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Sun To Build World's Biggest App Store Around Java
CWmike writes "Sun Micro plans to launch an App Store that could make Apple's look smaller than a 7-Eleven by comparison, CEO Jonathan Schwartz wrote on his blog this week. Schwartz indicated the Java App Store, code-named Project Vector, will focus on PC users and estimated the size of the community at 1 billion. Sun plans to allow Java application developers to submit programs to a simple Web site so the company can evaluate them for safety and content before presenting them to the Java audience. Sun will charge for distribution. The company will reveal more details at its JavaOne conference, which opens June 2 in San Francisco, Schwartz said."
I think this is a great idea, but it raises a lot of questions. Like... if it takes Apple a week to make sure a calculator app is safe enough for the iPhone, how is Sun going to review desktop-size apps in any reasonable amount of time?
One thing about the iphone, love it or hate it, is that the apps on it all use the same constrained user interface, and thus many of the same ui widgets and conventions.
This, for users, makes Apple app store apps EASY TO USE.
Also, each one is resource constrained, and ui constrained, so it is SINGLE PURPOSE, making it trivial to explain and no fuss to use.
People can get started using their app easily and are seldom disappointed, and NEVER confused in their attempt to use the app. It just works.
And it costs from 0 to $5 bucks (vast majority).
The above are REQUIREMENTS for a mass consumer software distribution infrastructure.
I hope sun doesn't screw up by allowing freedom to put whatever the heck program you want on there, following whatever ui conventions you want, and with 100 buttons each.
EPIC FAIL if so.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I take everything Sun says these days with 10 grains of salt. They still have some great products but they are not without their problems. They talk everything up big and have grandiose plans that have sometimes proven to be vaporware.
I was at a Sun Developer Day earlier this week. In a room full of 600+ people they took a show of hands about who was using JavaFX (almost no one) and MySQL (10%). They then proceeded to do 1.5 hour long in depth sessions on each. Then look at VirtualBox. Awesome software, and improving more quickly than VMWare - lighter weight too. Yet they insist that no one wants Parallel port virtual devices even though people are clamouring for it.
Oh well, Sun will fade into Oracle in the near future...
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Schwartz kept mentioning JavaFX, so this in theory does mean phones too.
While Swing is a desktop platform requiring a full Java SE, JavaFX is supposed to target different devices. Now it so happens that the desktop implementation of JavaFX runs as an abstraction over Java2D and the AWT but this needn't be the case. Today's OMAP3 smart phone is plenty powerful enough for many small screen desktop Java SE apps, RAM excepted. (you wouldn't run eclipse on it!)
So while Swing and SWT may have too much 'bloat', the idea is to create a movement around JavaFX that has a smaller footprint so that they'll try to sell JavaFX applications that run identically on a desktop and a phone.
I like Java. I do a lot of work in Java. I even ship an application written in Java that is installed on thousands of desktops worldwide. So, you can probably count me as a Java fan boi but I gotta ask:
Why the hell is it that after 14 years of Java we still can't get a Java app that looks and feels like a native app on Windows or Linux or even Solaris for god's sake. Why does anyone trying to ship a Java app either have to make the user jump through hoops installing JRE's and JDK's and other nonsense or has to code up special installers and .exe's to launch the JVM?
I ship an app on the Mac written in Java. Despite Apple's current pull back on their Java support, at least a Java app gets packaged up the same way as a native app and the Java runtime is installed as part of the OS.
Now, I understand that Sun has no control over Windows, but could we at least define a standard location for the JRE? Could we have a standard Java launcher that doesn't involve command line goo?
And as for Solaris - you still have to launch Java apps by running "java" from the shell or inside a script. Bourne shell scripts have been executables for 30 years, why the hell can't Java apps be executables as well? Solaris is Sun's OS. Java should shine and be the recommended language for everything.
And don't even get me started on "Java Web Start". Half the browsers leave little .jnlp turds all over your download folder or desktop.
Sun has simply fallen down with Java as a desktop platform. It's hard to deliver apps written in Java to customers, period. Swing is *still* ugly - and that's comparing it up against Windows UI's.
And there's still not a decent GUI builder for Swing. The NeXTStep GUI builder in 1997 worked better than Netbeans does today. Every time I add a component things it's a 50-50 chance that my whole layout will be destroyed as Netbeans moves things around randomly.
Sun, you have just failed so badly at making Java a viable desktop language. Maybe Oracle can clean up your mess but I doubt it.
No, seriously, who cares?
Independent application writers. They perk up a great deal any time a means of widespread distribution arises that can make what they do easier.
That includes all the G1 developers who have a new and deeper understanding of Java and might be looking for a wider market to apply it to... the GUI frameworks are not the same but lots of people stop at the language barriers.
This model is meaningful for Joe Sixpack audience, which does need that click-click-click-bought, installed & running approach. But how many Java apps for that market you know?
Probably no more than a few billion different apps. Of course, I'm probably underestimating. Look at the size of the iPhone app store. Not there but growing towards it.
It's all desktop ones, remember, and Swing still looks and feels horrible on any desktop, from Windows to X to Mac.
Thus, JavaFX. Or you can probably use Swing if you like, with some care it works fine. Look at the hideous VBA stuff people have bought in the past for lots of money when it met a need.
We're in double digits for the total usable app count, at best...
Prediction for "shutdown" locked in at "a few dozen". That's going to be amusing in a year.
Oh, great. So it's another Sun product with "Java" in name which has nothing whatsoever to do with Java, except that your next Java update will run an installer with "Install Java App Store client" checkbox set by default. Sounds familiar?
Why Yes. Yes it does.
billions of ... mobile devices, and smartcards, millions of enterprise servers, set top boxes, Blu-Ray DVD players" - all of which, of course, having no relevance to the subject being discussed.
Please tell me you are joking and not truly that dense. Every blu-ray player for example has a perfectly fine Java engine that could connect to and run items from this store...
Not to mention Microsoft, if it decides to jump on the bandwagon...
But since they are far from platform neutral in anything they do, what could they do? Steam is beating the pants off them, if they can't fight of Steam, well then.
The day to do anything but laugh loudly when the thought of Microsoft competing against a well thought out plan are long since gone. Microsoft is simply too monolithic to react in timely ways despite however many smart people they set to working at cross purposes. I suppose they might corner the online app store market for Surface, how big is THAT?
The reason it can work is the reason the App Store worked, lots of small specialized potentially well written apps that can gain enough of a hold that people come there for more apps. Who would go to a physical store for software if they could buy something more specialized for less that did what they wanted? And app writers get the boon of not caring if people are switching to the Mac or not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As we've seen with the recent article about JRE security on OS X, users are generally reluctant to run client-side Java.
Eclipse alone shows just how wrong you are - if there were not also apps like Limewire as an example.
Normal users don't even know what the hell the JRE is, nor do they care how secure it is at any moment. Give them an installer and care not at all what the app they are about to use is written in.
Swing hasn't managed much traction, with desktop consumers overwhelmingly preferring native apps.
Incorrect. DEVELOPERS have preferred writing native apps. But what if suddenly a lot of useful small utilities appear here, and more and more people start using the app store - people didn't get in on the iPhone app store at first either but when enough people get involved the network effect becomes a powerful force indeed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The problem with this idea, is that PC users already have an App Store... It's called the Internet. Or Walmart.
Seriously, there's no incentive to use their Java App Store on an open system (home computer) which is very much unlike with the iPhone, where you have to use it in order to get apps.
The idea of an "App Store" is appealing, even when you're not forced into using it. It simplifies the acquisition of software by giving every product an identical and simple way of buying and installing it. This, of course, has existed for forever in the F/OSS world in the form of package managers/repositories, but this doesn't really exist on Windows, which (*gasp*) is still what the vast majority of people use.
Right now, if you want software for your Windows box, you can go to the store and buy a CD/DVD, pop it in, click through an annoying wizard and you're done. OR you go the internet route, which can get unnecessarily complex for the average user. This involves finding the software (if you're lucky, google will point you a primary or trustworthy source), paying for it(which usually involves creating an account for every product you buy since they're all from different vendors), downloading it, decompressing it (which can involve dealing with any of the existing compression schemes, which you may or may not have software to decompress), installing it (if you're lucky, it may just be an executable and your life will be easy), and possibly authenticating it (which requires annoying hoops to jump through as well as providing personal information).
While I'm not a fan of one company having a monopoly over software distribution, it can definitely simplify the process. You're able to find everything from a trusted source. You only have to make one account. You can then install anything you want with one click, iTunes style. This isn't something that's meant just for your grandma, either. I'd love to save the headache of sifting through all the crap to get something new up and running. It worked for Apple, it worked for Valve, and it's certainly possible that it'll work for Sun.
I reckon the thing I miss the most when looking for good applications on Windows (and to some extent OSX) is package management. This method of distribution including central update management and the use of key signing to ensure software hasn't been tampered with is priceless.
The advantage I can see in this java distribution is the ability to search one location for software, just like you do with a package manager like apt (on Debian, Ubuntu etc.). Another is that it is cross platform! Maybe this will lead people to pay just a little for OOo and to realise that it is fine for most peoples' needs.
I say good on them. Especially if it is cross platform. But I also reckon that if it is possible, there should be an open source model created too. This way I could install apt-osx or apt-win and have a nice gui to acquire all the latest and greatest open source software from one source.
I am totally sick of port on the mac and hunting for shitty shareware on win*.
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
Even now with the G1 on the rise, people still think of Java in terms that were more valid in 1999 than today.
As you say a cross platform app store that makes it easy for indy developers to sell games and small utilities - that could do pretty well. Especially for casual games.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If having an open system was suffucient, then yum, apt, portage, and similar tools for *nix would be non-starters. I would argue that there doesn't exist a more 'open' environment than the free UNIX movement. Yet nobody wants to go back to the old ways of downloading tarballs and hunting deps.
People want to get to their apps easily, they want to have confidence that the apps won't hork their systems, etc. I avoid packages that aren't in one of a few repos just because of the hassle of updates, etc.
This isn't just a good idea, it's one that Sun shoulda done years ago and if they do it right, we'll all be talking about how Larry pulled the rug out from under MS in a few years. Seriously, I'd consider switching my company's flagship product to Java just so I could sell it on this app store if they make it actually work, and don't kill the brilliance of this idea with lameness!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Actually, there are lots of great Java apps like SQuirrel or JUDE, that don't have a place on Linux distributions and this maybe an incentive for the guys behind them to continue the great work they're doing, an easier way to contract OSS services or just colaborate with them. Also, if this also means a simpler way to keep them updated, great!
Hehehe... would you like a database with that... genius
Sun may have overlooked one thing: Apple don't actually make much money from the app store, at least according to this article.
Presumably, it makes business sense for Apple as the app store contributes to the appeal of the iPhone. Sun won't be selling the PCs that are running these apps, and as others have pointed out the expense of reviewing full applications rather than small iPhone apps will be much greater.
Perhaps there are other benefits for Sun, but from a short-term profit-making perspective it won't work.
Having said that, a package-manager-esque software distribution method for Windows is a no-brainer. Microsoft are probably the best company to implement that, though.
RS
On sourceforge no one ever donated a single penny to me. SourceForge only works if you want to give your software away for $0,00.
I have a JavaME sortware for sale [1]. Currently I upload only demo version and source code to sourceforge but I sell on handango, mobile2day or smartsam.
So I welcome the Java shop - it might give me the opportunity to sell the MacOS/Windows/Linux version as well.
Martin
PS: before you wonder: JavaME is a pain to set-up so compiling yourself is not worth the effort compared to the few $ the application actually cost.
[1] http://fx-602p.krischik.com/
guys are missing one point, java does revolve around desktop (esp windows) but dont forget those devices like Nokia's,Sony Erricson etc for whom you have to browse through hundred of pages to find a trustworthy application, I think it could be a big thing unless they did it properly :)