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Ex-Sun Employees Are Taking Java To iOS
An anonymous reader writes "Ex-Sun employees did what Sun/Oracle failed to do since the iPhone launched. They brought Java to iOS and other mobile devices. They are getting major coverage from Forbes, DDJ, hacker news and others. They are taking a unique approach of combining a Swing-like API with a open source and SaaS based solution."
Why would you want a desktop app on a phone anyway?
Except for certain very narrow use cases, it's better to have an app written for phones.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
There hundreds of thousand Java apps that are not desktop apps, like e.g. every Android app. So what's your point?
Why would you want a desktop app on a phone anyway?
Java is a portability option (if you are mindful). You can write a single Java based application and run it on any platform supporting the version you compiled for. This gives you instant portability to other platforms without having to wonder about ended-ness, hardware, file structure and myriad other things. Imagine writing a game on Linux and automaticaly, it would run on Windows, Mac and any other Java supported platform.
Now, all this ease does come at a cost. It takes an extra layer of software (java VM) and more CPU power and RAM than a native application but this is the tradeoff. If you are wise, you can get acceptable performance out of modern hardware.
In reality, developers haven't always coded Java with portability in mind. Some platforms (won't mention any names) have been suspect of "hobbling" the stability of Java on purpose because said platform had their own implementation to market, but that's beside the point. Java portability is a keen aspect of the language which sometimes gets overlooked. It can offer some very real benefits under favorable circumstances but is by no means the end-all many would like. It has it's drawbacks too but the portability is a big one.
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The fact that iDevice users in general aren't accustomed to error messages whatsoever brings up a philosophical question..
If an App falls over and no one sees an error message, did it really fail?