Apple Deprecates Their JVM

Mortimer.CA writes "In some recent release notes Apple has deprecated their JVM: 'As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated.' In the past Sun (now Oracle) has always let Apple do this: 'Apple Computer supplies their own version of Java. Use the Software Update feature (available on the Apple menu) to check that you have the most up-to-date version of Java for your Mac.' I wonder how much heads-up Oracle was given for this change, and if the Java team has any code ready to go, or whether they'll have to ramp up porting for Mac OS 10.7 (aka 'Lion')."

Comments

Plenty of heads up.

[BasilBrush]

I wonder how much heads-up Oracle was given for this change

Even if they if only just found out now, Lion is around 8 months away. How much time do they need to create an installer?

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[jonabbey]

They don't need to create an Installer, they need to create an entire port to a new operating system. The low-level threading and memory management, the GUI.. who wants their Java apps to be running under X11 on Mac?

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[krazytekn0]

Really? I mean doesn't that seem a little extreme, shouldn't it still work pretty close to the previous versions of OS X? Seriously just asking,

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[JonySuede]

thing is apple did the first port, not SUN. I don't think that apple will graciously give there JRE code-base to oracle.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[kthreadd]

Java on the Mac have always been maintained by Apple, they licensed it about fifteen years ago from Sun. There has never been a Sun Java for Macs. I don't know how much code is going back to Sun/Oracle but in worst case that may be nothing at all. The main problem is that Java by itself has no support for things like the Mac Aqua UI, that's all additions made by Apple. In the late 90's when the Mac wasn't going well Apple decided to license Java and fix those things since Sun wasn't likely to put much time and effort on it. It's actually really good and well done.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[cindyann]

Threading? Memory Management? Why exactly? OS X is, after all, just Unix. Yeah, Apple might have some something clever in there, but I honestly doubt there's anything world changing.

The GUI though--- That's a whole 'nuther ball of wax.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[NatasRevol]

And why do you think Apple wouldn't give their code-base to Oracle?

If Apple is looking to go to a standard Java from Oracle, that would only hurt Apple.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[NatasRevol]

You might want to go read up on Grand Central Dispatch.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Mr_Silver]

And why do you think Apple wouldn't give their code-base to Oracle?

I don't think they will because I believe that Apple would rather developers use Objective-C over Java for OSX development for the very same reasons they would rather developers use Objective-C over Flash for iOS development.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[BitZtream]

Low level threading and memory management are identical to the majority of java platforms other than windows. The GUI would be different but not difficult, all you have to support is primatives and the rest comes easy.

Java was designed to work across platforms, its been around a while, as such, they've made it pretty freaking easy to port at this point.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Java on the Mac have always been maintained by Apple, they licensed it about fifteen years ago from Sun. There has never been a Sun Java for Macs. I don't know how much code is going back to Sun/Oracle but in worst case that may be nothing at all.

The main problem is that Java by itself has no support for things like the Mac Aqua UI, that's all additions made by Apple. In the late 90's when the Mac wasn't going well Apple decided to license Java and fix those things since Sun wasn't likely to put much time and effort on it. It's actually really good and well done.

I'm pretty sure much of the speed improvements to Java 5 were due to Apple's code being contributed back to Sun. I suspect this is not that shocking, there's no need for a separate JVM anymore, since much of their code is now in core JVM that ships.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[tepples]

I believe that Apple would rather developers use Objective-C over Java for OSX development

Then does Apple plan to provide a tool to automatically translate the back-end of an existing application written in Java into Objective-C so that it can be used as a first-class citizen on Mac OS X 10.7?

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[fusiongyro]

Right, but Apple does ship versions of Python and Ruby that can access their Cocoa libraries. Apple would rather all developers use Objective-C, but that's just a way of ensuring that developers use Cocoa. Using Cocoa is what they're really after, technically speaking, because their real goal is for all Mac applications to use the same toolkit, look nice and behave like other Mac applications.

I promise you Apple doesn't care if Swing applications look similar to Mac applications since they won't behave like Mac apps due to not running through Cocoa. I bet Apple would be happy if those apps just never ran on OS X. But they have in the past provided a way of using Cocoa through Java. Apparently the Mac Java developer community had enough of a clue to realize that using Cocoa is a great way to restrict your app to one platform and miss the whole point of using Java in the first place.

Apple's special JVM was really just a way of trying to sneak Java developers into Cocoa, but it never really worked, so at this point, it's probably in Apple's best interest to just provide a stock JVM so people who really want to use Java can and let Oracle worry about whether or not Swing apps look like Mac apps. In general, Swing app usability is damning enough that Apple can just leave well enough alone and their customers will want Cocoa apps or Swing apps that have been engineered to look and behave a lot like Cocoa apps anyway.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[fusiongyro]

If they had a large number of Cocoa/Java developers and it were possible, they would have to do it. Neither of those is the case though: they're making this move in large part because cross-platform Java development and Mac development were different enough that if you were using Java it was because you wanted it to run on other platforms and therefore didn't care if it looked like a good Mac app. So in practice, almost nobody would use it. But the other problem is that their tool certainly couldn't convert a random jar into a binary, and if you used Java it's hard to imagine not using some third-party libraries. I don't think such a tool could exist without becoming essentially another JVM.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Mr_Silver]

Then does Apple plan to provide a tool to automatically translate the back-end of an existing application written in Java into Objective-C so that it can be used as a first-class citizen on Mac OS X 10.7?

Doubtful as it gives no real incentive for developers to shift to Objective-C (as they'll just continue to develop in Java and convert to Objective-C prior to release).

I could be wrong, but if I'm right then this would at least be consistent with their reason on why they didn't accept iOS submissions developed in Flash and then converted into Objective-C.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[TheRaven64]

NeXT jumped on the Java bandwagon early on, porting their flagship WebObjects framework from Objective-C to Java. When Steve returned to Apple, he planned to make Java a first-class citizen of OS X. The Apple JRE had a number of enhancements over the stock one. For example, it shared classes between JVM instances, a feature that didn't appear in the Sun JRE for a few years. It also included a lot of stuff for native integration - you could make the menu bar sit at the top of the screen from Swing apps, just like a proper Mac App and use the standard Mac keyboard shortcuts, for example.

They also shipped an Objective-C to Java bridge. You could call the Cocoa APIs directly from Java programs with some low-level automatic translation letting you use Java strings and arrays instead of NSString and NSArray, for example. This was deprecated some time around 10.2 or 10.3 (I can't remember - Wikipedia probably can), largely because no one was using it. New Cocoa APIs were not added to the bridge.

The idea that Java would be one of the dominant languages for OS X development died five years ago. Apple has only continued to invest money in their JRE to help sell XServes running OS X Server and running WebObjects. I'd imagine this market is now so small that it's no longer worth bothering with.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also Web Objects. Originally, it was Objective C, OpenStep only. Then they transitioned to Java, runnable on any web server with a jvm. When Apple got a hold of it, they dropped the price. It hasn't been dropped entirely, but it wasn't included with the 10.6 develoepr tools and XCode 3 (and 4) don't support new WebObjects projects.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[TheRaven64]

Do you have a point, or are you just spouting buzzwords? GCD is a set of C APIs that lets you schedule work to be run concurrently in thread pools whose size is managed by the kernel. It is completely irrelevant to writing a JVM, which will use its own N:M threading model with the kernel threads being implemented using POSIX threads.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to go read up on Grand Central Dispatch.

How does Grand Central Dispatch even fit into this conversation?

Apple's JVM was needed because Sun MacOS Classic version was outdated and crappy. Sun did not see it as a priority (the Mac platform was dying). With OS X about to be released and Next's WebObjects requiring JVM, Apple took on the implementation of OS X's JVM. And it was running faster than the JVM on Windows, one of the initial reasons I moved to OS X. I remember being at JavaOne and seeing a sea of Apple Powerbooks. Since then other versions have caught up and Apple has been a few months behind Sun on JVM releases. Apple usually waits until a OS update to release a new one.

The fear now are all the tools (NetBeans and Eclipse) being used by developers that require JVM even if you develop for a different platform. I hope Oracle will take on the OS X development. If not the Apple is shutting out the non-iOS developers from their platform. Currently there are no offering for an Oracle version of JVM for BSD. So a big re-write is needed if Apple does supply Oracle with a copy of their JVM. The benefit of their JVM is that it should be ready to drop in to the rest of the code as Apple has had to do this with Sun for the last 10 years or so.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[NatasRevol]

Not completely irrelevant.

http://www.devdaily.com/java/java-grand-central-dispatch-gcd-mac-os-x

Comment from an Apple JRE engineer:
http://lists.apple.com/archives/java-dev/2009/Sep/msg00006.html

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[NJRoadfan]

Apple used to support Cocoa apps written in Java. Regarding the JVM, Apple did go out of their way and used Aqua widgets for Swing applications. I bet an Oracle JVM won't do that.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[tepples]

Doubtful as it gives no real incentive for developers to shift to Objective-C

On the other hand, not providing a way to migrate your product from Java gives no real incentive for developers to shift from Windows or Windows+Linux to Mac OS X.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Responding to your sig: You do realize that Apple forked KHTML which was already under an open-source license, right? Something tells me that if they wrote webkit from scratch it wouldn't be open at all.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this assumption is that Apple does not seem to have realized that a load of developers especially in the java land use OSX for java server side development. Those people probably wont care about a propery OSX Aqua integration on Swing but they do care about having java at all.
If you go to a java conference you see a load of people using macs (the last one I was had about 30% or so). Apple can abandon those people, they might see a revenue drop of about a 1-2% of their mac sales, but in the end, it brings them probably more money than the entire maintenance of the JVM costs them. But it simply does not fit into their big picture of having a wallet garden and the macs as only development platform for the wallet garden. But I wonder what they are going to do about their servers, their entire webshop runs on webobjects-java, are they going to port it back to ObjectiveC?

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[NatasRevol]

Something tells me your missing the point.

No other company did the work to take the browser from KHTML to webkit, which is now used in almost every phone OS, including Android & RIM.

Apple gets shit all the time for being closed. They're not always. Examples: http://www.apple.com/opensource/

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[jcr]

NeXT jumped on the Java bandwagon early on, porting their flagship WebObjects framework from Objective-C to Java.

That was back when Sun and NeXT were still working together on OpenStep, and Sun was listening to what NeXT was telling them was needed for Java to be a viable language for NeXTSTEP apps. The high water mark of that collaboration was the Java bridge for Cocoa. Of course, once it was possible to compare Java and Obj-C apps side by side, the marketing hype around Java proved to be bullshit, and Obj-C won out for Cocoa developers.

-jcr

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[udittmer]

There has never been a Sun Java for Macs.

Of course there was. JDK 1.0.2 was entirely Sun's doing. The awfulness of it prompted Applet to take over in order to control it - and the Java experience on the Mac became much better fast,

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[TheRaven64]

The problem with this assumption is that Apple does not seem to have realized that a load of developers especially in the java land use OSX for java server side development

Irrelevant. Those people can still use the Oracle JDK / JRE on their Macs. Most will probably prefer to, because they will no longer have the delay between Sun releasing a new version of Java and Apple porting their changes.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Locutus]

if Oracle had the same code/product which Apple was shipping then you are correct and it would not mean it'll be tough to pick up and run with. But, if Sun, now Oracle, has none of the software Apple was using then they now have to come up with all this to make it run on the Mac OSX in Cocoa( native OSX ).

LoB

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[jcr]

Apple used to support Cocoa apps written in Java.

Yep, and they realized their mistake a couple of years ago. When they dropped the Cocoa/Java bridge, they inconvenienced dozens of people.

-jcr

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[TheRaven64]

Did you actually read the second link? He's saying it doesn't make sense to implement anything in Java with GCD, although it might potentially make sense for some 1.7 extensions to be designed to use it.

GCD implements an N:M threading model for C. The JVM implements an N:M threading model for Java, but with different semantics (more preemption points - GCD only has them between blocks, which gives a different throughput-to-latency trade). Implementing one in terms of the other does not make sense. It is marginally possible that the JVM could use some of the pthread_workqueue_* system calls to manage the Java thread to OS thread mapping, but probably not worth the effort.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[ultranova]

I don't think they will because I believe that Apple would rather developers use Objective-C over Java for OSX development for the very same reasons they would rather developers use Objective-C over Flash for iOS development.

I'm sure they would, but is it very likely that people are going to start doing OSX only development? Apple doesn't really have that much marketshare, and as this very incident once again shows, it's dangerous to trust them.

If Mac loses Java, then Mac loses Java programs, not gain native ones. And frankly, Mac can ill afford to lose software.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Java is pretty pointless for a GUI-app when you can use Qt to make GUI such that it is generated from XML-definition on the fly (assuming all widgets have been ported already). Plus you get better look&feel via Qt stylesheets also.

Who seriously uses Java for GUI-apps anyway? Besides Oracle I mean..

Servlets/JSP still is pretty good place for Java where competition is ASP (yuck) and PHP, can't imagine anyone creating GUI-apps with Java anymore..

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[M. Baranczak]

In the late 90's when the Mac wasn't going well Apple decided to license Java and fix those things since Sun wasn't likely to put much time and effort on it. It's actually really good and well done.

Yeah, it is. It's so well done that nobody ever bothered to write an alternate implementation for the Mac. Which now becomes a problem.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Serious Callers Only]

If Apple is looking to go to a standard Java from Oracle, that would only hurt Apple.

On the other hand, if Apple is looking to kill Java, this is a good way to do it.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[iMacGuy]

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Java/Reference/JavaSE6_AppleExtensionsRef/api/com/apple/concurrent/Dispatch.html

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[s73v3r]

No, but I bet you could write one. Or at least start the project.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[k8to]

You just agreed. Those posts confirm that it is irrelevant to java software, unless apple was so committed to both to add an entire new api to their java that no one else would have yet, that no software would use yet.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[jonabbey]

If they had a large number of Cocoa/Java developers and it were possible, they would have to do it. Neither of those is the case though: they're making this move in large part because cross-platform Java development and Mac development were different enough that if you were using Java it was because you wanted it to run on other platforms and therefore didn't care if it looked like a good Mac app. So in practice, almost nobody would use it.

Unless you were writing custom line-of-business software that you expected your internal users to be able to run, whether they were on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[LoneIgadzra]

I sort of disagree on the "well done" aspect on account of the font rendering is butt-ugly and headache inducing and not consistent with the rest of the GUI at all. Drives me crazy when I try to use netbeans or another text-heavy java application on OS X.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[cindyann]

At the risk of repeating myself, er, uh, wait.... I'm about to repeat myself

    Apple might have something clever in there...

Is GCD world changing? Would an Oracle JVM that didn't use GCD still work just fine? Got any hard numbers about just how much faster using GCD makes their JVM? Probably not because it's doubtful that Apple would release the non-GCD version into the wild. (But we could guess that they must benchmark both approaches as part of their development process.)

And there's nothing to say that Oracle couldn't build their hypothetical JVM for OS X using GCD too.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[wootest]

You're right that the people that Apple is now pissing off won't be queueing up to port their applications to Objective-C. But it's clear that Apple doesn't want to invest that kind of money in that kind of user experience and then have to support it. They're already well on their way to slough off Carbon completely.

They want to settle on just one framework that they provide and support. (And yes, I said framework, not languages. There are supported bridges to Objective-C for Ruby and Python, and unsupported bridges in many other languages.)

I would conserve my bewilderment until Apple starts making it impossible to do, say, Qt apps.

And frankly, Mac can ill afford to lose software.

My hunch tells me that there are more Cocoa applications than Java GUI applications, and even if that isn't strictly the case, that the number of people that are writing Java GUI applications each day are shrinking, and the number of people that are writing Cocoa applications each day are growing. (Yes, excluding iOS.)

Mac as a platform doesn't have a ton of software compared to Windows, but that doesn't mean that this makes even a sizable dent in the installed applications that people use. Name one pervasive Mac Java application besides Eclipse and Vuze.

(That doesn't mean that it's a valid reason to kill a Java runtime. But that sentence was discussing the impact, not the action.)

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

And why do you think Apple wouldn't give their code-base to Oracle?

I don't think they will because I believe that Apple would rather developers use Objective-C over Java for OSX development for the very same reasons they would rather developers use Objective-C over Flash for iOS development.

Developers that are smart will make there code in Objective-C because Customers don't want Java apps.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in that group that would prefer a stock JVM that's released at the same time as the version for other platforms.

SWT is fully supported on OS X. From a user's perspective, SWT is superior to Swing in every single way...there's no GUI emulation going on, it actually uses native widgets. Many developer like Swing's programming interface better, but there's a lot of us that prefer SWT.

If Apple abandons Java and Oracle ships a stock JVM for OS X that doesn't make Swing look like a native Cocoa app, developers can still use SWT to make Java apps that look indistinguishable from native Cocoa apps.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a download link for "can still use the Oracle JDK / JRE on their Macs?"

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can spot a Qt app a mile away it stands out like a sour thumb.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[fusiongyro]

WebObjects was made completely free a few releases ago. And now I think it's even clearer why.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[fusiongyro]

Qt is in most every way better than Java for client-side graphical application development. However, Qt is not completely free, requires that your app be compiled for each platform it is distributed for, and does not provide access to Java libraries. The last reason there is why we use it at my work.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Mr Bubble]

The Mac is gaining market share and Apple is poised to be the biggest company in the world by market cap. I think they can afford to lose some software.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[GunFodder]

Java developers aren't going to decide to switch to Objective-C to address 5% of the desktop market. Most of the Java developers I know prefer Mac hardware for its easy interoperability with Linux. If Apple kills the Mac OS JVM then we will be forced to switch to Windows. I don't see how this benefits Apple in any way.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[marcello_dl]

Also they can open up the source, give it to ibm or some openjdk consortium, or wait for somebody to fill the gap. Such moves could be planned in a more transparent way though...

OSX Lion... er...

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[krazytekn0]

On the other other hand, having a growing number of users switching to OS X and integrating with iOS and doing everything Apple does give some incentive. I have no idea what their market share is now but maybe these tactics show that Apple believes it's enough that they don't have to care too much about developers. Just a shot in the dark though

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[CaffeinieBaby]

And why do you think Apple wouldn't give their code-base to Oracle?

I don't think they will because I believe that Apple would rather developers use Objective-C over Java for OSX development for the very same reasons they would rather developers use Objective-C over Flash for iOS development.

What Apple doesn't seem to realize, or doesn't give a crap about, is that many (perhaps most?) Java developers using a Mac are working on server-side applications, and only choose the Mac because they prefer the combination of superior hardware design and clean, elegant OS as the environment they do their work in. I couldn't give a crap about iOS development; I write apps that run on Tomcat/JBoss/etc. Once Apple no longer provides a reasonably solid JVM/JDK for their OS (and won't help Oracle take over support for Java on OS X) I'm down the road. Until the warranty's up, I'll just wipe my Macbook Pro and install Ubuntu (it's still a really nice, but pricey, laptop; best you can buy, IMHO); after the warranty's up, I'll start looking at what Sony, et. al. have to offer.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

GCD is a set of C APIs that lets you schedule work to be run concurrently in thread pools whose size is managed by the kernel. It is completely irrelevant to writing a JVM, which will use its own N:M threading model with the kernel threads being implemented using POSIX threads.

I think that was exactly the parents point man. Don't get all intense. GCD means Cocoa/ObjC and is useless to Java Apps and JVMs or anything non-C. GCD is Apple's flagpole mascot if you have ever seen their marketing FUD. This makes spending time and money on Java less lucrative from a business standpoint.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[peppepz]

WebKit. You can thank the KDE developers for choosing the LGPL when using the browser on your phone.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[NatasRevol]

"can't imagine anyone creating GUI-apps with Java anymore"

It's pretty nice, if done right.

https://www.thinkorswim.com/tos/displayPage.tos?webpage=clientApplication&displayFormat=hide

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[NatasRevol]

KDE. You can thank the LPGL developers for their license.

Want to go further?

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[peppepz]

Why, I agree with you.

In fact I think that WebKit is a nice success story for LGPL, which should be looked at by people from the "pragmatic / software is a tool / BSD is more business-friendly" camp. The supposedly "business-unfriendly" WebKit has created more jobs that many stimulus packages.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[index0]

This is exactly like what happened before to me. Long ago I switched from a GNU/Linux desktop to a Apple laptop (around the time of iBooks). I loved it because I could do everything I use to do under my old OS until I couldn't. I use to be able to run remote X11 apps through a ssh connection. Then after a mac OS update broke that feature.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[KarmaMB84]

You mean the Oracle JDK / JRE for Macs that we're pretty sure doesn't exist because Apple has been doing that work all along?

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[CarpetShark]

"Right, but Apple does ship versions of Python and Ruby that can access their Cocoa libraries."

These aren't a threat in the way that Java is.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Phopojijo]

Because Android uses Java for its applications... and Jobs is a very very spiteful man.

Re:Plenty of heads up.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Irrelevant. Those people can still use the Oracle JDK / JRE on their Macs.

There is no "Oracle JDK / JRE" available for Mac...

Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Oracle's patent moves probably didn't help, but Apple's normally not a company to be afraid of software patents - they have a big enough portfolio of their own.

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Java_and_patents

(Phone patents are another beast - they're held by companies that Apple often doesn't have as long a history of dealing with and they don't yet have patent non-aggression pacts)

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[rwa2]

Meh, I could see them possibly doing this to strengthen Oracle's suit against Google's Dalvik VM in Android.

Or possibly Apple wants to introduce the straightjacket-in-a-walled-garden appstore approach to their desktop in addition to iOS, so they're starting to make moves to discourage the distribution of portable Java apps the same way they inhibit Flash on iOS.

Other than that, seems like a bunch of maneuverings between companies and technologies I don't really care all that much about. But at least hopefully it'll keep the fanbois who like chatting about soap opera politics preoccupied for a bit.

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple took Sun's ZFS out of OS X because of patent litigation from NetApp so I'm not inclined to agree with you.

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[cindyann]

And all along I thought it was because it just wasn't ready for production use.

The BSDs are still working on getting ZFS good enough to use. Everyone I knew that tried it on OS X said it was shit.

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, as recoiledsnake noted above, the Mac App Store blocks programs that depend on optionally installed software (e.g., Java).

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[tlhIngan]

Oracle's patent moves probably didn't help, but Apple's normally not a company to be afraid of software patents - they have a big enough portfolio of their own.

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Java_and_patents

(Phone patents are another beast - they're held by companies that Apple often doesn't have as long a history of dealing with and they don't yet have patent non-aggression pacts)

MacOS X will probably be using J2SE, which the Sun/Oracle Java patent licenses will allow. Since Apple ported the Sun JVM, it would be a compliant suite. Sun/Oracle never gave free patent licenses for J2ME, however (as J2ME is very lucrative, being used in most cellphones around the world ("dumbphones" and featurephones)).

Android, however, unless it implements J2SE wouldn't be covered.

As for mobile patents, it would appear most don't have non-aggression pacts, going by all the mobile lawsuits all over the place. At least on the ones that aren't covered by RAND.

It doesn't come as a huge surprise though - I think the Java as an API in MacOS X has been quietly deprecated since Panther or so - you could still use it, but Apple pretty much depreceated it quietly for many years. It does affect a few apps I use though - Vuze and JBidWatcher, but those are on an older Mac that can't run Snow Leopard anyhow.

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[Princeofcups]

Oracle's patent moves probably didn't help, but Apple's normally not a company to be afraid of software patents - they have a big enough portfolio of their own.

I'd be REALLY surprised if Oracle sued Apple or visa versa, considering that Jobs and Ellison are smoking buddies.

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[s73v3r]

Or maybe they just got tired of maintaining their own JVM when it isn't used by the majority of the users? The days of the Apple JVM being far superior to the Sun/Oracle JVM are in the past, with most of those improvements already in the "official" JVM. Now they're just duplicating effort for no real gain, especially if someone could go and get the JVM from Oracle.

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[SplashMyBandit]

Java is not used much by consumers. Java is used hugely in the enterprise space on the desktop and in the server-room. Unfortunately this is not visible to many people because:
a) their computing horizon is so short it means being able to run Twitter or Grand Theft Auto, or
b) companies don't talk about their competitive advantages (and the PR folks certainly don't understand the tech anyways).

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[tenton]

Damn it, my Twitter client is a Java app! (PeraPeraPrv)

Re:Patents (usually) wouldn't worry Apple

[KingAlanI]

Yeah, Oracle going hard on Google makes it harder for me to sympathize with them getting surprised by Apple here.

ORACLE = One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison; at least you can make a cool acronym for them, even if others "be evil" too. :P

So they are dropping another tech

[Superken7]

So they have dropped default support for flash, then java, now they just launched their app store.

This is really starting to look more and more like the iphone. I just hope they don't start dropping multitasking and third party software sources.
As long as users are able to install non-appstore apps, install flash and install java, I'm fine with it.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Superken7]

with drop default support I meant "not installed by default", could also mean stopped supporting, I'm not sure

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[HelloKitty2]

It looks like they don't want any non exclusively-for-apple developers. I'm glad Android is gaining momentum, and that MeeGo is soon to be released, so people have a choice of using open platforms.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[DJRumpy]

No, they simply depreciated the 'Apple' version of Java, meaning it will probably be discontinued in Lion. I suspect that due to the changes in ownership over Java that they will now handle things like everyone else and get their java from Oracle. They aren't 'dropping' Java or anything of the sort. You'll simply go to Oracle to install it rather than getting it out of the box.

I would imagine Oracle asked for this, or Apple simply decided it wasn't worth the hassle of maintaining their own java machine.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[erroneus]

In many ways, Apple is helping to move old tech out. Java, some will say, is still quite relevant. Apparently Apple does not agree. The push for getting everyone into HTML 5 using Javascript and all of those technologies necessitates getting rid of the old ways.

This push is good for the whole internet environment and with the push for adoption of real internet standards faithfully implemented, this is also an effective dig against Microsoft for having controlled "The Internet" with a big blue "e" for so long. Now with MSIE being a reported less-than-50%, it is just about time to start ignoring MSIE. (Furthermore, we will see an end to various web-interfaces for devices and appliances working only with MSIE... that day will not come soon enough)

Of course there is more to computing than the web, but predictions are that it will not last long in that state for a great many users.

Apple seems to have selected its vision for the future and is pushing for it.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[zlogic]

And after removing Flash and Java and publishing the "We want the web to be open" public letter Apple still requires Quicktime to watch videos on their own website. Hypocrites.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[bbtom]

The push for getting everyone into HTML 5 using Javascript and all of those technologies necessitates getting rid of the old ways.

By which you mean the JVM? It has nothing to do with "internet standards" ffs.

You do know that 'Java' is to 'JavaScript' as 'car' is to 'carpet'. Beyond a few shared letters for early buzzword compliance, and things like the Rhino interpreter, there is no real relationship between the two.

All those sexy HTML5/JavaScript apps have to be written in programming languages and hosted on servers. And plenty of people are building on top of the JVM. Large chunks of both Twitter and Foursquare are written in Scala, a JVM language. Why? Oh, something about how it is good for long-running processes due to something ridiculous like a million engineer-hours going into JVM development.

If we should get rid of technology simply because it is old, let's get rid of C. No, wait, let's not. Because it is a useful and practical technology, and we should base our technical decisions on technical merit not on buzzword compliance and what appeals to Web 2.0 shiny-seekers.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Other media players will probably support HTTP Live Streaming in a couple months. It's not like it's a proprietary format or anything- it's just a continuously updating MPEG-2 file sitting on a server. Quicktime continuously checks that file for updates and downloads just the new parts when they get uploaded. I'd rather they use that than Adobe's proprietary streaming format or Real's proprietary streaming format.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[DrgnDancer]

Or they looked at the Android lawsuit and said "Hmm, I don't *think* we're breaking any laws, but why take chances?" Oracle is playing a different game with Java than Sun did and personally I'd want to stay out of it as much as possible. There's lots of reasons they may have done this and with ~8 months notice Oracle has plenty of time to build their own JVM.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[jtdennis]

this is good for the end user IMO. I remember sometime over the last year Apple was bit with a security hole by including an older version of Flash in an update. Their Java version also usually lags behind the current releases. By not including both the end user will be able to update them more frequently or not have them installed at all if they don't use it. I can see people that don't have a need for Java at all.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[AltairDusk]

I would have to disagree that HTML 5 is a suitable all-around replacement for Java.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[WankersRevenge]

This is not a sign of lockdown ... java support on Macs having been drying up since Apple deprecated the Java-Cocoa bridge years ago. Nevermind it took them two years to release Java 6 which required users to have 64bit intel boxes. So, if you were doing any sort of Java desktop work (yes, this does exist), you were stuck on Java 5. If you were doing any server side work, you'd need to install SoyLatte to use the updated class libraries, nevermind dealing with performance issues from moving from JVM to JVM.

This is a GOOD THING as now Mac's will have a better supported and up-to-date JVM and updates should come quick and fast compared to Apple's sluggish almost apathetic attitude towards releases.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[oh_my_080980980]

Dude do you have a fucking clue. Neither Linux nor Windows develops their own JVM. Sun MicroSystems and now Oracle develops JVMs for all the OSs EXCEPT Apple. So now Oracle will develop the JVM for Apple.

BIG FUCKING DEAL!

FYI Google doesn't care for Java, so stop sucking Google's dick.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[jedidiah]

> with drop default support I meant "not installed by default", could also mean stopped supporting, I'm not sure

There was that bit posted about the App Store that claimed that this means that Java apps would be banned from the App Store.

So yeah, making alternate coding platforms a sort of "red headed stepchild" does kind of matter here.

The new Mac App Store is already starting to look like a garden of pure ideology. It will be as problematic as the Ubuntu version of the same idea.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[IBBoard]

You do know that 'Java' is to 'JavaScript' as 'car' is to 'carpet'.

I'd say it was closer to the "Cheese" in "Cheese Strings" or any other fake cheese products (of which I hear the US has many). It's there to get attention and make an incorrect connection in people's minds over the slightest similarity (cheese strings claim to be cheese, but are more like packaged plastic, and JavaScript was so named to gain tangential interest from Java developers with its approximately similar syntax).

Car and carpet, on the other hand, have no connection other than the letters.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[omnichad]

And there is also client-side Java, that runs in the browser as an applet. There are a few crappy and/or enterprise apps that run as java when they could be using HTML5/CSS/Javascript. Apple just wants to make themselves an unattractive platform for that.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that 'Java' is to 'JavaScript' as 'car' is to 'carpet'.

Unless it's a 'magic carpet', I don't see the analogy.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[wzinc]

Java and JavaScript both have so many curly-brackets, they must be the same language.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Vectormatic]

this insightfull?

So now Oracle will develop the JVM for Apple.

It is plausible enough that oracle won't, or will take so much time / bungle some stuff so bad that java on mac essentially becomes a no-no long enough to drive everyone to objective-C. Given the fact that java these days is mostly about server-side stuff and (the language anyway) android, i dont see any reason why oracle would hurry with an OS X JVM (they mostly care about their own server stack anyway, and OS X isnt anywhere near significant in server-world)

FYI Google doesn't care for Java, so stop sucking Google's dick.

Google runs TONS of their shit on java, heaps of their server-side apps are completely running in java. If any mega-corp cares about java (aside from oracle themselves), it would be google

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Vectormatic]

Car and carpet, on the other hand, have no connection other than the letters.

tell that to the carpet in my car, lining the floor..

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Vectormatic]

any platform is an unattractive platform for that.

HTML5/CSS/JS does not get ANY competition from java, anyone doing web-stuff with applets has been taken out by the shed and shot over a decade ago. The real competitor for HTML5 et al is Flash, which is Apple's real windmill...

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny story: in order to watch Apple's live stream of the "Back to the Mac" event yesterday, I had use my 1st gen iPod touch. This despite the fact that i have a macbook sitting on the same network. Why? because it required Snow Leopard to stream. Their 2 year old general purpose operating system can't "handle" the stream but their 4 year old mp3 player can? Yeah Apple cares so much about its "real" OS

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[somersault]

Huh? What's wrong with the Ubuntu Software Center? I think it's great. It's not like you can only install stuff from the Software Center, it's just a very convenient place to get commonly used software without going through the usual Windows hassle of downloading and installing them yourself. Sure you could just use apt-get, but the software center is also nice for browsing apps as well if you don't know exactly what you're looking for, with descriptions and screenshots.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[UnknowingFool]

So they have dropped default support for flash, then java, now they just launched their app store.

First they do not support Flash for their mobile devices as it is their contention Adobe has never released a suitable version for mobile. (I would argue they haven't released a suitable one for OS X in general). Apple waited for years for one; and only this year has Adobe released any mobile specific versions (for Android). Second they are not supporting Java or Flash as a development language for app store. If you wish to develop one for Mac you can; you simply can't use their store.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[martyw]

Rumor has it that they are dropping it to discourage Android apps development (Java) on Macs.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[ZorinLynx]

Snow Leopard is $29. Really, there is no excuse to still be on 10.5. The whole point of making Snow Leopard cheap was so that everyone would be on the same release.

If you have an Intel Mac you should be on 10.6. Period.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

And after removing Flash and Java and publishing the "We want the web to be open" public letter Apple still requires Quicktime to watch videos on their own website. Hypocrites.

What format are the files actually in? QuickTime or H.264?

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to write a detailed post on exactly what is wrong with that letter, but gave up after a paragraph. It's too simple to devote that many words to explaining: It's just a lie, pure and simple. Apple don't really want the web to be open, or anything else for that matter - they are one of the most closed, proprietary companies in the technology sector. Even more than Microsoft, and on a level of control-seeking usually found only in mobile telephony. They just lied in order to justify their purely commercial desire to kill off flash support - and they have plenty of reasons, not least of which is that the sales of 99c and $1.49 casual games (eg, angry birds) in the app store would be severely impacted by the availability of a catalog of tens of thousands of already-released flash games.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[DrgnDancer]

That doesn't make a lot of sense. 1) Android isn't really Java, so you'd need additional tools besides the JVM anyway, and 2) Oracle will almost certainly release their own JVM for Mac. It's too big a market to ignore. My guess it starting to lean towards: "They don't want to carry Java apps on their new app store". Which is hardly a big deal, since you can just install them independently of the app store.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[VGPowerlord]

In many ways, Apple is helping to move old tech out. Java, some will say, is still quite relevant. Apparently Apple does not agree. The push for getting everyone into HTML 5 using Javascript and all of those technologies necessitates getting rid of the old ways.

You do know that 'Java' is to 'JavaScript' as 'car' is to 'carpet'. Beyond a few shared letters for early buzzword compliance, and things like the Rhino interpreter, there is no real relationship between the two.

(Quoted a larger section of the GP post to make a point)

Where did the GP confuse Java and JavaScript? The GP is making the statement that Apple considers Java (desktop apps) "old tech" and that they are pushing HTML5/JavaScript.

All those sexy HTML5/JavaScript apps have to be written in programming languages and hosted on servers. And plenty of people are building on top of the JVM. Large chunks of both Twitter and Foursquare are written in Scala, a JVM language. Why? Oh, something about how it is good for long-running processes due to something ridiculous like a million engineer-hours going into JVM development.

Apple makes a server OS, but afaik, the percentage of that market is even more minuscule than their share of the desktop market is. Web Servers are dominated by Linux and Windows (with the percentages of each varying wildly depending on whose stats you're reading), which combined control at least 90% of the market regardless of which survey you believe... and in Netcraft's 2009 survey, the only one where OSX is enumated, it is counted as part of the 3.45% of "Other non-UNIX" OSes.

What Apple thinks and does is irrelevant to the server market.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[VGPowerlord]

I'd rather they use that than Adobe's proprietary streaming format or Real's proprietary streaming format.

I don't know about Real, but Adobe (Flash) uses common video codecs, such as H.264.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Compaqt]

>The new Mac App Store is already starting to look like a garden of pure ideology. It will be as problematic as the Ubuntu version of the same idea.

How so? The Ubuntu app store features departures from the ideology (free software). For example, the first app is Fluendo, a $24 codec pack for DVDs.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[cerberusss]

with ~8 months notice Oracle has plenty of time to build their own JVM.

Build a Java VM in 8 months? That's not going to be a very good JVM.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Rumors I'm hearing say that Oracle is going to destroy Java anyway by turning it back into a proprietary, paid-for product. The existing JDK and JRE would still be free, but any new work would only be available under one of Oracle's trademark incomprehensible licensing agreements. Even if free, if new Java features are built like most Oracle apps, it would kill Java anyway (Oracle Reports? That Oracle Form Builder thing? Oracle Apps?)

It may only be rumor, but it would certainly be in character for Oracle.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

This is really starting to look more and more like the iphone.

Not really, no. Seriously, if they want to go more towards the iPhone, they'll port iOS to the desktop.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[MachineShedFred]

You also have to remember that Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs are good buddies, so it's doubtful that this is a move that is anywhere near the dust-up over Flash.

Yes, that stuff matters sometimes.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[PitaBred]

Larry and Steve are good friends. I would bet a lot of money that this is a "strategic" decision, not something in favor of customers directly.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[gbjbaanb]

true, but if an Android app is written in Java, porting it to "Apple java" isn't nearly as difficult as porting it to Obj-C. As a result, devs will write Android code then port it over as quickly (and cheaply) as possible resulting in lesser quality apps for Apple.

At least, that's how Apple sees it (I guess). The answer is to write your apps in as neutral a language as possible (C/C++ with Qt?) and try to reuse as much as possible. Here's the chance for Android to give such languages first-class support so the android app will become the one written first, and then mangled^H^H^H ported to Macs.

Oracle will no doubt release a JVM for Mac, but it might take a while to get it out. Even then, it'll be geared to run Java apps without all the Mac-specific bits, so I can't see it gaining much traction beyond being available to run the atrocious 'enterprise' line-of-business apps.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[M. Baranczak]

The problem is, there is no other implementation of Java for Mac OS. If they were turning the maintenance over to Oracle, they would have said so.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[HelloKitty2]

"Sun MicroSystems and now Oracle develops JVMs for all the OSs EXCEPT Apple"

I think I wasn't very clear with what I meant in my reply, Apple isn't allowing anything into their app stores that doesn't use some apple developed API, it locks out those that want to create stuff for multiple platforms, and it locks in all those developing for OS X that now are forced to use Objective C.

I'm sure you're also mad at Adobe for not making you a version of flash too, right? But that's another discussion ;)

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[bbtom]

How does pushing HTML5/JavaScript-based web apps "necessitate" - as the GP said - the removal of Java and other "old" technology?

The GP said that as with Flash, Apple are "helping to move old tech out". This is true: they helped rid us of floppy disks and serial/LPT ports in favour of USB, were one of the first computer companies to push wireless etc.

But I don't see how for HTML5 or any other new technology to come about, one must throw away our 'old' JVM? Did we have to throw away C when Python came out?

Sometimes you do have to throw away old technology - I'm glad that Intel et al. are finally getting around to replacing BIOS with UEFI. But I don't see how a world of webapps "necessitates getting rid of" the JVM.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[iMacGuy]

It uses a proprietary stream protocol called RTMP.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[HansWurst]

Nevermind it took them two years to release Java 6 which required users to have 64bit intel boxes. So, if you were doing any sort of Java desktop work (yes, this does exist), you were stuck on Java 5.

They later started to ship Java 6 for 32 bit boxes, too. I'm running it on an early MacBook (Core Duo, 32 bit cpu).

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[real gumby]

I think you missunderstood erroneus. My read of that message is exactly that Apple is classing Java as "yesterday's technology" and indicating a preference that apps be written in ObjC or HTML+Javascript or a combo of the two.

Your first two paragraphs aside, your message is good but adds insight into why Apple might make this decision. As a computer maker they are basically a client side presence. Yes, Apple does have a server product --- I use it -- but it's a workgroup-scale product.

Their business model doesn't justify making the ultra-low-margin servers people deploy with these days. So if adding their own tweaks to Java doesn't help them on the client side, why invest the R&D and (probably higher) support dollars? Those server side applications you talk about don't really need the special apple UI tweaks and although the Apple performance tweaks might be nice if you use the mac as your develoment platform, you'd have to ignore them and use the same JVM you would use for deployment -- so this policy wouldn't really change anything for you anyway.

PS: That Livescript->"Javascript" thing really irked me too. Yet it was somehow worse when GLS did the faux "standards" thing: I was then torn: call it ECMAScript to fracture the misleading "Java" connection or ignore it to scorn the astroturf "standard"? I guess the "market" chose.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple licensed the JVM from Sun/Oracle. They don't have to worry about Patents. Google has to worry because they did not license it for Android.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[jonabbey]

This is a GOOD THING as now Mac's will have a better supported and up-to-date JVM and updates should come quick and fast compared to Apple's sluggish almost apathetic attitude towards releases.

Really? Where are these magical JVMs going to come from?

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[M. Baranczak]

And the dots. Let's not forget the dots.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[s73v3r]

Part of the reason why Apple made their own JVM in the first place was because the one from Sun was dogshit. They licensed it, took control of their implementation, and made it good. Along the way, those improvements made their way back into the official JVM. Now, the official one is ahead of the Apple one. There isn't much reason for them to keep duplicating the effort of maintaining their own JVM when the official one is just as good.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[s73v3r]

Porting an Android app to "Apple Java" would be about as easy as porting it to regular Oracle Java. As in, not very. Also, "Apple Java" was never available on the iPhone.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[s73v3r]

Completely unfounded rumors spread by conspiracy theorists, you mean. Besides, you have to go get the JDK from Oracle anyway when you set up for Android development.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Serious Callers Only]

Not really, no. Seriously, if they want to go more towards the iPhone, they'll port iOS to the desktop.

This is a first step - first they get developers used to travelling along only an Apple-approved track (i.e. The Mac App Store, which will accept only Apple blessed tech, no Java, no Carbon, etc). Later when developers are used to this, they release a new version of OS X which uses UIKit as its foundation, and deprecate the parts of cocoa they don't want to keep - they've already moved over lots of cocoa, and all of foundation to iOS. The name of iOS was changed for a reason, not just because of the iPad, but because they're probably planning to move to it as a toolkit long term - there's nothing in there which would make it very difficult to use on the desktop, and Steve is probably itching to reinvent UIs again and tell us we don't need overlapping windows and a menu bar after all (both integral to desktop OSs up to now).

There are clues to the eventual destination already in UIKit - it includes references to windows (presently unused in iOS), and reads like a tidy up of the older NSView code - there's nothing in there which precludes use as a desktop OS UI save a few missing features, but lots of things in cocoa that would make a transition the other way difficult.

I remember that double bridge invite to the iPhone launch, and wondering which bridge Steve was on, and what would happen to the other bridge over time. Well, now we know! The other bridge (Java, Carbon, and eventually Cocoa) ends in mid-air. While this isn't unusual in software development, for the cynical amongst us it is a familiar pattern which bears remembering, particularly when Apple insists this is one last transition; the ideal state for a platform vendor to keep their developers in is one of permanent revolution, coupled with strong lock-in - it keeps developers scrambling to keep up, and never gives them time to question the boundaries set by the vendor, look at other platforms in depth or attempt to write cross platform apps. That's why Apple so desperately want to kill Flash and are now undermining Java and jettisoning Carbon/C++. I'd like to see Flash die, but it is important to remember that the actions of corporations like this are always motivated by gain for the corporation, not any species of altruism.

Like .NET, UIKit is going to be used to shackle developers to one platform, and Apple is definitely showing controlling and sociopathic tendencies - they really have behaved very like Microsoft in this regard, and the signs are they're getting worse. Perhaps sociopathy is inevitably in an institution like a corporation as it grows over time.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[s73v3r]

I'm gonna go with you are completely unfounded, and spreading FUD. The App Store is not the only place to get apps on OS X. You can still go download any other app you want. They're just running a store, similar to Steam. Stuff that isn't going to require you to download a bunch of other shit that you may not know what it is.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

by erroneus (253617) writes: on Thursday October 21,

Eponysterical.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's already supported. I watched the Apple presentation yesterday with:

curl $(for all in $(seq -w 1 9999); do echo http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1010qwoeiuryfg/0640/064$all.ts; done) -o - | mplayer -

The problem is not that they use the very simple HTTP Live Streaming, that's great. The problem is that their Javascript code refuse to recognize any non-Safari browser for video. Even when they use the HTML5 with H264: Google Chrome supports that (not Chromium), but Apple JS code refuse to give you a tag. Instead, they ask you to install Quicktime (good luck on Linux).

That's the problem.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[smitty97]

You do know that 'Java' is to 'JavaScript' as 'car' is to 'carpet'.

Unless it's a 'magic carpet', I don't see the analogy.

my car has carpet in it

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

...and Steve is probably itching to reinvent UIs again and tell us we don't need overlapping windows and a menu bar after all (both integral to desktop OSs up to now).

This alone should be a big blinking clue that the path you're wandering down isn't making that much sense.

Making OSX work like iOS right now is a good deal more work than just mucking around with UI calls. You have to disable running of interpreted languages, completely sandbox each app, disable making files 'executable', and a whole slew of other things that the OS in its current design philosophy is taking for granted. It's stupid and it makes no sense to do that when iOS is already there.

The best clue you're ever going to get that they're headed that way is if they release a 'netbook' or an iMac running iOS. Until that happens, it's just earn-an-insightful-mod fiction.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[nine-times]

Or it's possible that they had some talks with Oracle, and Oracle indicated that they would sue. Or Oracle indicated that they would not be continuing to support Java in a way that Apple thought made their own future support make sense. Or Apple believes that there aren't enough people using their Java implementation on OSX to warrant continued support. Or Apple is making enough changes in Lion that it would require them to overhaul their Java implementation, and they believed it wasn't worth it.

There are a number of legitimate reasons why Apple might not want to continue the project. Of course, some people will see conspiracies. And conspiracies are possible, but it's hard to say at this point.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[tibit]

I would otherwise agree, but the problem is that a lot of MacPorts just stop working on Snow Leopard. wxWindows doesn't work yet. Nothing that uses native (non-X11) gtk works -- gimp used to work on native gtk under OS X 10.5. I learned it the hard way.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[erroneus]

I didn't mean to say that one replaces the other in a direct sense. Rather I am saying that the way computing and applications will operate on a desktop is predicted to change and that Apple would wish it to be so.

Firstly, there is a real push to put applications back to running primarily on the server while the client deals with the user interface. None of that requires Java except, possibly, on the server side. As for actual applications -- native applications that run on the desktop? I just think Apple sees it as inappropriate and I somewhat agree.

Additionally, there is still a scattering of Java based applets that are intended to be run within a browser. That too needs to go away.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they looked at the Android lawsuit and said "Hmm, I don't *think* we're breaking any laws, but why take chances?"

They weren't taking any chances. Google isn't in trouble for using Java, they're in trouble for using Java without licensing the JVM. Apple had a license.

I know this is hard for many Slashdotters to understand, but companies like Oracle are not irrational actors suing people at random for evil shits and giggles -- they have a reason and a strategy, and it is not hard to predict whether they will or won't be interested in suing someone.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[DrgnDancer]

My point was more along the lines that Oracle seems to be trying to monetize Java in ways that Sun either couldn't or didn't. Maybe Oracle wanted to jack the license costs, maybe they yanked the license, maybe there was some question of the validity of the license. I don't know, but I tend to guess that Apple didn't pay one price for a perpetual license to produce Java VMs. The terms probably get renegotiated annually or something.

Sun never showed the least interest in what Google was doing with Android, Oracle bought them and, bam, lawsuit. There's a sea change in the way Java is being managed, and Apple may not want to risk the tides. Or they may have been told to go find a new beach.

Of course it's equally possible that Apple doesn't want to see Java apps in their new app store. *Shrug* Who knows.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

The push for getting everyone into HTML 5 using Javascript and all of those technologies necessitates getting rid of the old ways.

By which you mean the JVM? It has nothing to do with "internet standards" ffs.

You do know that 'Java' is to 'JavaScript' as 'car' is to 'carpet'. Beyond a few shared letters for early buzzword compliance, and things like the Rhino interpreter, there is no real relationship between the two.

best car analogy ever!

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[SplashMyBandit]

I can assure you that there won't be a general stampede to Objective-C in the enterprise. It simply feels so backward compared to Java.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[djdanlib]

Sure, Apple likes the idea of an "open standard"... the standard is that you open your computer usage up to Apple and only Apple.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[icklemichael]

Sun MicroSystems and now Oracle develops JVMs for all the OSs EXCEPT Apple.

$ java -version
java version "1.5.0"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build pap32devifx-20090327 (SR9-SSU ))
IBM J9 VM (build 2.3, J2RE 1.5.0 IBM J9 2.3 AIX ppc-32 j9vmap3223-20081129 (JIT enabled)
J9VM - 20081126_26240_bHdSMr
JIT - 20081112_1511ifx1_r8
GC - 200811_07)
JCL - 20090327

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[poopdeville]

Snow Leopard is $29. Really, there is no excuse to still be on 10.5. The whole point of making Snow Leopard cheap was so that everyone would be on the same release.

If you have an Intel Mac you should be on 10.6. Period.

You can give me 29$, since you feel so strongly about it.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[gig]

QuickTime is not required to watch videos on Apple's website. Their videos are HTTP live streams of MPEG4, all open standard. Your system is simply behind the curve.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[zlogic]

The site does work in Linux, however in Windows a Javascript rule removes the video, replacing them with a link to download Quicktime.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Build a Java VM in 8 months? That's not going to be a very good JVM.

Why? It took less time than that for a single developer to release a 1.6 JDK when Apple was dragging their feet on it.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[HelloKitty2]

The picture I got of this OS X app store was that of iPhone's app store, _the_ place to go for apps and where all developers get rich, a place you do not want to get shut out from.

Sure you can download anything you want from other places, but as a developer you will want to utilize apple's distribution channels to reach a large audience, something like apt-get, but if your apt-get can only download applications that are exclusively developed with Apple's iOS SDK and apples programming languages from apple servers then as a developer your choices are limited to making an Apple version of the app and a cross-platform version for all other platforms.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[RocketRabbit]

You can get your Oracle Jave from http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp dawg.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[MarkCollette]

These are Oracle's plans for Java:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/java-platform-2010-174690.html?msgid=3-2517886426txt

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[RocketRabbit]

Not all-around, but as a specialized replacement for Java applets (remember those?) HTML5 will do nicely.

People don't run Java enterprise applications, in general. Companies do. They will probably continue to run Java on the server side of things.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[RocketRabbit]

It's clear that you haven't really used Objective-C much.

Sure, the memory management dance is still a bit of a pain, but that is being worked on. It has a garbage collector now.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

wxWindows works just fine, just not in a 64-bit process. Use Python2.5 instead of 2.6, or adjust your preferences to use 32-bit for 2.6 by default.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[SplashMyBandit]

No, Objective C's weakness in multithreading (which really requires garbage collection otherwise the very large and complex programs I work on are impossible to avoid leaks in) means I've only evaluated it long enough to dismiss it as similar to old technologies I used to use.

Objective-C is a barrier to more stuff being written on iDevices. Apple thinks it helps the. It does not. That is one of the reasons why Android will likely overtake Apple (and one reason Apple is dropping Java in an attempt to stop this). Apple is trying to replay 1990 exclusion tactics but the veterans of the IT world has learnt since then (it's still the first time around for n00bish folk, so they can't see the parallels).

The Millions of Java developers (see tiobe.com for programming lanuage popularity) are almost immediately productive on Android but require and Apple, sign-up to Developer Connection, XCode, and Objective-C to write for the iDevices. All these barrier result in a giant "meh" when they can tap the growing Android market with far less hassle. I know which horse makes more sense to back in the long term - therefore I only occaisonally dabble with Objective-C, since I can do more with Java and the only devices I can't deploy my programs to are the XBoxes and iPhones. I've put my Java programs on other embedded devices and operating systems (all sorts of Windows, IRIX, Solaris, Linux and embedded Linux) so Objective-C is a poor strategic investment for me (and for many others) despite its small tactical advantage of targeting the iDevices while they still have majority market share (which is guaranteed to change over time).

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[leenks]

Wooooooooooooooooo!

So, it has a garbage collector. Whoopie-do. It also has awkward syntax, and suffers from loads of issues around dynamic typing. And it has no concept of namespaces.

The GP was right - it does feel backward - and it's only so popular because Apple essentially mandate its use for the iPhone.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[HelloKitty2]

Funny, I just saw this article:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9192331/Mac_App_Store_disruptive_say_experts
It's very related to what I said and I'm glad others are also thinking about it.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Palshife]

From your link:

Apple Computer supplies their own version of Java. Use the Software Update feature (available on the Apple menu) to check that you have the most up-to-date version of Java for your Mac.

So just when is this new implementation of Java on the Mac going to be published by our benefactors over at Oracle?

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Willbur]

And if you go there and click on the next link it tells you to use Software Update to get Apple's JVM.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

I've put my Java programs on other embedded devices and operating systems (all sorts of Windows, IRIX, Solaris, Linux and embedded Linux) so Objective-C is a poor strategic investment for me (and for many others) despite its small tactical advantage of targeting the iDevices while they still have majority market share (which is guaranteed to change over time).

Yes, because iDevice users care so, so much about which programming language the apps they want to buy are written in. It's inevitable! Nobody will EVER bother to learn a different language just to target that demand for software. APPLE IS DOOOOOOOMED!!!!

Back in the real world, plenty of sane, non-wannabe developers who don't suffer from your issues have made the perfectly rational decision that spending a couple weeks to learn a new language which is very similar to (and compatible with) some of the most popular languages in industry (Obj-C is actually a strict superset of plain C, and Apple also supports Obj-C++) in order to target a really cool platform is a good idea. If crossplatform is a major concern, they're smart enough to realize that they can code their backend in any language which easily interfaces to C family languages and only write a thin UI shell in Obj-C.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[coredog64]

Really, there is no excuse to still be on 10.5. The whole point of making Snow Leopard cheap was so that everyone would be on the same release. I tried, but my 15" Aluminum Powerbook wouldn't accept the installer disk. Something about G4 vs. Intel???

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs were the default laptop at Sun for several years. And there are a large number of Macs in use by people who worked at Oracle before they acquired Sun.

Convincing people to give them up and switch to a Dell is both difficult and expensive. Every employee I know that's been up for a laptop refresh and who had a Mac has refused an "upgrade" to a much faster machine with more RAM and disk space.

Oracle will get the Sun/Oracle JDK up and running on the Mac quickly enough.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

The codec and the streaming protocol are two different things. Both companies mainly use the H.264 codec (flash can support other formats but most are H.264 now), but each uses a different protocol to transmit the encoded video. Apples technology is open for others to implement, I think it's called qhttp. Adobe's format is closed and requires a flash wrapper to decode it.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[s73v3r]

So its exactly the same as the Android App Market.

Besides, there aren't a lot of apps that are going to have problems with this. Most of the popular Mac apps are already native. If you want to do it cross platform, then the way to do it is to abstract your logic in a library, and then write thin Interface layers on top, in the platform's native paradigm.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[HelloKitty2]

I'll agree with that, Google also seems to be attempting to segment the java ecosystem into google-java and normal-java, Nokia is the only one that doesn't feel the need to redefine programming, and open.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[RocketRabbit]

Probably soon. For now you get your Java from Apple. Or you can get one of the other JVMs out there, right?

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[RocketRabbit]

Despite the millions of Java developers out there, and the millions of Java applications, if you want to actually make money with an online App store, you choose the Apple devices as your target.

In 2009, Apple took 99% of the revenue in the mobile marketplace. In 2010 it will probably be about the same.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Aron S-T]

Finally an intelligent comment. Think people. Last week IBM aligns itself with Oracle on Java. This week Apple drops its own version of Java. Ellison is pulling in all the sheep that wandered when Sun alienated the rest of the tech world. The only thing left is for him to make nice with Microsoft. Then Herr Schmidt, the ex-Sun guy, will find Google standing all alone in it's battle with Larry Ellison.

Also don't forget that Apple also sells servers and wants to get more into enterprise space (the Steve himself said so). Killing off Java on OS X would be an absurd move. They have killed off Apple branded Java and deprecated it for desktop apps. Thats not the same as deprecating Java on Mac OS X or restricting Java developers from using Macs as server software development platforms.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as "friendship" when it comes to CEOs of companies.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

If Oracle is going to supply an OSX version of Java, then why not wait until Oracle announces this?

Why hasn't Oracle announced it?

Asserting that Oracle will take up the gauntlet is a big assumption given that there is no accompanying announcement that Oracle will do so.

What incentive does Oracle have in developing Java for OSX? No real server market there, and the server side is 99% of the Java market, not the client side. Oracle (and Sun before them) no longer cares about Java on the desktop - they haven't for years. They care even less about Java on the desktop of a platform that owns much less of the desktop market share than Windows.

I own and use a MacPro for my Java dev work, so I am not saying this as someone who is trying to make Mac devs feel bad. Just pointing out the realities of the situation.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[abhi_beckert]

If you have an Intel Mac you should be on 10.6. Period.

Agreed, but there are still *tons* of PPC macs out there.

It cost me $1,500 to upgrade to snow leopard, just so I could run the software I need to get work done. I'm still using my old G5 PowerMac when I work from home, and it's plenty fast enough. I'm still annoyed about having to buy an intel mac to replace perfectly good hardware, just so i could run a few apps I need at work.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't kill java support. They deprecated the Apple VM implementation, meaning it will still be around for a year or two. To claim that Sun or Java has no interest in the Desktop environment is probably one of the dumbest things I've read in some while.

How exactly do you expect anyone to provide a rich environment on the client side across a variety of platforms, including touch, mobile, an desktop?

Flash? I don't think so.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[WankersRevenge]

From where you get them now. You know ... the maintainer of the Java language.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Serious Callers Only]

Making OSX work like iOS right now is a good deal more work than just mucking around with UI calls. You have to disable running of interpreted languages, completely sandbox each app, disable making files 'executable', and a whole slew of other things that the OS in its current design philosophy is taking for granted. It's stupid and it makes no sense to do that when iOS is already there.

And yet, that's what they're doing for Lion - adding app signing, deprecating other languages and toolchains, adding mandatory sandboxing (at present it's only the Mac Store agreement, watch it spread). A lot of those moves are technically laudable, and there are many things in there that I would welcome as a user, but the control that goes with them is not acceptable. As to changing the desktop UI - I suspect you're a lot more wedded to menu bars and windows than Jobs is.

I'm sure Apple would love to just ditch NS** and move to UI** and iOS for the desktop, and probably ditch a whole load of UI conventions too - they're clearly in love with certain purifications of the UI introduced with iOS (no menu, one window, no file system). They can't do that straight away because they need to take developers, and esp. large developers like MS and Adobe with them. Just as they did with Carbon, there will be a long period of adjustment and some smokescreens to beguile the more easily led, but it's clear what direction they are heading in, and where they want to end up.

The more important point in all this is that the attitude of Apple to their platform and developers is now one of ownership - if you don't agree with Apple's decision about what customers might want (say they class your art as pornography, or ban your dictionary app for including a swear word) or want to use a language they don't officially bless, you can go develop for something else, there is no middle road. That is what has happened to iOS, and it's being introduced on the desktop too.

There's even a clause in the Mac App Store agreement about apps which they deem too similar to their own:

Apps that look similar to Apple Products or apps bundled on the Mac, including the Finder, iChat, iTunes, and Dashboard, will be rejected

That sort of arrogance is where the platform is going, and that's why deprecating Java and banning Java from the app store is an important clue that they're headed towards iOS in spirit. They won't move straightaway to iOS and all the lock-down that comes with it for political reasons, but that's where they're headed.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

And yet, that's what they're doing for Lion - adding app signing, deprecating other languages and toolchains, adding mandatory sandboxing (at present it's only the Mac Store agreement, watch it spread)

As to changing the desktop UI - I suspect you're a lot more wedded to menu bars and windows than Jobs is.

That is an odd conclusion to draw considering the origins of iOS.

...that's why deprecating Java and banning Java from the app store is an important clue that they're headed towards iOS in spirit...

No, it isn't.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Serious Callers Only]

That is an odd conclusion to draw considering the origins of iOS.

Sorry, what does this refer to? The quoting is a bit messed up and I can't work out what you are replying to here. iOS is of course a branch from OS X, and they're folding some features back into OS X, including the app store and some of the restrictions. I expect they'll gradually try to bring the two together again now that iPhone is no longer a secret project - looks to me like the emphasis is on moving ideas and features 'Back to the Mac', and not the other way round. That includes their restrictions on apps and tools.

No, it isn't.

Time will tell I guess. If you look at the Mac App Store guidelines, you'll see that Apple are moving very definitely in the direction of iOS in terms of control over binaries on their platform and guiding developers to use just one tool-chain. There are a lot of clauses in there (including the exclusion of Java) which are very unusual for a desktop OS.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Guy Harris]

I'm sure you're also mad at Adobe for not making you a version of flash too, right?

If the person to whom you're replying is an OS X user, then if they're mad at Adobe for not making them a version of Flash, somebody needs to inform them that Adobe do make a version of Flash for OS X.

I remember, many many many many many years ago when I was at Sun, that SunOS (or "Sun UNIX 4.2BSD", or something such as that, as it called itself at the time) shipped with a version of the B News software. Unfortunately, the version it shipped was an older version that didn't have the "line-eater bug" fixed, and a lot of people with Suns just ran the bundled version without updating, so the line-eater bug wasn't getting fixed in the field as fast as it should. Eventually, we stopped shipping B News with the OS, so as to force people to get the updated version from the original source if they wanted to run B News.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Guy Harris]

And yet, that's what they're doing for Lion - adding app signing,

App signing isn't something that will first show up in Lion.

deprecating other languages and toolchains

Where did it say that was being done for Lion?

adding mandatory sandboxing (at present it's only the Mac Store agreement, watch it spread).

The App Store isn't Lion-only.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Guy Harris]

looks to me like the emphasis is on moving ideas and features 'Back to the Mac', and not the other way round.

The emphasis for Lion might be that, but there's obviously not much Lion can do about moving ideas and features from the Mac to iOS machines - if that happens, it would obviously have to be done in iOS 5.0 or whatever.

If you look at the Mac App Store guidelines, you'll see that Apple are moving very definitely in the direction of iOS in terms of control over binaries on their platform and guiding developers to use just one tool-chain. There are a lot of clauses in there (including the exclusion of Java) which are very unusual for a desktop OS.

The App Store isn't a desktop OS, it's an online store for applications. Having a vendor-provided app store is unusual for a desktop OS, but not unheard of (to be fair, that page says that "In version 3, we plan to offer commercial software for sale, ..., and allow ratings and reviews of software." - are they up to version 3 yet?).

"Time will tell" whether Mac OS X ever gets to the point of supporting only apps from the App Store. It might be that most app vendors will choose to sell their apps through the App Store; whether the App Store will be so popular that it becomes effectively impossible to sell software for the Mac in any other fashion is another matter.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Sorry, what does this refer to?

I apologize, that was an error on my part. That was in reference to your comment about Steve Jobs and his desire to get rid of windowing.

Time will tell I guess. If you look at the Mac App Store guidelines, you'll see that Apple are moving very definitely in the direction of iOS in terms of control over binaries on their platform and guiding developers to use just one tool-chain. There are a lot of clauses in there (including the exclusion of Java) which are very unusual for a desktop OS.

Sure, but the logic doesn't follow that OSX will be locked down to where you can only use the app store. It's like watching a guy remove a wheel from his bike and claiming he's converting it into an exercise bicycle, even though he has a perfectly nice one already in his garage. It doesn't make sense because he already has one and it's a deceptively huge leap from bicycle to exer-cycle. He could take a jackhammer to the nearby bike path and cast votes to make it illegal to ride bicycles on the street and that STILL wouldn't say he's actually making an excer-cycle. They're not connected. It's tempting to think they are, but they're not, even if he does end up doing just that.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Other media players will probably support HTTP Live Streaming in a couple months.

What other media players? Who is using media player plugins in browsers anymore? Either they get this into HTML5 browsers (unlikely, no browser plays the archaic MPEG-2 format) or they switch to an interoperable format.

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[alexandre_ganso]

Well, thanks to them, google chrome exists, both for desktop computers AND for android. Oh, Linux boys should be thankful for the CUPS thing too. Remember how it was with the different incarnations of lpr?

Re:So they are dropping another tech

[alexandre_ganso]

Oh, I just forgot. I downloaded the mac os X's kernel source code some time ago, and compiled myself. Can you do this on windows?

Abandonware

[digitaldc]

It's kind of funny to read the definition of deprecate:
In manner that deprecates; insulting; belittling - to express disapproval of; to recommend against use of; to pray against!

And then read how they are enabling 'Sudden Termination' and 'Garbage Collection' - take THAT JAVA!

Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[samkass]

In the past I've heard macs referred to as the ultimate developer's machine, with a full UNIX, all the gnu tools, a nice UI (with X if you need it), and nicely integrated laptop hardware. But Java is still one of the top languages on the planet, so if Apple really stops keeping it up to date that could put a nail in that coffin. Heck, I'm pretty sure the Apple Store has a big pile of Java back there...

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[ceejayoz]

This dev is more concerned about Minecraft not working...

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[EricTheRed]

I still fall back to my various Linux boxen a lot but for the actual IDE, I find OSX does fulfill the so called 'ultimate developer's machine' - I actually know a former MS-SQL developer collegue who has converted because it does work.

Let's hope either OpenJDK or IcedTea can fill in the gaps...

The danger is that they are going to force people down the Lion/AppStore route on the desktop - and the size of the desktop user-base will probably surprise them and bite them where it hurts most, their wallet - not everything is iPhone/iPad

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[FictionPimp]

Honestly, with the talk of app stores, the ridiculous talk of macbook air's being the 'future of computing', and other things from yesterdays announcements, I will be keeping my eye closely on linux for the time being. I'm not sure I'm going to stay with Apple for my next computer. They seem to be going in a direction I'm not comfortable with.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past I've heard macs referred to as the ultimate developer's machine, with a full UNIX, all the gnu tools, a nice UI (with X if you need it), and nicely integrated laptop hardware.

MacOS is actually based on the mach kernel, and not UNIX. /pedantic

The issue here is that java is full of security holes, and is being actively exploited in the wild. If you have a normal computer (ie a non-mac), then you can download & install the latest java version from sun/oracle.

But if you have a mac, you can't. Big brother Apple has decreed that mac users aren't smart enough to make their own decisions on installing updated versions java.

Your only choices are don't use java, or wait until Apple decides to release an updated version of java and hope you don't get pwned in the meantime.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[gabebear]

I imagine this is more that Apple is moving away from Java as a way of making desktop apps and less that they are moving away from Java working on OSX. In 2005 Apple deprecated the Java Cocoa Bridge, which was probably a big reason they still maintained their own branch of the JVM ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_(API)#Implementations ).

I'm guessing Apple is now expecting Oracle to package versions of the JVM for OSX, which makes sense.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[BasilBrush]

Anyone who wants Java can install it. Oracle don't release a Mac version right now because previously Apple have done that work for them. But that'll no doubt change if Oracle are still wanting to promote Java. And even if not, GPL says someone else will.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[ThrowAwaySociety]

In the past I've heard macs referred to as the ultimate developer's machine, with a full UNIX, all the gnu tools, a nice UI (with X if you need it), and nicely integrated laptop hardware. But Java is still one of the top languages on the planet, so if Apple really stops keeping it up to date that could put a nail in that coffin. Heck, I'm pretty sure the Apple Store has a big pile of Java back there...

The Linux foundation doesn't develop a Linux JVM.
Microsoft's JVM was awful and incompatible.

Both those platforms are still widely used for Java development and deployment, in spite of depending on a third-party JVM.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[BarryJacobsen]

In the past I've heard macs referred to as the ultimate developer's machine, with a full UNIX, all the gnu tools, a nice UI (with X if you need it), and nicely integrated laptop hardware. But Java is still one of the top languages on the planet, so if Apple really stops keeping it up to date that could put a nail in that coffin. Heck, I'm pretty sure the Apple Store has a big pile of Java back there...

Apple doesn't maintain a distribution of python, but you're still able to run Python on OS X. The only thing that's really going to change is that it won't be Apple doing the work, it will be Oracle.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

UNIX is a specification, not an implementation. Mac OS X 10.5 onwards on Intel are UNIX 03 certified /pedantic

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[beelsebob]

MacOS is actually based on the mach kernel, and not UNIX. /pedantic

Mac OS X is actually based on the mach kernel, which, along with OS X's userland is a certified implementation of UNIX. /pedantic

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[BasilBrush]

MacOS is actually based on the mach kernel, and not UNIX. /pedantic

That's not pedantic, that's confused. Linux might be (pedantically) a specific kernel, but UNIX isn't. Unix is a set of higher level standards, and OSX conforms, and is officially registered as a version of UNIX.

http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/apple.htm

Unlike Linux, there is no way that OSX is not UNIX, including by what kernel it uses.

Big brother Apple has decreed that mac users aren't smart enough to make their own decisions on installing updated versions java.

I think maybe paranoid rather than pedantic describes you better. This move simply puts OSX in the same position as Windows. The user can install whatever version of Java he wants. But at some point in the future, there won't be one installed as part of of the OS.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

UNIX as used by marketing is a set of standards.
UNIX/Unix as used by technical people is the big family of operating systems derived from the original operating system.
BSD is Unix in the second sense and as OS X is a mix of BSD and Mach it's logical that it is a real Unix too.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[AltairDusk]

I personally didn't find Xcode that impressive (If that's the IDE you are referring to). The one thing I really miss from when I used my MBP is TextMate, it's simply a brilliant piece of software. I wouldn't quite call it an IDE but calling it an editor doesn't seem to do it justice so I won't attempt to classify it.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[EricTheRed]

No I found Xcode horrible... NetBeans 6.x/7.0RC1 (with the C modules added)

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[EricTheRed]

Oops meant 7.0M2 there's no RC yet :-(

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I think a lot of Apple devs have been asking for this anyway. I usually stick with the "tried and true" but my colleagues were very vocal about Apple being slow to bring the new features for Java into their JDK.

Now that these people finally got part of what they wanted, let's see if Oracle or more likely OpenJDK steps in and gives them the rest. I personally look forward to helping bring Cocoa to OpenJDK and hope I'm not alone.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Java on OS X has always been a second-class citizen. Swing and SWT apps (read: NetBeans and Eclipse) have always been ridiculously slow and ugly on OS X compared to Windows or Linux on similar hardware and the OS X JVM /JDK is always months (or years!) behind the official version.

So as much as I like Macs and OS X, I ended up switching to Linux a long time ago. Cheaper, faster, better tools.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[jedidiah]

The problem with Unix defined as a marketing buzzword is that it leaves out a lot of important details that actual Unix users care about.

It allows for a degree of "inconsistency and chaos" that Mac Zealots would eviscerate Linux for.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Mongoose Disciple]

I assume Oracle probably will release a Mac version. That being said, if they don't...

And even if not, GPL says someone else will.

I'll bet if someone else tries that, they'll get sued by Oracle.

Note that I'm not claiming that the lawsuit will be justified or that they'll win.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Richard_at_work]

The Linux foundation doesn't develop a Linux JVM. Microsoft's JVM was awful and incompatible.

Both those platforms are still widely used for Java development and deployment, in spite of depending on a third-party JVM.

I distinctly remember Microsofts JVM being faster and more stable than the alternatives (Suns own port), but had Windows only extensions which meant if you wrote for it your app wasnt portable elsewhere - to say it was awful is a bit of a lie, but you are right on the incompatible side.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Gadget_Guy]

Microsoft's JVM was awful and incompatible.

It was incompatible (they didn't support Java Native Interfaces and Remote Method Invocation), but it certainly wasn't awful. It was one of the fastest Java implementations at the time.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Coincidently, Apple just pushed a Java update to my computer this morning.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OS X is actually based on the mach kernel, which, along with OS X's userland is a certified implementation of UNIX. /pedantic

FWIW, OS X is 100% POSIX compliant, things like FreeBSD and Linux are mostly POSIX compliant. OS X is about as UNIX as they come.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Nimey]

Only if you choose the non-default case-sensitive filesystem, apparently.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that they do provide a Python distribution. Check /usr/bin/python.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[TheRaven64]

Apple doesn't maintain a distribution of python

So the Python and Ruby installs that came from my Snow Leopard install DVD got there by magic?

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has nothing to do with Big Brother Apple or not allowing Users any control. Fact was that getting an optimized version of JVM from Sun on to a platform with zero users (OS X 10 years ago) was not going to happen. With frameworks like WebObjects relying on Java it was essential to at least get those users over. Apple licensed (the correct way not like MS' version) Java and implemented a version better/faster than the JVM's that were out there at the time. Apple is behind on updates but given the size of their market and where the majority of their users are focusing on they are dropping JVM. Hopefully Oracle will pick it up.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[BarryJacobsen]

Being available and being maintained by are two different things. My mac came with a trial of MS Office, do you think Apple is maintaining the code base for that trial or just making the trial available?

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[tom229]

You should. Ubuntu is honestly getting real slick. Everything works OOB, especially for laptops. I would recommend it to my grandma.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Java still not open -- though OpenJDK pseudo fork is? I left the Java world many years ago but friends who still work in Java love the idea of OpenJDK but state they can not use it.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[shadowrat]

the ridiculous talk of macbook air's being the 'future of computing'

wait, why is talk of macbook air's being the future of computing ridiculous? It's ridiculous for me to consider using a macbook air at this point, but my vanilla $999 macbook is plenty good for development (maybe i wish i had just a teeny bit more gaming power). There was a time in the past when i would have scoffed at the idea of anything less than a tower with 8 HD bays. Now, the extra power that i get in a desktop doesn't trump the portability of a notebook. I don't want to see a future where everything is an appliance like the ipad, but super thin ultraportables that ran a full featured os sound appealing, at that point, devices like the macbook air will seem beefy to us.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[BitZtream]

Swing and SWT have always been ridiculously slow, STOP.

Both suck on Windows and Linux JUST as much as OSX. 99% of the time its not the libraries that are the problem its the developers who write shit code because they learned Java in school and aren't actually programmers, just some douche who can cobble together enough code to get it semi-functional.

If you're letting Netbeans or Eclipse build your GUIs, thats your first problem. Its faster to lay them out visually, and its good if you're actually a clueless/newbie programmer but thats where the 'better' part ends.

Java is a second class citizen on every OS. It pretty much always looks like crap compared to native apps, you probably just don't notice it on Linux because pretty much all OSS toolkits look like ass. Sorry if I just insulted your love child, but reality doesn't change based on your fanboing.

As far as cheaper faster tools ... well, Xcode is free, and its GCC under the hood so ... not really sure how you get that one, 'better' is a matter of opinion, and in this case your comparing crap with crap as Xcode isn't that great and whatever cobbled together 'IDE' you happen to use on Linux is almost certainly shitty too, which you'll learn one you use an IDE that doesn't suck ass.

After you've been out in the real world and have some real experience, then you can comment, right now all you're doing is showing that you have little experience and no grasp on the alternate options available.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[ceoyoyo]

Hm. Microsoft discontinued their JVM several years ago. I don't think any of the big Linux distributions make their own JVM either.

Everybody just uses Sun/Oracle's. Now Apple is joining that party.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Probably a troll, but I'll bite.

My point was that NetBeans and Eclipse are written in Swing and SWT (respectively). These, as well as SQuirreL, JXplorer, and a number of other Java client applications perform as well as native applications on Windows and Linux. Not so with OS X. And to make matters worse, the look/feel of the Cocoa bindings hasn't changed since the early 10.1/10.2 days, and the bubbly aqua stuff is really out of place with the rest of the OS.

I'm primarily a web-based applications developer, but I've done a few things with Swing. It has an impressive API and NetBeans/Eclipse are proof that applications written with these technologies can be made to perform well.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[value_added]

Mac OS X is actually based on the mach kernel, which, along with OS X's userland is a certified implementation of UNIX. /pedantic

Yes, but from what I've seen, the userland seems to be mostly FreeBSD. /mildly pendantic

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[beelsebob]

Yes, but from what I've seen, the userland seems to be mostly FreeBSD. /mildly pendantic

I don't get how that's a "Yes, but", or pedantic in any way, it seems like an orthogonally related fact.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Locutus]

"it won't be Apple doing the work, it will be Oracle". I think that's the big unknown here and given Oracles history, this is a valid concern. The other concern is getting on the platform when it ships and to be trusted is the other thing which prevents people from putting things on their computer after the purchase.

It might be a non-issue but odds are it will be an issue. Time will tell.

LoB

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past I've heard macs referred to as the ultimate developer's machine, with a full UNIX, all the gnu tools, a nice UI (with X if you need it), and nicely integrated laptop hardware.

But you haven't heard that from anyone who has actually done the research. I spent two damn years on a project to see if our *nix devs would be better off on a mac (instead of windows, for chrissakes!) because in theory the mac environment's *nix heritage would make it worth the slightly higher cost. We measured real world things like LOC and project time as well as more nebulous stuff like employee satisfaction.

Turns out Reflections on MS-Windows beat the pants off MacOS for real-world developers, with some linuxes running in second place and MacOS a distant third. Apple optimized so much for the clueless user and the mac addict fanboizen that they made it difficult for people who actually know the difference between threading models and memory management schemes to get their work done.

The devs all get issued windows PCs these days, which they immediately wipe and install linux on. Then they develop code for HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, etc. from Ubuntu, Fedora or Gentoo. I can't believe how much we are wasting on Reflections licenses.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[TheRaven64]

You might want to take a look at the copyright text on the Python and Ruby stuff. They are integrated with XCode and have Cocoa bridges that are maintained by Apple. They are very much distributions that are maintained by Apple.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[slycrel]

As a mac developer, that was my first thought as well. Think of the minecraft!

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[AltairDusk]

Ah, I don't have much experience with that one, not much of a Java Dev myself. At the time I was really using the MacBook I was doing a lot of Python and PHP, now I work as a C# developer. If I end up getting into Java more I'll definitely give it a shot.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[numbski]

I've been at that point for *months*, and people look at me like I've lost my marbles. Anyone that's had to deal with the jailbreak situation on iPhones in order to carrier unlock knows where I'm coming from. As of the 3GS, your phone initiates a "call home" to apple in order to ask permission to load a firmware revision. Looks like iTunes is doing it, but it's not. It's the phone itself.

Worse, if you disable all internet connectivity, the phone will flatly refuse to load *any* firmware. It must be able to phone home. The only savior to the situation is that it is vulnerable to a replay attack, so if you disable internet access, make an entry in your hosts file to point at localhost, then run a piece of software that can generate the TSS playback, the phone will then allow you to load the firmware of your choosing - with one caveat. You had to have captured a copy of the TSS session from a time when Apple was saying "okay" to that firmware, or in more technically speaking, they were signing the TSS session and giving you an SHSH. If you saved that SHSH, you're golden. If not, you're screwed.

Fast forward to now. You have the MacBook Air, and immediately prior to that, the Apple TV. I don't like this *at all*. I should not have to ask permission to load whatever I want on *my* hardware. Internet connectivity should never be a prerequisite to load an OS - unless the end user wants it that way.

I also should not have to rely on security flaws to get at the root filesystem of my computers. DO NOT WANT.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[numbski]

Ubuntu has been my primary desktop machine *at work* for almost 2 years now. There are hiccups here and there, primarily due to the occassionally stupid requirement of ActiveX in a web application or a Windows-only app that won't run in CrossOver office, forcing me to RDP into a Windows machine or run it in a VM - but generally speaking, I'd have no qualms with ditching OSX and going to Ubuntu.

Ironically, IOS devices are a problem on Ubuntu though, as iTunes still doesn't run properly in Wine, and in turn, on CrossOver Office. You'd still need to set up udev triggers for the IOS and run a VM (VirtualBox works nicely), to sync your IOS device up.

If you're going to ditch Apple, you seriously need to *ditch apple*. I make it work, but then I still have the used MacBook at home that I use for syncing.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple does maintain the Python and the Ruby distributions that come with OS X...

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[FictionPimp]

I think super thin ultra portables have a niche. I don't think they will be replacing my macbook pro anytime soon.

First of all, I upgraded from worse specs then that because of performance and secondly, I like to work on larger screens.

I don't see any reason why your target form factor shouldn't be 13 and 15 inch macbook pros with a niche of macbook air type devices.

I also think it is overzealous with pricing. Making it that light and small adds a lot of the price when you compare it to the rest of apple's product line.

I'd buy one at around the $500.00 price point. But I'd still want a real computer for real work.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[prionic6]

Apple's JVM also has Mac-specific extensions, although most of it (Cocoa bindings) have already been deprecated for some time and the rest can be used without restricting portability.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[sveinungkv]

I personally look forward to helping bring Cocoa to OpenJDK and hope I'm not alone.

The BSD-port of OpenJDK already run on OS X. I don't know if they support using Cocoa yet but their mailing list would probably be a nice place to start looking for others that are interested in working on Cocoa support in OpenJDK.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[shadowrat]

i've just taken apple's vision to mean that in 5 years, when you buy a macbook pro, it will look similar to today's macbook air. You'll have a big screen and all the power you need, but at that point the macbook air will be a ridiculously thin magical mithril elven thing, and a macbook pro that is as thick as today's air will look like a beast. compared to the laptops of 6 years ago, alienware's m15x looks like a macbook air.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[SplashMyBandit]

Macs are good for general development (I'm writing this on a 17" MacBook Pro and she's a beaut) but Objective-C is antiquated. I'd much rather target Java, so hence I write for Android.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Excellent! Thanks for the heads up.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[gig]

So you're saying that in 5 years you want to be using the largest, heaviest system possible with a bunch of moving parts?

If MacBook Air is not for you, that is fine. But it works really well for an awful lot of people who never miss what is left out and who benefit many times per day from carrying a 1 kilo system. It isn't like the other notebooks were end-of-lifed, and MacBook Air is not even new. I have one that is 18 months old and it is a 2nd gen. I also have a MacBook Pro that is a few months old and has all the ports and an optical drive, so it isn't even an either or situation.

Finally, as we all know, Slashdot readers are not typical consumers. If you can't understand that Jobs talking to the other 95%, then don't watch him. I have a friend who is going to buy one of these new MacBook Airs and her only concern was does it have a place to plug-in "USB's" because she has "a bunch of USB's". She's a little tiny thing, the 1 kilo weight will be a killer feature for her.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[FictionPimp]

It's not the size that concerns me.

It's that the future is less power at more cost with less control.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[ivucica]

So what's that little thing in /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework then? Oh yes -- it's Apple's build of Python (2.6 on Snow Leopard)!

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[BarryJacobsen]

Which is not 2.7, why is there no uproar over Apple not updating their Python library?!? OMG!!!!

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fast forward to now. You have the MacBook Air, and immediately prior to that, the Apple TV. I don't like this *at all*. I should not have to ask permission to load whatever I want on *my* hardware. Internet connectivity should never be a prerequisite to load an OS - unless the end user wants it that way.

I also should not have to rely on security flaws to get at the root filesystem of my computers. DO NOT WANT.

Um... where in the world has anything like that been announced for the MacBook Air? It's a Mac. Apple doesn't lock down the root FS of Macs. You can load whatever you like, whenever you like, by whatever means are handy. The system restore "disk" is a USB flash stick, no net connection required, and after you've done a wipe/install you can go ahead and plug in more USB storage and load whatever you like from it, once again no net connection required.

What does any of this have to do with TFA? DO NOT WANT stupid out of context rants.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[BasilBrush]

On November 13, 2006, Sun released much of Java as open source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). On May 8, 2007, Sun finished the process, making all of Java's core code available under free software/open-source distribution terms, aside from a small portion of code to which Sun did not hold the copyright.[17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)

The missing bits have been replaced.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[ivucica]

Python 2.7 was released on July 3rd, 2010.

Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. On August 28, 2009, it was released worldwide

Python gets updated when the OS gets released.

I don't use Java, I don't like Java, but Apple did take over the work on Mac Java; if people came to expect updates, well, it's a little sad they are dumping it.

On the other hand, they're dumping Carbon, and from what little I know about Java, I don't think a proper Cocoa binding can easily be done. I know there was a solution some time ago, but was it acceptable?

As an end user, I am a bit saddened by the loss of Java, since before, I did not have to worry about Java not "being there". There are a few pieces of Java software that I use on Mac, and having to install an extra piece of software to get them running would just suck.

On Windows, one of the most annoying software updates I have to do every now and then is Java. So, that's the other reason I'm unhappy with their choice; who knows what kind of autoupdate solution will be thrown in by whoever takes over the Mac port.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Palshife]

I believe this was an attempt to be right, albeit in a completely unrelated way.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Mongoose Disciple]

I'm aware of all that, and I have to be honest with you: I don't expect that it would stop Oracle's lawyers from trying.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anubis IV]

Seriously. As soon as I heard this news, my first thought was Minecraft. If I can't play in 10.7, I'm not upgrading*.

* By which I mean that I will complain a bit more before pre-ordering it so that I can have it installed on launch day. What can I say? They've got me hooked.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Guy Harris]

It's not the size that concerns me.

It's that the future is less power

The future might be "enough power for most people, and you can buy a higher-end machine, for more money, if you need it".

at more cost

If it's too expensive, people won't buy it, and it'll be a little difficult for it to be "the future of computing" if it's only bought by highly-paid road warriors.

with less control.

Why does the MacBook Air offer "less control"? (If Mac OS X does go down the "locked down" path, that wouldn't be unique to the MBA.)

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Guy Harris]

Mac OS X is actually based on the mach kernel, which, along with OS X's userland is a certified implementation of UNIX. /pedantic

Yes, but from what I've seen, the userland seems to be mostly FreeBSD. /mildly pendantic

Mac OS X includes:

• the xnu kernel, which is based on Mach and various BSDs, and also includes a bunch of Apple-developed code;
• a bunch of loadable kernel modules, which also run in kernel mode, which are a mix of BSD and Apple-developed code;
• libSystem, which is based on FreeBSD's libc, with bits from other BSDs, and a bunch of Apple-developed code.
• a bunch of other libraries, some from various non-Apple free software projects and some Apple-developed;
• a bunch of Mac OS X frameworks, largely Apple-developed;
• a bunch of daemons, commands, and other user-mode programs, from various BSDs, GNU, other free software projects, and Apple;
• a bunch of GUI applications from Apple.

/youreallydon'twanttoseehowpedanticIcangetifIwant

Hope this helps.

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Guy Harris]

It allows for a degree of "inconsistency and chaos" that Mac Zealots would eviscerate Linux for.

If your OS doesn't do at least one thing annoyingly differently from every other UN*X out there, it's not a UN*X. :-)

Re:Mac as ultimate dev machine no more?

[Anonymous Coward]

org.iso.iec.PortableOperatingSystemInterfaceForUnix is an interface, not a class. Mac OS X implements org.iso.iec.PortableOperatingSystemInterfaceForUnix.

Ugh...

[EricTheRed]

As I use my Mac as my primary java development environment (ok still on 10.5.x but about to finally go to snow leopard), this does say, wtf is going to happen after this latest update?

I.e. is Snoracle going to support macs directly or are we going to wait for OpenJDK etc?

Re:Ugh...

[EricTheRed]

Hmmm, let me see...

* hardware wise my 3yo MBP still outruns most machines in the office (ignoring the fact its personal hardware)
* os wise it's just as good as Linux (usually use Ubuntu)

So the old mac addage doesn't really hold up.

As for java... http://langpop.com/ and look at what's the most popular....

To quote Scotty - use the correct tool for the job... not "Start using a proper programming language" bollocks...

Re:Ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Popularity does not imply quality.

For example, look at how PHP is ranked well above both Python and Ruby in that chart. PHP is adequate for some things, but there is no way in hell that it's a better language.

Re:Ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Snark fail. WTF is "proper"?

Re:Ugh...

[Joce640k]

Variable variables..., 'nuff said.

That thing should have been shot at birth...

Re:Ugh...

[Joce640k]

"Proper" is a bit like when you put your real name and email instead of "Anonymous coward"...

Re:Ugh...

[EricTheRed]

Agreed, it doesn't imply quality - the problem is how do you split the two?

Saying that I'd use perl or something else if its the right tool for the job - look at say mercurial which is mostly python (& some C) - I'm not that fixed to a specific language to start the flame wars some people seem to... that url was the only one I had to hand at the time...

Re:Ugh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Python and Ruby aren't exactly gems in terms of language design or implementation quality...

Way to go, Apple.

[psergiu]

With this, Mac OS X users get all their OS updates automatically from one place. Too bad Microsoft & the various BSD & Linux vendors are not able to do this too.

PS: HP does this too for the HP-UX Java releases (except for the automatic updates): http://www.hp.com/go/java

PPS: Java IS part of the OS because without Java you cannot run Minecraft. :-)

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[IBBoard]

Huhwhatnow? Am I just reading that wrong? Apple's custom rebuild of Java was available from the update centre, the same as most other Apple bits. Windows users have to have yet another background updater running. Linux users get Java from their repos (the same as any sane person) and get updates automatically, the same as Apple used to.

I'm still confused by the message. Is Apple ditching Java altogether, or just is custom rebuild?

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[djdavetrouble]

They are just moving it to the App store, relax everyone.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[js_sebastian]

With this, Mac OS X users get all their OS updates automatically from one place. Too bad Microsoft & the various BSD & Linux vendors are not able to do this too.

Did you ever actually use linux? Any linux distribution from this decade has a centralized installation/upgrade mechanism such as apt-get, etc. This is one huge usability advantage over windows, that makes linux in my opinion much more usable than windows at the moment. Plus, it is an open mechanism, because if you want a software that is not provided by your distribution you can add a new repository source and it will get auto-updated just like all the rest.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[gabebear]

I'm hoping the same as Python and all the other UNIX-ish stuff. They are ditching their custom version(which isn't all the custom anymore), but will hopefully still include a JVM.

Not including a JVM would be a pain in the ass for Java developers, but they might not want to encourage Java-based Mac apps...

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[DrgnDancer]

Apple is no longer making their own Java implementation. Oracle will have to do the work. This is not scary or evil. Java on the Mac will now work like Java on almost every other platform. You'll go get the JVM/JDK from the Sun-Oracle website and a background updater will inform you of your daily "ZOMG, we found another critical security bug" update. Whether Oracle asked Apple to do this, Apple did it on their own because of concerns about Oracle's recent litigious streak, they did it to screw Oracle, or they just didn't feel like maintaining their own JVM anymore is pretty much an open question; but there will still be Java on Macs.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[ydrol]

>get all their OS updates automatically from one place
>Linux vendors are not able to do this too.

Huh? This is standard Linux Distro 101 stuff.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[tobiasly]

With this, Mac OS X users get all their OS updates automatically from one place. Too bad Microsoft & the various BSD & Linux vendors are not able to do this too.

Wow. Just... wow. You have obviously never actually used a Linux distro, or at least not in the last ten years. Modern Linux distros have package-management utilities that run circles around anything on Mac or Windows. The best part is that they allow third-party sites to plug in to them with their own repositories so that *all* software updates are performed by a single program, as opposed to other OSes where every damn program checks for updates on its own.

Mac has a LOT of catching up to do before their package management is as nice as that of Ubuntu et al. Granted, it's better than the one on Windows, but that's not saying much.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[IBBoard]

Maybe we'll get a migration to Linux. After all, if you don't want to use Windows and pick Mac then why move to Windows when your Java development dries up? Linux isn't terrible, but it could do with a bit of consistency polish in some places :)

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[Anonymous Coward]

With Apple's new Mac app store, Mac OS X users will probably still be able to get their updates using the same application. It seems likely that any forthcoming Oracle JVM and system updates will all come from said app store.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[gabebear]

Well, This move just puts OSX in the same place as every other OS. Installers for Java programs have to first check that Java is installed and either tell the user to install a JVM, or do it itself. There are installer packagers that do this for other OSes.

10.7 may not include a JVM by default, but almost certainly will. Any real changes to the way things function with Java on OSX are probably years out.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[michaelok]

Mac has a LOT of catching up to do before their package management is as nice as that of Ubuntu et al. Granted, it's better than the one on Windows, but that's not saying much.

Actually, for OS X, there is macports. Personally, I like things like apt-get, but since that steers you towards downloading binaries, and macports compiles the source, you get an application built exactly for your system. Anyway, main point is that, while I do believe that, I think it was Red Hat first with the RPM standard, Linux and other distros (SuSE) have pushed the envelope on making it easier to install software, I would say it's just as easy on the Mac. But golly, with this "deprecated" business, I'm just as cautious as everybody else here. At the very least, Apple should *communicate* things of this nature, so you don't have a bunch of /.s postulating various theories about what they are doing, so we have theories ranging from

This is because they don't want people developing Android apps on OS X

to

No worries, this is just that Apple's work is done, they've contributed everything back to the Sun/Oracle JVM, and we will all happily run the Oracle JVM when it comes out

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[djdanlib]

System administrators, such as myself, can use WSUS to push non-Microsoft updates to all of our Windows systems. There are other ESD platforms available as well.

Re:Way to go, Apple.

[Guy Harris]

With Apple's new Mac app store, Mac OS X users will probably still be able to get their updates using the same application. It seems likely that any forthcoming Oracle JVM and system updates will all come from said app store.

...if it doesn't violate any of the App Store requirements (I don't know whether a JVM would inherently violate one or more of the guidelines).

A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[benwiggy]

Who knows whether this is the result of some move on Oracle's part, rather than something Apple have suddenly decided to do?

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[mysidia]

This means that the Apple-produced runtime will not be maintained at the same level, and may be removed from future versions of Mac OS X.

Obvious reason: people aren't using the Apple-produced runtime in Mac Applications?

Applications developed in Objective-C / Cocoa are more specific to the OS X platform, providing Apple a competitive advantage when developers build their apps using Cocoa, instead of something portable like Java.

Not in Apple's best interest for Mac apps to be developed using Java.

Not only can they be run on other platforms, but Java-based apps may not conform to Apple UI design guidelines

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[Kjella]

I suspect a bit of both. Apple is pushing java out of the mobile space with iOS, and probably wants to set themselves up as controlling the Cocoa toolkit that runs on everything from iPhones via iPads to OS X to OS X Server. As long as you stay in the Apple sphere, of course.

However, I don't think the timing with Oracle is coincidental either, with the Android lawsuit and so on I think the see the opportunity to "sink" java as a development platform. Microsoft pushes .NET, Apple pushes Cocoa, Google pushes their "this is not Java", Linux is running in 50 different directions. Oracle is going to have to work hard to market Java on their own.

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[DarkOx]

There will be a big java market for a long time independent of if Oracle works at it or not. Firstly there is an entire generation of software developers out there that cut their teeth on Java. Those people are not going to just stop writing applications in their first language; especially when the best thing that language has going for it is a fantastic set of standard libraries. Second there is the entire mid-range and mainframe world out there for which all the new development has been being doing in Java for the past decade replacing COBOL, and RPG. Just as COBOL and RPG are still very much alive that huge Java code base is not going to just vanish.

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[Curmudgeon420]

Bingo, give the gentleman the $64 prize.

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[Celarent Darii]

It won't just vanish, but Java will become less and less relevant to the industry. COBOL is still out there, but it's not directing the industry nor is anything new being developed with it. If Oracle doesn't work at it, Java will also fall by the wayside of those tools now neglected by the next generation.

Oracle might be good at making money, but they do not really understand the mentality which fostered SUN and the many interesting technologies produced by them.

Just my simple opinion, but Oracle only sees Java as a cow to be milked, not one to be nourished.

Time will tell of course.

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[Locutus]

more and more it's looking like Apple is doing many of the things Microsoft has done and received a bad reputation for. I'm talking about using developers as pawns in their game to control the platform. I guess the difference is that Steve Jobs is a minimalist and wants things done his way on their platform and Steve Ballmer doesn't care how things look on the platform and the bottom line is that he insists on keeping market share.

These things just make me realize how much better the GNU/Linux platform is as long as you have a few extra brain cells available to understand what a command line is and can learn the basics of computer use.

LoB

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[michaelok]

Just my simple opinion, but Oracle only sees Java as a cow to be milked, not one to be nourished.

Right, sure, but there is certainly a fat profit in that, to use the COBOL example from the previous poster, IBM has been quietly upgrading COBOL & Mainframe technologies for years. Sure it doesn't have the spotlight that things like HTML5 and iOS (iPad, iPhone) have. And one other thing to consider is that Oracle is heavily invested in Java because their apps use a bunch of Java/J2EE technologies, for example Oracle Fusion and Call Center Anywhere. So Java won't get the fame and glory it once did, but they will still be significant investments. It's a little disappointing to see all the stuff that *won't* be in the newer version of Java (1.7? I can't even keep track anymore), but after now starting to use Java 1.5, and being fairly impressed by annotations and seeing the implications (who needs Spring? I can use Guice), I certainly hope I can continue to use Mac OS X as a development platform. Because utlimately making a less than adequate support for stuff like this is not a good idea. what next? Deprecate the Apple gcc?

Re:A move by Apple, or Oracle?

[Celarent Darii]

[quote]Because utlimately making a less than adequate support for stuff like this is not a good idea.[/quote]

Well, everything in life and business is often about choices, and not all choices will end up being successful. Java made a lot of promises in the age when developing software was largely fragmented and appeals to a certain language standard were often bound to the largest marketshare. That situation has changed dramatically, and the establishment of open protocols and standards has made even the JVM a certain relic of the past. In some ways one can easier emulate a whole machine rather than port a JVM to another architecture.

Of course Java will never be obsolete, it will have it's place just like everything else that corresponds to a certain need. Yet the need for Java is less and less evident as time goes on.

As for deprecating gcc, LLVM is already on the horizon as a modern replacement for Apple's developer tools. It was introduced in 2008 already.

Toolsets change even more quickly than human languages do, as they often fall short of what is needed, and can't be improved beyond a certain limit where it is simply easier to get a different tool. One of the great things of the technology industry is the rapidity of change.

So if Java continues to perform well, respond to the growing needs of developers and continue to get the job done, it will still be around. If one thing ever stays the same, is that progress stops for noone.

Similar to Flash

[BasilBrush]

This seems like a similar move to the obsoleting of Flash. Cross platform app development was useful when Apple was struggling to compete. Now Apple doesn't see any particular need for cross platform apps, because the breadth of app types is already covered by native Cocoa apps. They won't exclude Java in the way that they excluded Flash on the iPhone. But there's no need for them to spend development time on bundling it with the OS.

Re:Similar to Flash

[jonabbey]

There are a lot of custom, in-house apps developed with Java specifically to handle cross-platform issues.

We couldn't have done a lot of our apps if we had to write separate versions for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Re:Similar to Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Same. That's why I use Qt. Just as easy to write as Java, and better platform integration and performance.

Re:Similar to Flash

[Kolargol00]

They won't exclude Java in the way that they excluded Flash on the iPhone.

Seems like there is no (official) JVM for the iPhone anyway...

Re:Similar to Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems like a similar move to the obsoleting of Flash. Cross platform app development was useful when Apple was struggling to compete. Now Apple doesn't see any particular need for cross platform apps, because the breadth of app types is already covered by native Cocoa apps. They won't exclude Java in the way that they excluded Flash on the iPhone. But there's no need for them to spend development time on bundling it with the OS.

FYI, Java apps aren't allowed on the iPhone either.

Not sure where I read it this morning, but the future App Store for Mac OS X will have similar draconian restrictions on the type of applications allowed as the iPhone App Store. Among them, I believe, is the ineligibility of Java-based applications. If so, then what you said isn't true - the would exclude Java in the same way that they excluded Flash (and Java!) on the iPhone.

Re:Similar to Flash

[michaelok]

Qt is awesome. I'm using bouml, a designer that supports UML models. Just curious, but does anyone know what Apple builds Safari in, such that it runs cross-platform? I have researched this a little but haven't found any information. I would imagine that Safari is built with Objective-C and Cocoa libs, so assuming that, there must be some way to talk to Win 32. Any thoughts?

Re:Similar to Flash

[jonabbey]

Same. That's why I use Qt. Just as easy to write as Java, and better platform integration and performance.

Qt might be as easy to work with as Swing, but that doesn't mean that programming in C++ is the equivalent of programming in Java.

There are not nearly as many thread-safe, easy-to-use, open source, cross-platform programming libraries for C++ as there are for Java, surely.

Annoying, but maybe a silver lining?

[stefanb]

Unless Oracle steps up and makes Mac OS X a primary platform for JDK releases, this might be rather annoying. Ultimately, I might be forced to do development on Linux or Windows. That would blow.

But maybe this decision encourages some group to package a kick ass JDK, and have more timely updates and developer snapshots... one can dream.

WIth the App store and Flash removal, I'm not keeping my hopes up though.

AppStore

[Anonymous Coward]

When all you can install on a Mac needs to be installed via their AppStore, there is no need to have Java. Could their strategy for future OS-X version be more apparent?
If you don't like that you can always install Linux though.

Re:AppStore

[michaelok]

I've never installed anything via the App Store other than iPhone apps like Carcassonne. Did you know you can also install via disk images (.dmg) files? And then there is also macports
As for Lion, it's all speculation right now it seems. Kind of does remind me of Microsoft a little. Companies do this, see what kind of reaction they get from their leading edge fans, then adjust accordingly.

part of new software store?

[Danathar]

Java maintained by Apple has always been WAY behind what everybody else is using. I'm glad Apple is going to ditch it and leave it up to others.

  Flash and Java will probably end up in the new Mac App store which will mean automatic updates but via the vendor that supplies them.

My reaction to this is one of mild joy and "whatever".

Re:part of new software store?

[gabebear]

Yep, Apple's Java updates remind me of running Debian-stable... Usable, but missing the new shiny stuff I want. Apple's current JVM is nothing special(now that the JavaCocoa Bridge is removed), but at least not horribly out of date.

I do hope that Apple included an Oracle supplied version of the JVM with future versions of OSX...

Re:part of new software store?

[ThrowAwaySociety]

Java maintained by Apple has always been WAY behind what everybody else is using. I'm glad Apple is going to ditch it and leave it up to others.

The odd thing is, with the release in question (Update 3), Apple's JVM is 1.6.0_22, exactly the same as the latest release for Linux/Solaris/Winows. This is the first time I can remember that that was the case.

Re:part of new software store?

[Danathar]

And it's the last time we will see it either.

watch oracle do nothing

[Ryanrule]

tell apple they dont get java if they dont use a standard installer.

Re:watch oracle do nothing

[BasilBrush]

Watch Apple not care.

Re:watch oracle do nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch Apple not care.

People who use Macs, and need to log into Juniper's SSL VPN solution will care, as the software needs a JVM to work. So does the web interface of a lot Brocade and EMC stuff.

While Java desktop apps may not be popular, there's a lot of stuff out there that does need it.

Re:watch oracle do nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch Apple not care.

People who use Macs, and need to log into Juniper's SSL VPN solution will care, as the software needs a JVM to work. So does the web interface of a lot Brocade and EMC stuff.

While Java desktop apps may not be popular, there's a lot of stuff out there that does need it.

Wow I bet that's like 99.999% of apples customers.

I'm curious...

[acoustix]

Why was Apple allowed to provide their own JVM software and Microsoft was sued for making their own JVM?

Re:I'm curious...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was Apple allowed to provide their own JVM software and Microsoft was sued for making their own JVM?

Like all JDK/JVM licensees (IBM, HP, Excelsior, etc.), Apple licenses the code from Sun/Oracle and presumably licenses and passes the TCK (compatibility test suite).
Microsoft did as well, but they violated the license agreement, hence the Sun/Microsoft lawsuit.

Re:I'm curious...

[tuffy]

Because Microsoft's wasn't compliant with the specification.

Re:I'm curious...

[Thomasje]

Sun did not sue Microsoft for making their own JVM; they sued Microsoft for making an incompatible JVM, while using the Java trademark -- in direct and deliberate violation of the Java licensing terms.

In short, Microsoft feared and sought to impede the development of network effects that cross-platform technology like Netscape Navigator and Java might enjoy and use to challenge Microsoft's monopoly. Another internal Microsoft document indicates that the plan was not simply to blunt Java/browser cross-platform momentum, but to destroy the cross-platform threat entirely, with the "Strategic Objective" described as to "Kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market."

More...

Re:I'm curious...

[Graymalkin]

Microsoft's J++ was not fully compatible with the Java spec at the time and introduced it's own class libraries in the standard Java namespaces IIRC. They claimed their JVM was compatible with Sun's Java even though it really wasn't. If you targeted J++ your app wouldn't run in any other Java environments. Apple's Java implementation is a full implementation of the J2SE spec and all the Cocoa bridging stuff was properly labeled as extenstions. If you write a J2SE app on Apple's JVM it will run on any other J2SE JVM.

Re:I'm curious...

[realinvalidname]

Both Apple and Microsoft were commercial Java licensees. Apple's JVMs included all of the standard classes, plus some additional hooks to Mac-specific functionality that were clearly packaged as extensions (com.apple.*, quicktime.*, etc.). Microsoft's VM deliberately left out core functionality -- JNI for native calls and RMI for remote procedure calls -- and disguised Windows-specific calls as if they were typical Java calls, which could result in Java code that would only run on Windows.

I don't think it's a matter of "allowing" anyways. Sun/Oracle wants companies to purchase Java licenses. They do offer their own JVM for Windows, Linux, and Solaris, but that's mostly to keep developers happy. Even on these platforms, you have always been able to install third-party JVMs, like IBM's, or Oracle's JRocket.

Re:I'm curious...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Microsoft introduced incompatibilities into their version which (1) broke the license under which they were allowed to make one (and call it Java) and (2) because they intentionally tried to undermine Sun and use their monopoly position to distribute this version to users (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish). Apple always complied with Sun's requirements.

Re:I'm curious...

[itsdapead]

It isn't Apple's "own" JVM software - it is still the Sun/Oracle JVM. Apple maintains the OS X port/distribution of Java.

Re:I'm curious...

[Stormin]

Microsoft was sued for breach of contract around their JVM - they had a contract with Sun allowing them to produce it. Presumably Apple had some similar sort of agreement.

Re:I'm curious...

[LWATCDR]

Easy.
Apple followed the rules. The did extend Java but did it in way that didn't break portability.
Microsoft made an incompatible Java in violation of the agreement with Sun. They added all sorts of "windows only" features.

Re:I'm curious...

[UnknowingFool]

According the Sun license agreement, MS agreed that their JVM would be compatible. Instead, MS tried to pull the "extend" part of their embrace, extend, extinguish strategy by adding 2 commands that were not standard Java. This led to their dispute with Sun. During the trial, MS tried to paint Sun as jealous of their JVM because it was faster and performed better (this may have been possibly true), but Sun countered that they didn't care about that as long as the JVM was compatible.

What about servers?

[andymadigan]

I don't see much use of Java on the desktop these days (aside from a few specific applications), but I certainly see it used a lot in server environments. I suppose Apple will also apply this to OS X server? So if you want an Apple server you can't run the applications you've been running up to this point? They're going to shrink their already small server share.

Also, Slashdot, I set this account to use the "classic" interface, why are you making me click buttons to see comments now?! I just want to see the page, not have to keep clicking "show more". This comment entry box is terrible too, the "Reply" button is too close to the box itself.

Re:What about servers?

[EricTheRed]

Rarely on the desktop myself... & for me that amounts to Netbeans. The rest is server-side, which fortunately reads as Linux. However for development it's a problem.

Re:What about servers?

[1001011010110101]

Also, Slashdot, I set this account to use the "classic" interface, why are you making me click buttons to see comments now?! I just want to see the page, not have to keep clicking "show more". This comment entry box is terrible too, the "Reply" button is too close to the box itself.

Seems like I'm not the only one. First I had to figure out how to show the full text for all the page, and now I have to browse the comments in a frame 80% of my browser because I'm stuck with a sidebar (that wont scroll, btw). This seriously sucks, I want my classic UI back!!! Also, wtf is the checkbox with no text!?

Re:What about servers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Apple's share of the people who develop for all those servers is going to shrink too.

Just a few applications can make a difference because every Desktop Java application run
on a minority platform is a Desktop application that wouldn't exist on that platform without java.

Re:What about servers?

[Mechanik]

I don't see much use of Java on the desktop these days (aside from a few specific applications)

Ok, but those applications are relatively significant...

Eclipse. (Open|Libre)Office. Lotus Notes and just about any other desktop application made by IBM in the last eight to ten years. Many others.

The apps I listed are very important for a lot of businesses. A lot of critical applications only exist on the Mac because of Java.

I don't think Java on the Mac is going away entirely. If there were no JVM at all on the Mac, it would pretty much kill the platform in the business segment of the market. I think it's more the case that Apple has looked at things like OpenJDK and decided that it's not worth the resources to maintain their own JVM in a near vacuum. I imagine that it's intended for the slack to be picked up from some other direction, we just haven't heard the plan yet.

Re:What about servers?

[Anonymous Coward]

The checkbox is the "Reply Anonymously" checkbox. It's white text on a white background, actually. If you highlight the text, you'll see that.

Re:What about servers?

[Fnkmaster]

Slashdot briefly seemed to have forced everybody to the "Dynamic Discussion" mode this morning. I went to my account settings, turned it off, and it still showed up as on. Then a half hour later, I went back to Slashdot and everything seems to be working with the classic interface again.

Anyway, it seems to have been a glitch in the matrix and all is back to normal now. An interface that only shows score-5 comments and makes you click 100 times to see more comments is just horrible. I hope that's not what "dynamic discussion" mode is. Ugh.

Re:What about servers?

[VGPowerlord]

I use the dynamic index but classic discussion (the new one sucks ass)... sometime yesterday, I had to go into my preferences which had changed one of my previously checked settings.

Can't remember which one it was, though.

It might have been that D2 discussions were forced on (Under Help & Preferences, Discussion on the right side, click the Slashdot Classic Discussion System radio button).

Re:What about servers?

[_xeno_]

What radio button? There is no radio button. And unchecking the "Use Dynamic Discussions" does nothing, it just instantly rechecks itself when I save.

Basically, I'm forced to use the useless new discussion interface no matter what I pick.

The really infuriating thing is that I had my discussion interface set to show posts +3 or higher, but the dynamic system ignores that, and seems to randomly pick posts to show. If I could set ranges of posts to show and abbreviate, that would be useful, but the dynamic system appears to pick posts to "show" versus "abbreviate" at random.

I was using the classic system for a reason, and I'm rather pissed that I'm no longer allowed to do so.

Re:What about servers?

[antdude]

That means the agents are here! :(

Re:What about servers?

[wings]

I logged out and logged back in and the changes took effect immediately.

Re:What about servers?

[purplie]

I don't see much use of Java on the desktop these days (aside from a few specific applications)

For end-users maybe not, for developers a lot of tools are Java, with IDEs at the top of the list. Say goodbye to Eclipse on Mac??

Re:What about servers?

[RocketRabbit]

Apple has said it will not *update its own* Java in the future. They didn't say a thing about disallowing you from running Java.

There are already multiple Javas that will compile, install, and run fine on OS X. Use one of those if you are one of the *tiny* fraction of people who needs a Macintosh server and also need Java on it.

Sheesh. Apple doesn't include Haskell or Erlang but they sure don't go to any pains to keep it off your machine.

Question

[pak9rabid]

How come Apple was allowed to distribute their own JVM, but back in the day Sun slammed the shit out of MS for doing the same?

Re:Question

[LDAPMAN]

Apple did it with Suns approval and they didn't make changes that made it incompatible.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because MS "extended the functionality" of java so software written for MS's JVM often wouldn't run on Sun's. Part of MS's embrace and extend strategy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

asked and answered above...

basically, Microsoft deliberately produced an incompatible Java, and used the Java name.

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1832502&cid=33972564

Re:Question

[mario_grgic]

No, Sun did not slam MS for providing java implementation, but for providing non-standard implementation with hooks to Windows APIs, making code written for MS java non-portable and not really java any more. There is a huge difference there.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Microsoft added things to their version of Java that made it not cross-platform, not java. I worked with J++ and Visual Studio for a while. If you weren't terribly knowledgeable, it was difficult to create a cross-platform application. By default, Visual Studio created a Windows only version of your java program.

IBM join to OpenJDK, Oracle merges JVM

[Demablogia]

IBM join to OpenJDK, Oracle merges JVMs ... If Apple deprecated its JVM, this can be the end of years of confusion about which JVM to use.

Re:IBM join to OpenJDK, Oracle merges JVM

[M. Baranczak]

Yeah, OpenJDK is the one I'll be keeping an eye on. The problem is, right now it doesn't run on the Mac. I heard that you can build the BSD version on Mac OS if you jump through a lot of hoops, but it uses X11 for the GUI layer, and I'm sure there are all sorts of other problems. Making a proper port will be a pretty big job. Right now, I don't think anyone's working on it - but after today's announcement, that could change.

I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[viralMeme]

"They don't need to create an Installer, they need to create an entire port to a new operating system. The low-level threading and memory management, the GUI.. who wants their Java apps to be running under X11 on Mac?"

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[characterZer0]

Binaries for the JVM are cross platform. The JVM itself is written for the platform. If you write a Java application and compile it on Windows, the compiled version will run on a JVM on Mac. But the Windows JVM will not run on a Mac.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[Anonymous Coward]

"They don't need to create an Installer, they need to create an entire port to a new operating system. The low-level threading and memory management, the GUI.. who wants their Java apps to be running under X11 on Mac?"

Yes, if you're writing apps *for* the Java platform.
Not if you're *writing* a Java platform.

i.e. if you take the current plain vanilla OpenJDK and build it to run on Mac OS X, it uses X11 for rendering instead of Apple's (Quartz, is it?) rendering engine.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[Anonymous Coward]

Java applications are supposed to be cross-platform, but the runtime environment has to be written for the host platform. It's not pure Java that's accessing files on the OS filesystem, opening sockets, painting dialog boxes on the screen, etc.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[petermgreen]

Java is crossplatform in the sense that you should be able to run your java app* on any system with a compliant java implementation but someone still has to provide that implementation of java built on whatever interfaces the OS provides.

Currently on the mac (unlike with windows and linux) apple provides the java implementation based on code licensed from sun (now oracle). If apple stops updating thier java implementation and doesn't either release the code or at least push it upstream to oracle then either java on the mac becomes ever more outdated or someone else redoes the porting.

* provided the app is pure java and written properly.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[Anonymous Coward]

That just means you don't have to port the code for different OSes. The particular JVM obviously must be made for the platform it is to be run on.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[somersault]

You said it much more politely than I would have been able to. Seriously, why is he even on Slashdot if he still thinks computers are run by magic?

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the low level bindings can be conveniently routed to more efficient resources on the host OS. This all means that Oracle is going to have to ramp up a team to build a Mac compatible JRE, which is probably going to be flooded with security vulnerabilities.

There are certainly two angles here. First, Apple just announced that they are going to release an App Store. They obviously want to lock people into the Mac experience because it will stop them from going back to Windows, which means the less multiplatform--the better (and as recoiledsnake notes: Mac App Store guideline 2.24 blocks Java programs). Second, Oracle is suing Google over Android; Apple definitely does not want to open themselves up to a licensing agreement with Oracle, which may have been trying to renegotiate Apple's right to make and maintain the JRE.

I only wonder what this means about Java on the Mac. Will be soon be able to remove it easily? They have dedicated themselves to supporting it until for 10.5 and 10.6, but not 10.7.

It may be as simple as they realize that Oracle cannot go on without supporting Mac OS X now that Apple is so big. By removing it from the OS, they can remove that security vulnerability from being their fault and eventually block it if they choose, similar to Flash.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[fusiongyro]

"Java" is not an acronym.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[bk2204]

Java is supposed to be cross-platform. But the Java VM and standard libraries need to be ported to whatever architecture and platform. For example, Java needs networking support, which it gets through native code to the Berkeley sockets interface. Code to handle sound is also likely to require native code.

So basically, programs written in the Java language or for the Java virtual machine are only cross-platform because people have already put work into abstracting these differences away by porting the JVM code.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[characterZer0]

Maybe he is here for all the non-technical political articles.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[Mister Whirly]

Magic? No, computers run on magical smoke. I know because I have seen the magical smoke come out of computers before, and after that they do not work.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[schmiddy]

Couldn't Sun just write their JVM in Java, so that it could run on any platform without porting?

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

Do you think cross platform support is created by the Cross Platform Fairy waving her Cross Platform Support wand?

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[rthille]

Why don't they write the JVM in Java, like the C compiler is written in C?

Problem solved! Jeeze you geeks aren't as smart as you think!

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[Anonymous Coward]

--
We are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. I dismiss your god as you dismiss the others.

That would only be true if the definition of atheism was the belief that some gods don't exist.

So theists and atheists do have the similarity that you say, it's just that this similarity is not called "atheism".

I'll point out another similarity between the two: Irrational belief in a scenario that cannot be proven.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[Bill Dog]

Java is also not cross-platform. It *is* a platform. If you only know how to code to the Java platform, then you only know how to code to the Java platform, and not Win32 or .NET or any others. Java is cross-OS.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[alexandre_ganso]

My head just exploded.

Re:I thought JAVA was supposed to be crossplatform

[ThePhilips]

I'm not sure why this was modded funny. IIRC Apache Harmony is written mostly in Java with only bits of C code to bootstrap the JVM written in Java.

So, is this a reason to drop Apple hardware?

[dkf]

We have rather a lot of internally-developed applications in Java, and some of them are substantial. Since there's not a hope in hell of us porting millions of lines of Java code to Objective-C, no matter how much Apple spins things, should we be considering saying in future that Apple hardware is no longer a supported platform and that all users will have to migrate to Linux or Windows on their desktops and laptops instead? (While it is possible to use Apple hardware to run non-OSX, there's no real point in buying it specially for the purpose of running non-OSX when other hardware with a lower price premium will do a perfectly adequate job of it.)

Mind you, adequate availability of a JVM for the platform from another vendor (e.g., Oracle) could well be an acceptable solution. It's just a shame that the announcement is not clearer in this respect. But then it's not exactly like Apple are very good at providing proper support for developers who aren't targeting Jobs's latest platform du jour.

Re:So, is this a reason to drop Apple hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think you'll be fine. At worst you'll find yourself doing a rollout of java updates to all macs on your network. It's just not feasible to ignore java.

Re:So, is this a reason to drop Apple hardware?

[CynicTheHedgehog]

I can't think of a single reason to drop Apple _hardware_. Their hardware is fantastic. I have a 3-year old MacBook that has survived to major drink spills, being dropped many times on a tile floor from the arm of a couch, and being routinely trampled by a 1- and 4-year old. I love their hardware.

But if you are a serious Java developer, there are plenty of reasons to drop OS X, though, foremost being the performance of Swing/SWT and the version lag. I've always felt that Apple's support for Java was grudging and second-rate.

Re:So, is this a reason to drop Apple hardware?

[ejtttje]

I'm confident that alternative JVM implementations will fill the void: If you remember, Apple was slow with Java 1.6 and even then did not provide a 32-bit version for some time afterward, but third parties have already stepped in even on that relatively limited niche. What concerns me though is that third party ports may lack some of the nice OS X integration that Apple has implemented, allowing various UI tweaks to feel like a native app, or that there will be multiple ports with different integration interfaces, and Java apps will become fragmented or avoid using the features due to inconsistent support.

Anyway, also keep in mind this could be due to expiring Sun contracts, or the new Oracle owners might want to supply the JVM themselves instead of Apple, although I admit the obvious explanation is simply that Apple is making a power play. But Apple hasn't always done the best job with updating their JVM, so having a version from a cross-platform vendor may put more emphasis on synchronization, standardization, and portability, which in the end could actually make life easier for your business apps.

Re:So, is this a reason to drop Apple hardware?

[dkf]

But if you are a serious Java developer, there are plenty of reasons to drop OS X, though, foremost being the performance of Swing/SWT and the version lag. I've always felt that Apple's support for Java was grudging and second-rate.

While I'm a Java developer on OSX, I'm personally writing server software so the issues with GUIs you mention are Not A Big Deal For Me. They do matter to my colleagues though, and they're the ones with especially large amounts of Java code. (I try to keep mine small and elegant. ;-)) They're also the real Mac-heads...

Re:So, is this a reason to drop Apple hardware?

[CynicTheHedgehog]

I writer server software as well, but I get irritated to the point of distraction by the laggy performance of my IDE (NetBeans in my case).

Java banned from the Mac App store...

[recoiledsnake]

From the Mac App Store guidelines:

2.24

        Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected

Re:Java banned from the Mac App store...

[jedidiah]

> Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected

I wonder if this means that stuff like Handbrake and Plex would be a no-no?

Re:Java banned from the Mac App store...

[powerlord]

Not to mention Growl.

Re:Java banned from the Mac App store...

[s73v3r]

It kinda makes sense. I'm pretty sure 10.6 doesn't ship with Rosetta anymore, and its possible that 10.7 might not ship with Java. If I'm choosing an app from the store, I don't really want it to be downloading a bunch of extra shit that I don't know about.

They're going for usability and simplicity with that one, just like Steam. As long as you can still install apps outside of their App Store, this isn't a problem. Those that know what they're doing will go to Oracle, download a JVM, and then go to the site of the app and download that.

Re:Java banned from the Mac App store...

[Cmdr-Absurd]

10.6 ships with Rosetta, but it is an optional install.
IIRC, you need it to run Symantec's AV product. (which is wrong on SO many levels.)

Re:Java banned from the Mac App store...

[tenton]

I don't think Handbrake is going to be showing up on the Mac App Store anyways, so...

RELAX

[LDAPMAN]

Apple's JVM was packaged a bit different than all the other *nix JVMs and they had their own unique way of allowing you to select JVM versions. The changes in this update make it easier to install, select , and use a third party JVM that is packaged in the more conventional way. I suspect this is the first step in moving to an Oracle supplied JVM or an open JVM.

You are right....

[recoiledsnake]

From the Mac App Store guidelines:

2.24
        Apps that use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java, Rosetta) will be rejected

Looks like you're right.

Re:You are right....

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you could still bundle a JRE with your app.

Re:You are right....

[robmv]

If Oracle step up and deliver a Java 7 for OS X, you will still be able to bundle the JVM with your application to be on the Mac App Store (until megalomaniac Steve Jobs change the rules again), the same with Mono, python, Ruby ... Read Miguel de Icaza

We clearly have to take this to the next step as MonoMac is merely a binding to .NET. We are going to have to extend MonoDevelop to create fully self-contained applications that embed both your application, any library dependencies that it needs as well as the Mono runtime.

The above really had not been my priority, as far as I was concerned "Download Mono and Install it" was a perfectly suitable solution. So you have Apple to thank for my change of heart.

A security nightmare on my opinion, the same VM code duplicated on each application, and consuming more machine resources because there is no shared runtime

Re:You are right....

[mario_grgic]

Yeah, except Oracle can't step up enough to deliver Java 7 spec, let alone implementation for any platform. Oracle is not exactly an agile company, so I would not expect a JDK for Mac OS X from them any time soon (like next 5 years).

So, what this really means, if you are a java developer and you used mac os x to this point because you liked the hardware and the os, it's time to start planning your migration to something else.

Re:You are right....

[NJRoadfan]

Remember "DLL Hell"? Most apps needed so called "shared" DLLs in their own directory because they would only work with certain versions. The security concerns, ugh. I still run across machines with the insecure 1.4.2 JVM, because some apps "require" it.

Re:You are right....

[Anonymous Coward]

consuming more machine resources because there is no shared runtime

That depends on who you ask. Games are actually perceived BETTER if they are bigger, e.g. a 200 MB download game just has to be better than a 50MB game. Sure, completely non-technical but worth considering.

Plus it's already sensible to include your own JRE for Windows/Linux releases (wouldn't want to deal with incompatible, missing or version-mismatched JREs). Deployment across those 3 platforms would be more alike.

That is IF Oracle will provide a Mac JRE that will be free for commercial use. Otherwise they might just kill Java on Mac.

Re:You are right....

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Java itself should qualify for the OSX App Store.

Re:You are right....

[robmv]

It is not better to know that there is one old 1.4.2 VM, so you can push your app vendor to update the app or switch to another, than 10 VMs bundled with their apps you do not know about?

Re:You are right....

[gig]

Cocoa development is so easy that it is literally child's play. There are kids with apps in Apple's App Store. If you want to sell in iPhone/iPad/Mac App Store and keep 70%, make a Cocoa app. EASY.

Apple is prioritizing the user, not the developer. That is very unnatural to most developers, who expect to have their toes sucked at every turn. If you require us to waste battery power or play I-T guy so you can play with your favorite technology instead of making a native app like a professional then we're not interested. We don't want that kind of developer on Apple platforms. It's not some scheme, we're just not interested.

There are a lot of platforms right now that don't even support C. Not supporting Java is no big deal when you have Objective-C and Cocoa and OpenGL.

Re:You are right....

[MarkCollette]

Actually, they are. Basically, they're taking what's ready, or close to ready, and releasing that as Java 7, and then releasing the stuff that won't be ready for more than a year as Java 8.

These are Oracle's plans for Java:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/java-platform-2010-174690.html?msgid=3-2517886426txt

Re:You are right....

[mario_grgic]

Yes, I'm aware of those plans. JDK 7 has been in the making since 2006 and that's the longest it ever took for a new JDK release. I remember the times new one was released every 9 months.

Re:You are right....

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise that the reason Java 7 is late is because Apache have been blocking it, not because Sun/Oracle can't deliver it, right?

(It's Sun/Oracle's fault, of course. Apache is trying to make them keep the promise they made to allow Harmony to become a certified Java implementation, and they're refusing. Long story. Meanwhile Microsoft laughs and .NET becomes stronger and stronger, but that's another long story ...)

Re:You are right....

[robmv]

Apple is prioritizing the user, not the developer

Nice, another Steve Jobs church priest. Apple is not prioritizing the user, is prioritizing its 30% cut for doing less that 30% of the work of an application (bandwidth + credit card transaction does not cost that much). Apple just want developers tied to the Mac OS APIs, without any other source of income from another platform, that way the easy 30% is assured

If you require us to waste battery power...

// start new thread
while (1) { // do stupid intensive calculation
}

there you have, deprecate C/C++/Objective C because I made you waste battery power, It is not my fault as a developer, It is the developers tool fault

You are not interested on Java applications on your platform of choice, let me tell you what will think my customers with Macs, Doctors (I am one of the developers of Healthcare Information System - HIS, on Java, fully integrated with the native plataform via JNI when needed) when I say them sorry, the software we provide is not supported anymore on your platform of choice, but no problem the other 99% of Doctors are accessing the HIS using Windows and Linux.

I am sure the OpenJDK team will step up with new implementations of Java on Mac, but not sure if it will be on time to OS X Lion if Apple really decides to remove it, the first step is done, deprecation

and do not tell me rewrite millions of lines of code in Objective C and destroy the portability

Apple's fault, or Oracle's?

[Nimey]

Maybe Ellison wants the official JVM to be the only such one.

people... relax.

[Anonymous Coward]

Java is not going away for SERVER SIDE development. What will replace it? .NET? (joke)

Apple isn't going to 'stop supporting Java'.

Re:people... relax.

[surgen]

Apple isn't going to 'stop supporting Java'.

Actually, if the JVM goes back to being a 3rd party system on OS X, which it seems like it will, this is exactly what they've done.

Re:people... relax.

[s73v3r]

And that makes it different than it is on every other platform out there how?

A vendetta against Java and Flash?

[macwhizkid]

This comes the same day that users report the new MacBook Air doesn't have Flash preinstalled; and while you can install it yourself, Safari doesn't prompt you to do so (just displays a generic "missing plugin" over Flash content and ads).

Call it a smart business move, a deluded fantasy, or anything in between, but Apple seems to have decided to play hardball with middleware developers. Clearly they think they support all the standards and APIs anyone could ever need, and with the opening of the Mac App Store on the horizon (which will, in all likelihood, provide apps that duplicate a lot of the lightweight functionality that Java apps tend to do now) don't feel the need to do Adobe and Oracle's work anymore.

Re:A vendetta against Java and Flash?

[Oirad]

This comes the same day that users report the new MacBook Air doesn't have Flash preinstalled; and while you can install it yourself, Safari doesn't prompt you to do so (just displays a generic "missing plugin" over Flash content and ads).

Is that different from "normal" Macs up to now?

Re:A vendetta against Java and Flash?

[solios]

As a graphics and media guy who's passionately hated flash since its first release in the late 90s, I'm not frowning at Apple's disdain for flash. Point of fact, I'm giggling at all of the people shrieking and moaning about the lack of "support" for it on the iPhone - after years of Flash running like lukewarm shit on the PPC and additional years of it running like microwaved shit on Intel macs (running like greased butter on the PC all the while), with flashblock being one of the few firefox plugins I use, I can't say I care one way or the other. For me, Flash is little more than an annoyance, long since filtered out.

And if Adobe hadn't bought Macromedia to get Flash, I wouldn't care.

Adobe's had a love/hate relationship with Apple for decades - they love that graphics nerds buy macs to use photoshop, they HATE Apple for consistently kicking APIs and architectures out from under them. They've owned Flash for awhile now - with Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, the Flash and artist-friendly media tools acquired through the Macromedia acquisition... Adobe's the ONLY non-Apple ISV you need on your machine if you're a Creative Professional.*

Apple can live without Flash. They could certainly survive without Adobe, but could they take the publicity (and userbase) hit of losing the Creative Suite? Would Adobe threaten to pull their Mac apps to pressure Apple into supporting Flash? Will they? They certainly could, if they felt like it. Maybe they already have - it would certainly explain Apple's de-emphasis of Pro Anything over the past few years.

* It's an old argument, but screw Office. Ten years in media design and I've used openoffice on one project, to deal with an excel spreadsheet.

Re:A vendetta against Java and Flash?

[Guy Harris]

This comes the same day that users report the new MacBook Air doesn't have Flash preinstalled; and while you can install it yourself, Safari doesn't prompt you to do so (just displays a generic "missing plugin" over Flash content and ads).

Is that different from "normal" Macs up to now?

Yes. Up until now, Mac OS X, as shipped pre-installed on Macs, had the Flash plugin bundled with it.

(This probably has nothing to do with the MacBook Air itself; that just happened to be the first machine that came out after the policy changed. Heck, the policy change got me to finally install the latest Flash from Adobe, rather than wait to see if it showed up in a Software Update - not that Flash runs a lot on my machine, given that I've also installed ClickToFlash. Made an big difference in the CPU time consumed on a nominally-idle machine - but then so did not keeping 60+ Safari windows open.)

Trying to comment from Java Client...

[Anonymous Coward]

[ Java starting up ] ... that took so long, so my comment, I am can see this a good thing [ JVM Garbage collection; world pauses.. ] .. so annoying, so as I was saying, moving from Java can only be a good thing [ Java exploited by one of the many recent holes and malware vectors ] ... DISCONNECT..£$£^&^&^&

Re:Trying to comment from Java Client...

[Toe, The]

Almost as bad as Flash, eh?

Has Minecraft become Java's killer app?

[LWATCDR]

I have not tried Minecraft yet so I had no idea it was written in Java.
Wow I wonder if that will slow down the "Java programs all suck" FUD.
Actually I have very mixed feelings about Apple dropping Java support. Java support on the Mac is super integrated and really does just work most of the time.
The downside is one of my Java applications was failing on the Mac and for the life of me I could figure out why. Then Apple pushed an update and all was well.
I was testing on Windows and Linux with no problem but on the mac...
I will say that Java programs on the mac actually look better than on Linux or Windows. I believe that Apple did a better job at integrating the Java UI with the Mac UI than Sun did with Windows and or Linux. Frankly on Linux it is a matter of which UI as much as quality.
I hope Oracle steps up and produces a very good OS/X version of Java.

Anything to stop Android

[Captain Spam]

So, thanks to the turtleneck's power trip, it'll be harder for me to continue developing Android apps or the Android OS on my MacBook, or, for that matter, continue using Eclipse (and not Xcode) in general? Man. Why on earth would they want to do THAT?</sarcasm>

Good thing I'm not particularly attached to my MacBook. And that I've been in the market for a new laptop anyway...

Another move towards iOS

[Mr_Silver]

It looks like Apple are taking another small step towards making OSX more like iOS with their "you can only develop your applications in these approved languages" rule.

Sure, there is currently nothing to stop people downloading and installing Java on OSX, but this makes it just that little bit more painful to install a Java app for the end user over, say, a native application.

Personally I avoid running anything in Java on the basis that I don't want a honking great JVM just for one app. Oh and that the JVM has an annoying tendency to want to update itself a little too often for my liking.

Most of My Development is In Java

[Greyfox]

I'm a software engineer and the Java situation on OSX has been a huge pain in the ass for me for a couple of years now. I installed Linux on my macbook a while back to have a trouble-free development environment and had decided to move off of Apple hardware completely the next time I'm replacing my systems. Apple's attitudes toward developers and their customers are losing this customer for them. I find Linux to be a much nicer overall development environment and I'm throwing my mobile development chips in with Android.

Re:Most of My Development is In Java

[omnichad]

So they're getting rid of their crappy Java implementation and you're more angry with them? If Oracle steps up, you'll have the same java on OS X as you get in Linux.

Re:Most of My Development is In Java

[Greyfox]

My anger with them is historical, not hysterical. Due to their crappy java implementation in the past, the difficulties with integration of system software and open source software, their denial that actual hardware design problems were problems and poorly maintained video card device drivers (Really ATI's fault, but if you bundle it you should damn well make sure it works,) I had already decided to switch back to Linux and not buy any more of Apple's hardware or software.

That and I find Linux to be a much nicer overall development environment and I'm throwing my mobile development chips in with Android. I'm sure if Oracle screws the pooch with Java, Google will shortly release a Gava that does everything java does now, only better.

XMLVM?

[lisaparratt]

Could http://www.xmlvm.org/ step into the gap, turning JVM code into a native application?

think again

[Anonymous Coward]

> They won't exclude Java in the way that they excluded Flash

See recoiledsnake's post for a reality check.

Re:think again

[Guy Harris]

> They won't exclude Java in the way that they excluded Flash

See recoiledsnake's post for a reality check.

The way "they excluded Flash on the iPhone" was not to ship it, not to allow a Flash interpreter into the App Store, and not to allow any way other than the App Store for adding code to your iPhone. The same applies to Java.

One of those three is not currently true on Mac OS X. There's a lot of speculation going on as to whether it will be true at some point in the future. I have no idea whether it will be true at some point in the future or not.

Re:...cate

[TaoPhoenix]

It's even funnier if you consider "deprecate" is the nice way of saying the other word "defecate" which translates as "Applet thinks Apple Java is now $hit".

It's a good thing

[scanrate]

Maybe the next Java for the Mac won't suck. Their implementation has been crippled with memory leaks and is always back rev. It's slow and clunky and I've always had the impression that they intentionally developed it that way so people wouldn't use it. Good riddance.

Re:App Store

[TaoPhoenix]

However, if they pull through an App Store for the Mac, which doesn't even have the "it's on a Phone" excuse, they will have effectively succeeded in solving the 20+ year old problem of how to actually sell "shareware" aka "Free/Premium".

Wait for the other shoe to drop...

[itsdapead]

The $64,000 question is whether Oracle will now start offering a Java download for OS X - if so, then the Mac will have the same status as other platforms, where you get your Java VM from Oracle. Since Apple's Java releases have tended to lag quite a way behind Sun in the past that might not be a bad thing (although the downside is that the horrible Java auto-updater might make an appearance).

OTOH, if Jobs is really determined to turn the Mac into an oversized iPad that can only run native software then, yes, there will have to be a bit of an exodous. However - there's no reason to decide right now (its not like Java is going to vanish from Mac tomorrow - and you weren't expecting the next version of Java to appear on Mac anytime soon, anyway).

Holes in the API coverage of 100% Pure Java

[tepples]

Java is crossplatform in the sense that you should be able to run your java app* [...] * provided the app is pure java and written properly.

Does pure Java provide a usable interface to every peripheral connected to a computer? For example, does pure Java allow an application to read a human interface device that is not a keyboard or a mouse? I spent some time with Google, and the answer is apparently no: a native driver has to be installed.

Re:Holes in the API coverage of 100% Pure Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't a peripheral require a driver? If the physical machine doesn't know about a device, why would a virtual machine hosted on it be aware?

Re:Holes in the API coverage of 100% Pure Java

[tepples]

Why wouldn't a peripheral require a driver?

The driver is already present on the machine and available to native code, yet the Java virtual machine is not aware of it.

Re:Holes in the API coverage of 100% Pure Java

[SplashMyBandit]

You can use the JNI interface or even better, use JNA. You then introduce platform-specific stuff into you application - but you can isolate that easily in the same way you isolate your database calls with DAOs etc.

So yes, you can call any operating system API using only Java code and the JNA library (I've done it). Sorry to hear that the uber-smart Googlers didn't know about this library, you would have thought they would have googled for it after all :)

Re:Holes in the API coverage of 100% Pure Java

[peppepz]

JNI/JNA are not pure java.

Re:Holes in the API coverage of 100% Pure Java

[SplashMyBandit]

Yes, I know that thanks. If you re-read the parent post (grandparent of yours) you'll see that it states:

> Does pure Java provide a usable interface to every peripheral connected to a computer? For example, does pure Java allow an application to read a human interface device that is not a keyboard or a mouse? I spent some time with Google, and the answer is apparently no: a native driver [hardcode.de] has to be installed.

My response was that these devices can be controlled using Java and in the case of JNA you write only Java code. I didn't mention "Pure Java". Hope that clears things up for you.

Re:Holes in the API coverage of 100% Pure Java

[peppepz]

Ok, I was just pointing out that the question required a solution in "pure java" and your response provides a solution which isn't "pure java", so I saw a mismatch between the two which might be worth noticing.

tepples is probably aware of JNI, as the library he pointed to was a JNI wrapper.

Re:Unix?

[nis]

Just don't forget that GNU's not Unix.

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

And I was sure 2011 would finally be the year of Java on the desktop.

We could be reading too much into this...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

When I installed my Java update from Apple this morning, I noticed that the wording was similar for Java 1.4 on leopard. Apple may be just announcing that this is the end of the line for Java 6 SE, and only expect future support for Java 7 SE in the next version of OS X.

Unlike Oracle, Apple disables the previous version of Java platform and gives the user the option of re-enabling it by jumping through hoops.

Re:We could be reading too much into this...

[VGPowerlord]

When I installed my Java update from Apple this morning, I noticed that the wording was similar for Java 1.4 on leopard. Apple may be just announcing that this is the end of the line for Java 6 SE, and only expect future support for Java 7 SE in the next version of OS X.

Unlike Oracle, Apple disables the previous version of Java platform and gives the user the option of re-enabling it by jumping through hoops.

Java 7 isn't finalized yet, let alone having a stable implementation rolled out.

Re:We could be reading too much into this...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Java 7 isn't finalized yet, let alone having a stable implementation rolled out.

The same thing can be said about OS X 10.7, so all is still good.

iPhone Android in the background

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple removes Java from Mac and with Oracle's unknown plans with Java then we are one step closer to killing Java and affecting Android environment - long shot but gets them one step closer.

Re:iPhone Android in the background

[MarkCollette]

These are Oracle's plans for Java:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/java-platform-2010-174690.html?msgid=3-2517886426txt

There will be something else instead.

[melted]

There will be something else instead. Maybe they'll sponsor OpenJDK, kind of like they sponsor LLVM. Or maybe Steve will just get his pal Larry on the phone and Oracle will offer official *.dmgs. I think Apple _ships_ Java based software (WebObjects and stuff based on WebObjects), so it's not like they can fully deprecate Java.

Re:There will be something else instead.

[shutdown -p now]

I think Apple _ships_ Java based software (WebObjects and stuff based on WebObjects), so it's not like they can fully deprecate Java.

Coincidentally, WebObjects was cut from 10.6 Server...

Re:So, it's a java fork then?

[Dreadrik]

Nice try trolling, but it's actually the other way around. Apple has always shipped their own version of java. They just stop doing that now, and let Oracle do the work instead, just like on Windows or Linux.

Third Party JVMs (FROM TFA)

[Kostya]

From the release notes linked to in the article:

Third Party JVM Support and Locations

Java Preferences now shows all discovered JVMs in a single list in the General tab. This list shows the name, vendor, architecture, and full version of each JVM (8146434). It also coalesces multiple versions of the same major platform version from the same vendor and architecture into the same line. Clicking on the version at the end of the line shows a popup menu which chooses between these multiple versions.

People who *actually develop* on Mac have always complained about the JVM being behind, and it sounds like Apple is opening up the JVM hooks so that third parties can write JVMs for the Mac and get the full integration. So Apple is really giving everyone what they wanted: a stock JVM maintained by the Java Source (Oracle/Sun) just like all the other platforms.

Sheesh, paranoid much? Everyone on Slashdot is so convinced that the Mac App Store is the coming of the apocalypse that they are jumping to some insane conclusions.

Re:Third Party JVMs (FROM TFA)

[michaelok]

Hm, mod the parent up, that is informative, thanks. Suddenly it occurs to me that this might have more to do with the skyrocketing exploits of vulnerabilities with Java recently, which I've seen nary a mention in all the comments here. Well, maybe a few. Apple may just realize that it would be easier keeping up with closing these security holes if they open up the JVM more.

Front-ends sharing a back-end

[tepples]

cross-platform Java development and Mac development were different enough that if you were using Java it was because you wanted it to run on other platforms and therefore didn't care if it looked like a good Mac app.

You, like numerous other Slashdot users, appear to have forgotten the model-view-controller or multi-tier paradigm. An application is split between a front-end, which interacts with the user, and a back-end, which interacts with the data. Ideally, an application would have a separate front-end per platform and a common back-end. I have applied this philosophy in one of my video game projects: the physics of the game world are the same in the PC version and the Game Boy Advance version because they build from the same source tree, but the front-end is very different. But in order for this to work, all platforms have to share a common language in which the back-end can be written.

Re:Front-ends sharing a back-end

[s73v3r]

You could still write the backend in C/C++, which, if you're doing a game, is the way to go.

Re:Front-ends sharing a back-end

[tepples]

You could still write the backend in C/C++

Not if I also plan to target both the Mac App Store and a non-Apple without third-party native code. BlackBerry and some other phones are JVM only, Windows Phone 7 is CLR only, and Xbox 360 XNA is CLR only. So I need one language that translates into C++, a CLR language, and a JVM language.

Re:Front-ends sharing a back-end

[s73v3r]

So you have the exact same problem you had before. You couldn't use Java to target all of those other platforms, and you still can't today.

Re:...cate

[Anonymous Coward]

In what world is "deprecate" used as a euphemism for "defecate"? Are you a moron or something?

The best thing for OS X Java developers...

[kwolf22]

This is probably the best thing that Apple could do for Java developers... Originally Apple added Java to OS X to entice Java developers to come over to the new platform. Since that time, there have only been complaints about Apple's Java implementation - and as a result, we've seen Java get pushed further & further out of the core OS frameworks. Basically, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The introduction of the iPhone (with no Java support) was the final nail in the coffin.

I'm not saying that Java on OS X is dead, but at least now it will be on a level playing field with other platforms. And now all of us Mac/Java developers can stop holding our breath waiting to see if Apple will commit to supporting Java or not.

And another benefit, IMO?

[King_TJ]

Unlike the Windows versions of Java, you aren't regularly harassed to install "Yahoo Toolbar", or "Google Chrome" or some other piece of software along with every single update they try to push out to you!

Mod parent insightful.

[jvonk]

Seriously.

RE: /.'s Comment System

[antdude]

Same here yesterday. I had to recheck classic settings or something. You will need to do the same.

Hey Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when Apple was making a modest push into the enterprise with Xserves and XSAN and you had a version of Oracle 10g on OSX Intel and then like out of the blue you went like meh, whatever.

Payback. Enjoy your trip to the bottom with McNealy and friends. It will be picking up speed right about....now.

Apple doesn't appreciate their JVM?

[slapout]

There, there, little JVM, it'll be alright.

neooffice will be screwed

[tibit]

I can't believe that no one has seemingly mentioned neooffice's future. Its UI is written in Java. Neooffice is a nice OS X port of openoffice.org, with many platform-specific improvements -- it offered native OS X support way ahead of oo.org's.

Without a JVM offering a native GUI experience on OS X, neoffice project is basically screwed. Re-developing the GUI in objc would probably take years.

Re:neooffice will be screwed

[VValdo]

I thought the same thing. No mention of it at all on the trinity forum.

This isn't good. Neooffice has been an OS X treasure for what, a decade or more?

W

Portability to JVM-only platforms

[tepples]

Java is pretty pointless for a GUI-app when you can use Qt

If you want your app to be portable to BlackBerry phones, phones with MIDlet support, or web browsers with applet support, you need to code it in a language that compiles to JVM bytecode. A solution might be a Cocoa/ObjC front-end specific to the Mac version and a Java back-end shared by all versions, but Apple has deprecated Java.

Java IDE fail

[psydeshow]

Looks like it's time to suck it up and start using XCode for your Perl/PHP/Python/Ruby development work, since most other smart IDEs are Java-based in order to be cross-platform. With so many web developers using Macs, this is going to hurt.

Now if only XCode knew how to speak PHP, it could all work out... then again, there's always VIM or EMACS.

Re:Java IDE fail

[ducomputergeek]

Or we can just keep using BBedit to do Perl,PHP, Python, and any other text based scripting language out there like we have for the past 10+ years. (Although some prefer textmate these days)

What About WebObjects and the iTMS?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Java is being deprecated on future versions of OS X, then I wonder what will happen to the iTunes Music Store, as it is developed in WebObjects, which runs in Java? Of course I'm presuming that they're running the iTMS on OS X Server, which may not be the case.

Re:App Store

[gig]

I have a lot of friends who have 50 3rd party apps on their iPhone, and zero 3rd party apps on their Mac, because they don't know how to install them. That is the main reason for Mac App Store.

Re:...cate

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things I know for a fact, and because I know them for fact, I must remain anonymous.

1) Java and JavaScript (but mostly JS) are key to Apple's "HTML5 / Web 2.x Everywhere" strategy. So, they do have a vested interest in seeing the whole ecosystem continue to move forward.

2) Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs are best friends. Believe, Oracle knew about it. Doesn't guarantee they were happy, but I can promise you, they knew. It may very well that Larry wanted it this way to put the ball back in his court with Apple's blessing.

Finally, I would add that SJ always has contingency plans. Always. Whatever the fallout of this will be, it will either be neutral or beneficial to Apple.

Apple always worked to kill desktop java. Why?

[jensend]

If Apple had let Sun maintain the JVM for OS X, I really think desktop Java might have caught on. But Apple has long since treated Java like an unwanted stepchild- not only dragging their feet big time on Cocoa etc bindings for Java (they deprecated that in 2005) but hardly maintaining their own JVM. As documented here, Apple waited a long time to make new versions of Java available- and then required an upgrade to get it. Users had to

• wait 6 1/2 months for J2SE 1.4 (February 6- August 24, 2002) and pay $130 to upgrade to Jaguar
• wait 7 months for J2SE 5.0 (September 30, 2004-April 29, 2005) and pay $130 to upgrade to Panther
• wait 10 months for Java SE 6 (December 11, 2006-October 26, 2007)and pay $130 to upgrade to Leopard

On top of the wait and the pricing, each new OS release had a new list of unsupported machines. The end result is that even several years after a Java version update, you couldn't count on Mac users having the newer version. Even simple bugfixes and security updates took forever as well.

If Apple had allowed using a Sun or third-party JVM, this might not have been such a big deal. But when you can't count on having reasonable support on the platform with the second-biggest user base, the vaunted cross-platform compatibility meant little to application developers.

Why did apple do this? Does anybody have Apple or Sun inside info on this? I could understand abusing and discouraging Java after the success of the iPhone and the move toward being more of a walled playground- "use our API and our language or get lost" seems to have been the spiel since then-, but Apple's idiotic behavior in regards to Java started long before that point.

Paid consumer Java apps

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there is a big risk for independent 3rd party "java game" developers. There are fairly advanced Java FRP/RPG games out there and some of them have yearly accounts for better graphics. There is also the case for Limewire which you can actually "buy" the "Pro" version.
So with 10.7, all Java tools you purchased/subscribed goes to trashcan?

The true nature of Apple revealed - again & ag

[cstec]

To paraphrase Morecock, "Apple is a thousand times more evil than Microsoft"

Why they get a pass on /. I'll never understand.

SoyLatte (X11) or Java2D/OpenGL or SWT

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that Java on the Mac will go one of three directions...either towards SoyLatte (OpenJDK) with an X11 GUI, Swing (Java2D) written in OpenGL, or SWT written with Carbon or Cocoa. My guess is that Oracle will take the OpenGL route, but the main developer of that is no longer at Oracle--so who knows? My second guess is SWT, since it maintains the mac look and feel to some degree, after Eclipse took down Sun, I'm wondering if Eclipse will change its name to Worm (eats Apple).

Absolutely shocking

[iamacat]

Apple requesting that a 3rd party open source product is from now on maintained by either the 3rd party or open source community. I mean, they sure maintain Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe's flash in house so why is poor Java singled out?

Steve says watch this space

[benwiggy]

According to this article: macrumors.com, Steve Jobs has replied:

Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms. They have their own release schedules, which are almost always different than ours, so the Java we ship is always a version behind. This may not be the best way to do it.

This hints that someone else will be taking over the JVM on Macs.

Re:The true nature of Apple revealed - again &

[Guy Harris]

To paraphrase Morecock, "Apple is a thousand times more evil than Microsoft"

Because, after all, not shipping a JVM with your OS is right up there with killing and eating babies.

(I'm inclined not to attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by wanting to dump onto somebody else a software maintenance burden.)

Holes in the API coverage of any language

[peppepz]

No programming language will allow you to exploit every feature from any operating system without writing code that is specific to that operating system.

Does that peripheral show up as a character device on Linux? You can open it and read it from Java.

Does it requires libusb on Windows? You can call that library from Java.

The peculiarity of Java is that it really strives to let you avoid os-specific code when it's possible, and it's currently the best platform at that. Of course its standard library can't possibly cover all possible hardware/software interations because they're not a finite set.

JNI and JNA are incompatible with sandboxes

[tepples]

Does it requires libusb on Windows? You can call that library from Java.

In an application for which you seek 100% Pure Java certification, you can't use JNI or JNA. In a sandboxed environment such as applets, MIDlets, JNLP, or BlackBerry, you can't use JNI or JNA unless you have digitally signed your application using a Digital ID from a commercial certificate authority recognized by the platform owner. Hobbyists might not be able to afford to obtain a Digital ID and keep it renewed, and some platform owners such as RIM don't appear to support native code at all.

Re:JNI and JNA are incompatible with sandboxes

[petermgreen]

At least with applets provided your users are of the type who just click yes to warning dialogs snakeoil certificates work just fine ;).

Deprecation

[No. 24601]

From the release notes, it appears that we can expect further Java runtime updates for Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 to the end of supported life of these OS X versions. What we should not expect is that the Apple-supported and -maintained Java runtime will be present in Lion.

For anyone too lazy to click the link ;) Read carefully below:

Java Deprecation

As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the Java runtime ported by Apple and that ships with Mac OS X is deprecated. Developers should not rely on the Apple-supplied Java runtime being present in future versions of Mac OS X.

The Java runtime shipping in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, will continue to be supported and maintained through the standard support cycles of those products.

obsoleting THEIR versions

[nurb432]

To let the vendors that own the tech support it. I don't see a problem with that myself. Who is to do something better but the people who write it in the first place?

You don't see Microsoft writing their own java for similar reasons, they have their own issues to deal with.

Now, if Apple stands in the way of support by the 3rd parties, then we have something to talk about.

Apple doesn't want an open web

[zhong-guo-1]

Apple doesn't want an open web. They are trying to justify their purely commercial desire to kill off flash support - and they have plenty of reasons, not least of which is that the sales of 99c and $1.49 casual games in the app store would be severely impacted by the availability of a catalog of tens of thousands of already-released flash games.