An Open-Source Java Port To iPhone?

An anonymous reader writes "With the first anniversary of open-source Java coming up November 13, a Sun official believes the project could bear a fruit much sought-after in the Java community: a Java port to the Apple iPhone. Apple has not released a version of Java capable of running on the popular device. But Sun's Terrence Barr, technical evangelist for the Java mobile and embedded community, believes Apple's plans to release an SDK for iPhone in early 2008 may result in the open-source phoneME version of Java ME winding up on iPhone."

Comments

Why?

[tji]

I have not found any really compelling Java apps on my desktops (Linux and Mac OS), are there really any reasons for needing them on my phone?

Especially given the fact that getting a java port relies on having an open SDK for the iPhone -- meaning native apps can be produced. So, if there are native apps, why would we want Java?

Also, is my impression of Java outdated? Is it not slow, bloated (JRE + app), and have an ugly UI?

Re:Why?

[davester666]

Well, Seapine software seems to make their non-Windows client software using Java, and just for simple configuration tasks [ie, click a button to bring up a dialog to change a password], their apps were dog slow. But their server software crashed so much we had to switch to another product, that I have a very low opinion of their ability to code.

But yes, this is off topic w.r.t. Java on the iPhone.

However, what's the point of trying to get Java on the iPhone, other than to load craplets onto it.

If you're going to bother making a first-class application, where it looks and behaves similar to Apple's iPhone applications, you're already making the UI totally iPhone-specific. And the back-end code can easily be in C [possibly even C++].