Nokia and others will just come and copy and lower prices and offer 30+ different handsets and kill you.

I also don't see so much business sense in Sun's move in here. I could understand if Sun would make Java Mobile FX mobile stack free as shared source or industry specification and use it's leverage as server and application server manufacturer to sell it's own servers and software to mobile phone vendors and to mobile carries: i.e. "all the killer applications use Java Mobile FX, would you be interested on our Java Mobile FX optimized solutions for your enterprise stack".

The distorted reality is ...

[surrealestate]

... that you are looking at this device as a phone, rather than as a very advanced iPod that just happens to also have phone features.

The original iPods were very expensive, the first iPod with a color screen, the photo iPod, sold for $599. The video iPods also debuted at that high a price.

This device has 4 times the screen real estate, which will make iTunes video look great, and a novel UI. Not only that, but the photo features put the original photo iPods to shame. Having a photo iPod with a camera included is a big win. Add on top of that the normal iPod functionality of playing music, and the integration with iTunes to access video and audio podCasts.

It's a pretty compelling device right there, but it's also a wireless iPod that will let you browse the Internet.

And, it's a phone with a couple of fairly novel features, like visual voice mail.

Put all these things together with sufficient miniturization and build quality, and it's not that expensive a device. The current video iPods have gone down in price to $249 or $349, but started out more expensive. You're getting a lot of iPod for your money, and the phone for free. The build quality of the iPod and form factor made it inexplicably compelling for the price, so thinking about this device in that fashion will help explain why it's likely to be a big hit. It's the first iPod device that really justifies a $499 price tag, in my book.

Picture and description here...

[davecb]

About half-way down the page at
  http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/when_not_where
And it's a platform for apps on handheld hardware, so
it's arguably pretty much just a JVM and some support
libs.

--dave

Indeed

[mattgreen]

I look at the 'solutions' that people use, and most of them look like an engineer's pet project that got a bit out of hand and needs to be frozen two versions back. It is always the same nonsense: six XML config files controlling some overly generic engine that uses reflection to automagically do something that only took a couple of lines of code. And don't forget you need to distribute four megs of JAR files with your app to save you those ten lines of code!

Unfortunately the Java community is enamored with this sort of thing, citing it as 'elegant.' There's nothing elegant about something that doesn't Just Work.

Savaje

[HTH NE1]

"Sun Microsystems is here to talk about it's code, `savage'."

"That's not it's name!"

"I'm sorry, its code, `sah-vah-hey'."

"No, no, no! It's spelt `sah-vah-hey' but it's pronounced `Throatwarbler Mangrove'."

Smartphone Surfin'...

[LEX LETHAL]

Is there a smartphone version of Slashdot? Where can I get a list of WM5 smartphone-friendly websites?

tricorder

[ZirbMonkey]

So... will the star trek tricorder be apple or java based? My vote is towards java. I just hope they don't stick in DRM or locked out "subscription only" features.

DIY JavaLinux?

[Doc Ruby]

Sun has now opened the source to nearly all of Java, while Linux's source is of course all open. Running Java bytecodes calling Java APIs in a VM that then calls native Linux APIs means there's still plenty of "translation" and stacking/calling/jumping overhead and complexity in the usual OS/app config.

So has anyone hybridized the Java VM with the Linux kernel itself? Directly mapping Java APIs called by app/let bytecodes onto Linux APIs. Maybe just Java integrated to the kernel in a "shell VM", the way that bash scripts are interpreted and run against the kernel, but precompiled into bytecode "binaries" run by the Java "shell". But there might be really interesting power gained by making Java the primary OS/app programming language, rather than the traditional C code. And Java apps might get better performance, lower overall runtime complexity, and/or just a more complete API than just the Java ones.

Has anyone tried this yet? Dare I call it "Lava", or "Livux"?

Re:DIY JavaLinux?

[setagllib]

https://jinux.dev.java.net/

I don't know how useful it is, but I haven't heard of anyone actually using it either.

Who actually cares? JIT+VM-in-kernel has been available for many years in the form of Inferno, and nobody cared then either.

Besides, we already have reasonably light-weight runtimes for Python, Ruby, etc. that perform on embedded devices, with infinitely more expressive power than Java. Even Sun appreciates this and is integrating expressive, dynamic languages into future JDK releases, but the typical JVM runtime is still way too heavy to be useful for embedded work and the stripped ones still take up too much space to fit a dynamic language platform on top, let alone execute it fast enough to be useful.

the iPhone better have psychic dialling

[argent]

My old Nokia "brick" phone did "just make phone calls" at least as well as anything and better than most of the phones I've used since. I can't imagine what the iPhone could possibly do that would "just make phone calls" significantly better than that.

For $600, it better have psychic dialling. Thet can lose the screen completely... I should be able to yank it out, say "get me paul", and have it know (a) whether I want my brother in law, my son's best friend, or any of three or four other "paul"s in my address book, (b) know what phone number that's most likely to get them right then, (c) handle wrong numbers and their holiday schedule automatically, and (d) do all this without me or any of the "paul"s involved having to mess around with some kind of website, services, or other geek interfaces.

You know, like on Star Trek.

I can't think of ANYTHING it could do with anything less than Federation technology that's going to improve "just make phone calls" enough to justify the price.

Re:the iPhone better have psychic dialling

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of ANYTHING it could do with anything less than Federation technology that's going to improve "just make phone calls" enough to justify the price.

And the iPod costs $500 and only plays music? Lame.

Re:the iPhone better have psychic dialling

[argent]

Two points:

1. There are iPod models from $80 on up.
2. If you want the iPhone as a music player, then you're not getting it to "just make phone calls".

Screw the iPhone

[lightversusdark]

My next phone's gonna have CDE!

Our New Javadigm(c) (Java Paradigm) Catchphrase

[lymib]

"Java Sun. Java. Java. Setting the standard for two years, and playing catch-up for the last twenty. Java. Java."

OMG, this is just what I need!

[Anonymous Coward]

A phone running more Java then it already does. Seriously though, the last thing we need in a cell phone is more Java. Java is slow, and leads to laggy interfaces that make me want to cry. How can anyone get excited when they hear about a cellphone running Java.

Apple hearts Java

[Gary W. Longsine]

Apple doesn't hate Java. WebObjects, a pure Java development framework made by Apple (fka "NeXT") is the foundation of the iTunes Music Store. Apple loves Java. LOVES IT I SAY!

As owner of 3 Macs, let me tell you something: Apple HATES Java, always hated and that is why we are stuck on Java 5 while the people using platform which tried to kill Java are enjoying Java 6 final release.

Re:Apple hearts Java

[FatherOfONe]

You didn't answer his main point.

Why has Apple not updated to Java 6 when it has been out for a long time?

I will add some more questions but first let me say that I just bought a Mac Pro and am a Java developer. I personally will have no problem removing OSX and installing Windows XP or Ubuntu on it if Apple doesn't address this issue soon.

1. Why does Apple not mention Java at all in their programming features of their new OS? They mention Ruby, Objective C and others but not one mention of Java.

2. Why are they stuck on build 88 of the developer release (NDA required) of Java 6 for OSX and it hasen't been updated in forever?

3. Why is it that Apple appears to tie JVM updates to the OS as opposed to Microsoft Windows, Linux and Solaris? So, if I want to develop a cool web start application in Java 6 this year and release it after OSX 10.5 is released (and thus Java 6), Macintosh users will be forced to upgrade their entire OS just to run this application. Yet someone running Windows 2k, a 7 year old OS will run it fine. Even a RedHat 7.3 OS would run it!

Please explain these so I can better understand how Apple loves Java. With Java you are not locked in to any particular platform and it is clear that a lot of desktop companies don't like that. Microsoft and Apple being the two I am talking about. I am not saying that all of Apple hates Java; in fact I am sure that there are some great Java developers and projects going on. I believe this comes from higher up.
Steve Jobs basically said that Java was a "ball and chain"... Now did he mean it on a phone? or overall? If most of the Apple community developed in Java then moving to Linux or even "gasp" Windows would be very easy and I am sure that doesn't sit well with him.

I believe that Sun should take over Java development for OSX and I personally wouldn't care if it wasn't as "cool" or fast, but at least then I could be safe in saying that most modern OSX systems would run modern Java.

Please before any Apple fanboys start flaming me, remember I just sunk around 4k of my own money on a Macintosh. This is the computer I will be living with for the next 3-5 years.

re:Under a Rock?

[ChimaObialo]

Do all of these ridiculously innovative features exist on any other model besides the vx8000? I got the vx8300 from Verizon in January. It doesn't show you the clock while you are talking. My phone keeps lists of missed, received, and dialed calls. Each list is only 30 entries long. That means my missed and dialed only go back to April, and my received makes it to March.

Either you don't make many calls or you underestimate the crippling which VzW, etc. puts on their wares.

Multiple Independently Targeted Trolls (MITT)

[Gary W. Longsine]

A more honest assessment of the state of Java on cell phones would paint a little less rosy of a picture than you paint, even as you've tempered it with such earth-tone phrases as "you dumb fuck".

Nowhere near the sum of the roughly 2 Billion cell phones in use today employ Java in the "3rd party apps" sense that people use when attempting to pre-emptively trash the iPhone. In fact, a bunch of them neither support nor use Java at all. We're really talking about higher end phones when we talk about 3rd party apps, for example.

Moreover, the vast majority of even the most expensive higher end Phones which do support 3rd party Java apps never see such an app installed in the entire lifetime of the phone.

I happen to know a few rational and technically saavy people who have experience both using and programming on every major cell phone platform. The fact is all major cell phone platfrom available today suck, which leaves a market opportunity for new players. ( These people love Java. Love it. Regular Java "boosters" even.) Yes, the described problems occur on some phones -- extremely slow response when Java apps are loaded, phones crashing when running 3rd party apps, various quirks that get resolved when the phone is rebooted, etc. Anybody who claims that thse problems have never occured with 2 Billion cell phones running Java, frankly, reveals themself as someone who hasn't been paying attention, or knows the truth and would prefer to troll than engage in a serious discussion.

The worst part of the current cell phone marketplace is that most cell phone manufacturers and service providers have decided that they don't want you to have easy access to firmware fixes because they would rather sell you a new handset, with different bugs. This problem will be solved by the iPhone, because Apple has made it clear that they intend to actually support and update the software on the device.

I for one welcome our new sofware-feature-adding, interface-usability-hoot-giving, screen-touching, bug-fixing cell phone firmware-updating OSX overlords.

Keep talking...

[That's Unpossible!]

Why bother competing with the iPhone? 99% of it's features are useless to the average user. It's doomed to fail like the Mac Cube did. It targets an extremely small group of people, made smaller by vendor lock-in (via AT&T), you can't replace the battery which is a massive problem with something that needs to be charged as often as a color screened handheld device running a near full blown version of OSX. Don't get me wrong here, the idea is neat but with a 500-600$ price tag it's utterly pointless.

Keep talking... The road to consumer envy is paved with geeks like you who think Apple's latest idea (whatever it may be) is "lame." Let's come back to this thread in one year and see how you fare. The product isn't even to market yet, and in your eyes it's already a failure.

You're shorting the stock right? I'm long. Let's see how we do in a year. (I'm up 16% since April 20, btw.)

I find it interesting that it's features are "useless." Really? Then why are people fawning after these features? They've seen what it can do, it's not like it's a mystery. Look if a product is hyped and all you've got is whitepapers and rumors, then yeah that's bullshit. But this product has been seen, reviewed hands-on by some journalists even, and a lengthy demo given.

And don't get me wrong -- I have no plans to buy an iPhone, I like the BlackBerry for now. But I can also see why people are excited about the iPhone. They love iPods. They love phones. They love Apple's designs and user interfaces. Combine those together and you've got a potential consumer juggernaut.

Do you really think this phone will be $500/$600 in a year's time? Hell, I doubt it will cost anyone that much in June.

I know people will buy these devices but not nearly enough to make the market profitable.

Well since Apple makes a profit on every device, I think you are probably WRONG.

Maybe it's just me. I personally hate cell phones and use mine only to talk to my girlfriend and parents or for roadside emergencies. Everyone else can wait till I get home. My 10 years of being on-call in the IT business probably biased me also. Regardless, I don't see the point to these devices.

OK, I get it now ... you're just one of those guys. Let me guess, you don't own a TV and you fart granola? I am glad you included the last paragraph though, it really puts your initial views into context.

Waiting for ruby phone or python phone instead

[kentsin]

Why not?

An answer to what?

[suv4x4]

"An anonymous reader writes to tell us that this week at the JavaOne Conference, Sun debuted it's answer to the iPhone."

Who asked the question? Or maybe it's just a Java phone and not necessarily "an answer to iPhone"? Or is this too complex for a journalist to assimilate.

Sun won't make a phone

[Anonymous Coward]

"While it is still months away from being a reality this phone is set to put them in direct competition with some of the top cellphone vendors."

To remove any ambiguity, I think the submitter is saying that Sun will sell Java Mobile FX to the top cellphone vendors so they can build devices to sell in competition with the iPhone.

Snore

[BigLinuxGuy]

OK, let's take it apart and see what's really going on here.....

The Sun page on the topic describes it as a scripting language (JavaFX Script) and a mobile platform (JavaFX Mobile). Hmmm, wow, a new scripting language. A new mobile platform. Ok, the latter might be interesting since J2ME is, and has always been a fragmented steaming pile serving tribute to Sun's efforts to sell more servers (heard that from a lot of ex-Sun guys, not just my observation).

So let's take a peek at JavaFX Mobile. Now according to their architectural diagram, they are using a Linux kernel with their JVM and a lot of frameworks and APIs. That aren't on any devices. And most likely not on any wireless operators' device roadmaps.

So the solution to the fragmentation of J2ME (which was really an effort to sell more servers, see above) is not to fix the J2ME spec, but to roll out a Linux-based stack (and play down its position as being the hardware "integration/management" layer) and play up the Sun "mobile" JVM as the cure for all of those nasty fragmentation issues.

With Java losing much of its "promise" due to broken "promises", I think I'll continue to pass.......

But your mileage (especially if you are a member of the Cult of Java religion) may vary....

Jee Jods!

[A nonymous Coward]

Ju don't say!

I drew one of these 7 years ago. jPhone FTW!

[tod_miller]

The last 5 years I have been hoping Sun would make a foray into consumer devices. Having powered 1 billion consumer devices with their Java technology, I am keen to see what this will come out as.

It must be... 6-7 years ago I did a 3d mock-up of large display device, much like the iPhone, but with a java logo and a sun logo where the typical ubuntu/osx app buttons are. Back then I just thought, this is a technology company, developer friendly, if they gave something we could REALLY take over on the consumer market, it will fly.

I am more excited than the news of the iPhone, and that is saying something.

jPhone FTW! \o/

Apple hearts Java (sh! they secretly hate Java!)

[Gary W. Longsine]

Why has Apple not updated to Java 6 when it has been out for a long time?

Because Apple is secretly trying to wean developers off of Java. They secretly hate Java, even though they write and maintain one of the most visible signs that Java even exists (the iTunes Music Store on WebObjects, a pure Java development framework) and probably the largest single revenue generating Java application of all time (especially considering that the iPod phenomenon wouldn't have happened without iTMS).

I will add some more questions but first let me say that I just bought a Mac Pro and am a Java developer. I personally will have no problem removing OSX and installing Windows XP or Ubuntu on it if Apple doesn't address this issue soon.

Good, because Apple secretly hates anybody so reactionary that it wouldn't occur to them to run Linux or Solaris or Windows XP under a virtual environment for a while if they like Mac OS X but want to do some development on the tips of Java 6.

1. Why does Apple not mention Java at all in their programming features of their new OS? They mention Ruby, Objective C and others but not one mention of Java.

Because Apple secretly hates Java. The most super-secrete of the special secret Leopard features is that it will support... no Java! The Java runtime and libraries which take up too much hard disk space will be removed from the distribution so that it will fit on the iPhone.

2. Why are they stuck on build 88 of the developer release (NDA required) of Java 6 for OSX and it hasn't been updated in forever?

Because Apple are trying to drop a few hints to those developers who can carefully read the tea leaves. If you're smart, you'll be migrating your mountain of Pure Java 6 applications to Cocoa to be ready for Leopard. Oh, and ultimately because Apple secretly hates Java.

3. Why is it that Apple appears to tie JVM updates to the OS as opposed to Microsoft Windows, Linux and Solaris? So, if I want to develop a cool web start application in Java 6 this year and release it after OSX 10.5 is released (and thus Java 6), Macintosh users will be forced to upgrade their entire OS just to run this application. Yet someone running Windows 2k, a 7 year old OS will run it fine. Even a RedHat 7.3 OS would run it!

It seems unlikely to me that anyone running anything on Windows 2k, a 7 year old OS, will run anything "fine" but I guess you're entitled to your opinion. It's because Apple hates Java, and they hate people who run a 7 year old OS, even if it's Mac OS. Parity would require Java 6 support on Mac OS 8, so basically you and the horse you rode in on can go get, uhm, acquainted while you're waiting for parity with absurd design decisions made by Windows developers in the bowels of Sun for reasons that have nothing to do with the Macintosh platform.

Oh, and why do you think this is relevant?

Please before any Apple fanboys start flaming me, remember I just sunk around 4k of my own money on a Macintosh. This is the computer I will be living with for the next 3-5 years.

No, on second thought, don't answer that.

Re:Apple hearts Java (sh! they secretly hate Java!

[FatherOfONe]

I was not trying to start a flame war, my questions didn't deserve snide remarks.

My first question.
1. Why does Apple not mention Java at all in their programming features of their new OS? They mention Ruby, Objective C and others but not one mention of Java.

Your response...
"Because Apple is secretly trying to wean developers off of Java. They secretly hate Java, even though they write and maintain one of the most visible signs that Java even exists (the iTunes Music Store on WebObjects, a pure Java development framework) and probably the largest single revenue generating Java application of all time (especially considering that the iPod phenomenon wouldn't have happened without iTMS)."

Google and Ebay are Java based but I get your point. Also, as I said there are a TON of people within Apple that love Java and work hard on it. However, the overall message that is being sent from Steve Jobs is that he isn't a big fan of Java on the desktop or cell phone. Do you disagree? You also dodged my question of why they don't even mention it on their developer page for 10.5. One of the largest programming languages in the world and you don't even mention it?

My question 2

2. Why are they stuck on build 88 of the developer release (NDA required) of Java 6 for OSX and it hasn't been updated in forever?

Your response...
"Because Apple secretly hates Java. The most super-secrete of the special secret Leopard features is that it will support... no Java! The Java runtime and libraries which take up too much hard disk space will be removed from the distribution so that it will fit on the iPhone."

Um, I guess you were trying to be funny. Java 6 will "probably" be out on Mac OSX 10.5 but that isn't until October at the earliest. It isn't unreasonable to think it will be after that, much like Java 5 was. Now Steve Jobs allowing Java "the old ball and chain" on his precious Iphone... That is funny. So funny it is sad.

My next question
2. Why are they stuck on build 88 of the developer release (NDA required) of Java 6 for OSX and it hasn't been updated in forever?

Your response...
"Because Apple are trying to drop a few hints to those developers who can carefully read the tea leaves. If you're smart, you'll be migrating your mountain of Pure Java 6 applications to Cocoa to be ready for Leopard. Oh, and ultimately because Apple secretly hates Java."

I assume you mean Objective C in your answer. The last part may actually be true for Steve Jobs. Who knows? It wouldn't take much for Apple to make some formal announcement on this issue. It has only been 10 freaking months, and tons of people are asking about it. Would it take too much to say "We will only support Java 6 on 10.5" or "We want to focus our developers to objective c on our platform and we will continue to support Java but for development of desktop products we recommend not using it". Um on second thought that is the message they are sending out by NOT answering any of these questions.

My last question..
3. Why is it that Apple appears to tie JVM updates to the OS as opposed to Microsoft Windows, Linux and Solaris? So, if I want to develop a cool web start application in Java 6 this year and release it after OSX 10.5 is released (and thus Java 6), Macintosh users will be forced to upgrade their entire OS just to run this application. Yet someone running Windows 2k, a 7 year old OS will run it fine. Even a RedHat 7.3 OS would run it!

"It seems unlikely to me that anyone running anything on Windows 2k, a 7 year old OS, will run anything "fine" but I guess you're entitled to your opinion. It's because Apple hates Java, and they hate people who run a 7 year old OS, even if it's Mac OS. Parity would require Java 6 support on Mac OS 8, so basically you and the horse you rode in on can go get, uhm, acquainted while you're waiting for parity with absurd design decisions made by Windows developers in the bowels of Su

Who said anything about Cingular

[melted]

Others will be selling it elsewhere. My point is, it'll be a Wii like situation - Apple won't be able to make them quickly enough. Believe it or not, paying $600 for a cell phone is not an unheard of thing in some parts of the world. Paying $80 a month for a contract is.

Re:Apple hearts Java (sh! they secretly hate Java!

[Gary W. Longsine]

Um, I guess you were trying to be funny.

Yeah, I was trying to be funny.
Apple has left plenty of room for criticism in its treatment of WebObjects and Java. I am sympathetic to your chief complaint, that Apple doesn't keep up with developments in Java in a timely manner.

Re:Under a Rock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having not used the other phones, I don't know if they have the same capabilities. I probably make less calls than most people, but I just counted my history and it has a list of my last 90 phone calls.