Steve Jobs Comments on Apple's Java Discontinuation

Well hopefully, this will help quell the fears that people were having in the other thread. While there is no immediate solution, there wasn't he typical condemnation that Jobs dishes out when he has a vendetta against a technology.

I think/hope that Oracle is going to step up and offer it for MacOS X.

Ferazel said:

I think/hope that Oracle is going to step up and offer it for MacOS X.

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I'm sure they will. Maybe their version won't be quite as suitable when it comes to native-looking widgets, but Java has never been good in that department anyway.

Who cares about damn java?????? Better say something about iWeb, Steve!!!!!!!

That's part of it...

So now the waiting game is on for an Oracle supplied JVM for OS X.

If Oracle decides to make a JVM for OS X it should in theory be a net win for the Java using community.

So what say you, Oracle?

Macs have cemented their place in the computer world, particularly developers. Oracle will not be able to ignore the Mac. I'm sure that is what Apple is counting on.

PBF said:

Who cares about damn java?????? Better say something about effin' iWeb, Steve!!!!!!!

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Surely you jest.

That's reasonable but hopefully Apple will give Oracle the source code to all their work on Java so far. Java is currently the most important and widely used modern language so it needs to be well-supported. In fact, Apple should encourage Java's use because it means that a program which may have been Windows only will now run on OS X too.

Still, this doesn't answer why Java is BARRED FROM THE APP STORE (both iOS and OS X). I've used many great Java programs that are fast and well-integrated into OS X. Poker Copilot comes to mind.

Oracle, this is time to shine on the Mac. Please do't screw it up like Adobe did; otherwise, well the consequences for Adobe now are clear.

Why is a version behind a bad thing?

Being a version behind isn't really a bad thing. He should just look at it like everyone else is testing updates in the real world.

New unknown security bugs could be exploited while OS X wouldn't be affected because it would be on a previous build.

- YAY for not being on the bleeding edge

different 'from' not different than.
I just corrected the grammar of a billionaire. I can check that off the bucket list.

I fully supported Apples stance on Flash, but as a Web Dev I can't stand behind this. Java is still in use by tons and tons of different companies. Phasing it out will only force developers to switch to PCs to simply work on things. Not good.

Marlor said:

I'm sure they will. Maybe their version won't be quite as suitable when it comes to native-looking widgets, but Java has never been good in that department anyway.

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Well, Apple could be looking to sell their code to Oracle. Seems easier than having Oracle start from scratch.

If Sun/Ocacle does support the Mac it will actually be better for the Mac. It will be like all the other platform.

But I think Jobs should have waited until Oacle could say something and then coordinate the announcements.

Kind of a ballsy game to play. Dropping java without any confirmation Oracle will pick it up, or maybe we are still missing some information?

Does Steve realize how many people is leaving in limbo?

I mean the company I work for makes lots of Mac Java stuff for our customers, now we have no idea how much we should invest and this comment did absolutely nothing to clear it up.

First and foremost we need a clear way forward and a transition guide.

There are a lot of things that Apple does(run the Java GUI in Cocoa instead of X, the Java application stubs, Apple extensions for GUIs etc) that may or not make it into an Oracle release.

If they do that would be great, but if they don't we need to know NOW. Not tomorrow, not the day before Lion is released, NOW!

So right now we are essentially in limbo on a lot of these issues. Should we continue to invest in the mac platform? Should we continue to assume that these features won't be there? That they will be there?

Steve, our reputations with our customers depend on the answers to these questions. This isn't some "I wonder when the iMac will be upgraded" question, changes here can take months to transition from.

Steve obviously doesn't care about the enterprise market if he is willing to play these secret games that work with consumers, but scare corporate types to death.

This last Java update really screwed things up for me (even my Time Machine backups broke). It seems it leaves the Java developer portion full of broken links. Then I found they have a developer version of the installer that you can download and install manually (http://connect.apple.com/cgi-bin/We...10m3261.dmg&wosid=QumqGoJGUEzk2zLaPfPvgTsfYKs). That seemed to fix things for me.

Let the fruit ripen

Larry is ripe for picking because he wants to make his company like Apple and has a load of debt.

mynameisjay said:

I fully supported Apples stance on Flash, but as a Web Dev I can't stand behind this. Java is still in use by tons and tons of different companies. Phasing it out will only force developers to switch to PCs to simply work on things. Not good.

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Not good for Apple. Really good for developers.

mynameisjay said:

I fully supported Apples stance on Flash, but as a Web Dev I can't stand behind this. Java is still in use by tons and tons of different companies. Phasing it out will only force developers to switch to PCs to simply work on things. Not good.

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I don't think Apple is phasing it out.

Apple is expecting it to get the same treatment every other JVM on every other platform gets (including Windows, Linux, etc). Sun (and now Oracle) develops the JVM.

If they are willing to invest time/effort into developing for Linux, they will surely do the same for the Mac, which has a much larger market share.

I am actually quite happy about this (being a Java dev myself). Apple's implementations have always been behind (sometimes years behind) and the net gain in a slightly better UI was absolutely not worth it. Now Oracle is going to pick this up and release the latest JVM (and JDK) on the Mac at the same time it does on other platforms.

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Sun and Apple never really liked each other. Their only commonality was their shared hatred of MS. OTOH, Larry Ellison, and Steve Jobs are friends going back a very long way. They have similar personalities and respect and like each other.

With Java in Oracle's hands, I think Steve is confident they will release a first class JVM for the mac (also, if it makes business sense to develop it for Linux, it surely makes far more sense to develop it for the mac).

Hopefully this does mean Oracle will be the new Java supplier on the Mac. Apple was sucking at supporting Java on the Mac (look at the end of the Cocoa/Java bridge and holy crap, did it take forever to get Java 5 on the Mac).

Despite that I really don't understand the complaints from developers about Apple discontinuing Java regardless and blocking Java apps from the App Store. Java has still been pretty flaky and not always performing up to par relative to the PC. I've used Eclipse a long while on my Mac, and I still find it running much more smoothly on the PC when running on similar hardware. Doing things in XCode and Objective-C certainly has been more convenient for Mac-specific programming in my opinion, so I can't completely say I'd miss Java. And with the real lack of support for Java in XCode, I couldn't see how Apple could approve apps for an App Store system.

Funny though how there is an Apple-backed PDF manual floating around about making the switch to Java from Objective-C for Cocoa. This was for after the NextStep purchase I believe.

Sounds fair.
That Sun/Oracle announcement should come any day now.

I worked for Oracle for 10 years, they couldn't give a toss about apple. I see no reason why they would bother with Java for the Mac, where is their income ?

Larry buys expensive yachts he is motivated by income

Steve and Larry are friends. Mr. Ellison used to be on Apple's board. If Larry has a forthcoming announcement to make about control (and something tells me that Larry likes control) of Java technology on the Mac, Steve very likely doesn't want to steal Larry's limelight.

Can anyone report of the frequency of MacBook sightings in the coffee shops near Marine/Oracle-World?

This stuns me.

And it also signals, more than anything, the dominance of the iOS platform, and its effect on Mac OS X.

When OS X launched, it had three major APIs. They were considered co-equals.

1. Carbon - The refined API of the "Classic" Mac OS, bumped for OS X. It was possible to create a Carbon app that would run one binary in both OS 9 and OS X. (See AppleWorks.)

2. Cocoa - The new kid, based on NeXTstep's API. New and shiny, with all the bells and whistles. While early on, many people considered Cocoa "True OS X", even Apple defended Carbon as an equal.

3. Java - Rather surprising at the time to have Java placed front-and-center as a "core" API, it made cross-platform development easy. One could run a 100% cross-platform Java app with just a small GUI "wrapper", also completely written in Java. (See NeoOffice.) Properly written Java apps could be 100% OS X apps, not ugly ports, if the developer desired.

First Apple tossed Carbon aside, now tossing Java aside. We're left with Cocoa, the basis of iOS apps. I'll bet when more Lion details leak, we find out that iOS and OS X will just be check boxes in the "target" field, just like when they added Intel. You'll end up without a separate development platform, just one version of Xcode, with the checkboxes for OS X, iPhone, and iPad. (PPC will be gone, so they won't bother with OS X-PPC and OS X-Intel.)