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Steve Jobs Comments on Apple's Java Discontinuation

dcorby23 said:
Oh, come on, libimobiledevice is even uglier than OS X Java using X11. :eek:

No, if there would be no useful Java on Mac I would have to jump both MacOS X and iOS ship on long term and switch to Ubuntu/Android combination. Not that I want to, but I would be forced to do it.
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Don't get me wrong - I am right with you there when it comes to jumping ship - already got rid of all iOS crap in my house (iPod Touch, iPhone 3G) as soon as we got a Nexus One and Epic 4G.

Keeping my option of moving my Macbook Pro to Win 7 still open as if there won't be supported Java on OS X , as a Java developer it's just not worth the pain sticking to OS X.
 
Well I would think we should have clarity fairly soon but if we do not, I will certainly switch back to a Windows computer when I purchase my next computer.

The Macs popularity in the java community was actually the deciding factor of me buying a Macbook Pro. I went to a Java meetup and from that meeting, I saw enough people using Macbook Pros to realize Java development could be done well on the Mac OSX platform.

I really don't use the iLife applications but I liked the ability to run java in a unix like environment.

The Macs have the slightly better operating system from my perspective but Windows actually has the more stable 3rd party applications. It was the Apple hardware that actually convinced me to buy a Mac OSX computer and not the software. Netbeans is great in OSX but I have had many more problems with Safari and Firefox on OSX then I had using IE 8 on Vista. Many of those problems are because of Adobe Flash but flash does work much, much better on Windows. Yes, flash is still somewhat of a resource hog on Windows but it rarely crashes on me when using Windows.

I really do think Apple is making a significant mistake if Oracle isn't going to be committed to making a JVM on the Mac. I have a feeling that they already know that Oracle is going to make a JVM that supports the basics unix like environment.

The area that may be missed is that developers of all kinds are normally the ones that influence lots of computer purchase decisions. And that some enterprise software by companies like EMC and IBM, *require* JVMs on the desktop. This software may be web based but the jre is still installed.

These companies will drop Safari support well before taking java out of their enterprise software. I know since I have worked for one of these enterprise software companies.

In a little less then 18 months, I have convinced 5 people based upon their needs and my ability to support them to buy an Apple Computer and confirmed for 3 others that Windows would work better for them. Other Java developers are probably even more influential then me.

And Java is dominant right now for teaching programming in high school and colleges. A platform that doesn't work for those students is going to lose the programming community. Losing that community is a hell of a lot more important then losing the community that writes poetry!

And I don't expect Java's dominance in education to change for at least 10 years since realistically it would have be replaced by a relatively open standard. Education institutions do not want to standardize on a Microsoft language such as C# or an Apple language.

Apple hasn't been a dumb company for years so I have a strong feeling that they believe someone will step up to the plate to support Java on Mac OSX.

Otherwise, Apple is just shooting themselves in the foot to save perhaps 10 million a year.
 
KnightWRX said:
Uh ? What are you even talking about ? libimobiledevice is a library, it's not an app. Apps would be things like Amarok, which have great UIs and features.
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Amarok is nice app (though nothing ever comes close to using foobar2000 over Wine in Linux or on Mac) but libimobiledevice is an ugly hack. Hats off to its developer(s), but using it is still ugly, like using Java on OS X on X11, to stay on topic.
 
dcorby23 said:
Amarok is nice app (though nothing ever comes close to using foobar2000 over Wine in Linux or on Mac) but libimobiledevice is an ugly hack. Hats off to its developer(s), but using it is still ugly, like using Java on OS X on X11, to stay on topic.
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Java on OS X on X11 is an ugly hack ? No, it's using supported methods, so I don't see the parallel to an "ugly" hack. And what is ugly about it anyway ? Apple locked down the iOS devices, someone went around it and made a library so that other software developers don't have to reinvent the wheel.

You're not making much sense and you're quite off topic yourself. This thread is about Steve's comments on Java on OS X.
 
sicn said:
Very interesting indeed. Unless Oracle will release a JDK for Mac this may mean that I know 200+ software developers (no kidding, my company) that will ditch the Mac and buy another machine because the tiny 2000$ Mac investment that we "threw out of the window" is NOTHING in comparison to the millions of dollars invested in building mission-critical Java Systems for us and our clients.

I actually believe that this announcement could play a much bigger roll in abandoning the Mac than many other previous announcements (like the totally locked down Mac App Store) because I hardly know anybody that did not buy the Mac as a result of wanting a nice Unix-like system for software development. And keep in mind, Objective C is only a program language for fart apps, it's not for real world business and web-scale software.
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I have to agree with this comment the most. I'm a Java developer (10+ years) that switched Mac when Microsoft was going to force Vista down my throat. Since then I've gotten rid of all my PC and am at this moment Mac only.

However, that might change. With this announcement I can see a PC (with Windows 7) in my future unfortunately. An while I've been dabbling in Objective-C and like the XCode environment, it isn't going to pay the bills. I can live without both. Honestly I'd be just as happy writing Android apps as iPhone apps.

An unintended consequence of Mac not supporting Java is to decrease the total number of developers using Mac machines.
 
parapup said:
I am not sure on what basis you say that Apple doesn't need to announce anything. That's plain absurd.

I just don't get where you got the notion that providing Java run times for all platforms is somehow Oracle's organizational goals or it somehow benefits them when you and me use Java on OS X.

And just to be sure this isn't mass hysteria - it's a valid and reasonable discussion. If you feel other way - feel free to ignore it.
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As I see it: until Oracle announces anything (which they might never do, I don't know) - until then - all new purchases of any kind of OSX related desktops/notebooks in any organization (plus private/freelancing developers) that/who depend in any way on Java and/or a perspective for a Java environment on OSX should be on hold right now.

You just cannot recommend Apple hardware to anyone at the moment who requires Java, be it he uses a Java desktop application (like many enterprises do) or he develops Java applications (from students to enterprise development teams). There's - at the moment - just no perspective. The only fact we have is that Apple deprecated their Java implementation, everything else is speculation.

Until Oracle officially announces Java support on OSX. Which I personally doubt they will.

I personally cannot justify buying a new (in this case: private not company) 17" MBP next year if there's no perspective for Java on OSX. And I personally know at least a dozen developers with Macs who feel the same (I received several upset emails friday evening that Apple deprecated their JVM).
 
Rodimus Prime said:
One thing I want to know is Oracle's reaction to it. Did Apple talk with Oracle before hand.
If Apple just dropped this bomb shell with out working it out with Oracle first then shame on Apple and Apple effectively shot it self in the foot.
While apple has done a piss poor job of Java they still should work with Oracle on the transition to Oracle taking it over because other wise it is going to be a fairly long lag time before Oracle can get out a JVM for OSX. I honestly hope Apple supplies Oracle with most of the source code so they have a starting point.
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I've managed to build the soylattte release (when the big fiasco with jdk 1.6 happened a while ago). It worked perfectly well for what I needed it for, the only downside to it was having to run netbeans in X11, but now that eclipse is cocoa based I think I can possibly force myself down that route.
 
iancapable said:
I've managed to build the soylattte release (when the big fiasco with jdk 1.6 happened a while ago). It worked perfectly well for what I needed it for, the only downside to it was having to run netbeans in X11, but now that eclipse is cocoa based I think I can possibly force myself down that route.
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It's SWT lib, not Eclipse. SWT doesn't work under Soylatte, it needs Apple JVM too. Under Soylatte it would be using GTK2 or Motif on X11, too.
 
Alan S said:
However, that might change. With this announcement I can see a PC (with Windows 7) in my future unfortunately. An while I've been dabbling in Objective-C and like the XCode environment, it isn't going to pay the bills. I can live without both. Honestly I'd be just as happy writing Android apps as iPhone apps.

An unintended consequence of Mac not supporting Java is to decrease the total number of developers using Mac machines.
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Right.
It's just silly how most of the people does not understand this. No Java developers on Mac means much less Objective-C devs too. That means smaller numbers of OS X/iOS apps.
 
KnightWRX said:
Oracle has very good reasons to make a JVM for OS X themselves. Again, let's stick to facts instead of rampant panic. Apple just dropped the support themselves, let's see what moves Oracle pulls in light of this. We'll know for sure in the next few weeks. No one can even state the likelyhood or unlikelyhood of this happening.

Oracle is not dumb and Steve and Larry are good friends.
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Pray tell, what are the good reasons? What does a personal relationship between CEOs have to do with anything?

BTW, I don't think most people are panicking. Holding off on buying Apple hardware until there is some official statement from Apple or Oracle is not panicking. It's good business sense.
 
dcorby23 said:
It's SWT lib, not Eclipse. SWT doesn't work under Soylatte, it needs Apple JVM too. Under Soylatte it would be using GTK2 or Motif on X11, too.
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Oops! I've not tried it! The only thing I've tried out on it (Back then) was netbeans on X11, which was a bit annoying with copy and paste (although not so bad that it wasn't usable)! I ran soylatte as my default JDK for a while with netbeans running with the old JDK 1.5 from apple, once 1.6 was released I dropped it.

I don't suppose it would be too difficult to hookup AWT to cocoa though... I've downloaded the source and will take the time to have a look at it anyway just for the sake of being able to run a decent editor. I think under snow leopard the copy and paste issues I had with X have been resolved, so it may be workable.
 
iancapable said:
Oops! I've not tried it! The only thing I've tried out on it (Back then) was netbeans on X11, which was a bit annoying with copy and paste (although not so bad that it wasn't usable)! I ran soylatte as my default JDK for a while with netbeans running with the old JDK 1.5 from apple, once 1.6 was released I dropped it.

I don't suppose it would be too difficult to hookup AWT to cocoa though... I've downloaded the source and will take the time to have a look at it anyway just for the sake of being able to run a decent editor. I think under snow leopard the copy and paste issues I had with X have been resolved, so it may be workable.
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More on SWT with openjdk / soylatte

http://greensopinion.blogspot.com/2010/01/eclipse-36-on-openjdk-on-mac-os-x.html
 
Piggie said:
Just seen this new news on this topic today:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1810973/james-gosling-takes-steve-jobs-task

This line sounded a bit familiar if you remember the Apple/Adobe/Flash/Graphics Hardware access arguments:

According to Gosling, it is Apple that has made Java so difficult to use because it has insisted on using its own secret APIs to make it work.
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Now, go read the original Gossling's post over at http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/steve_jobs_comments_on_apple
and you'll see that link that you posted is basically load of^H^H^H^H^H^H very wrong.
 
Jobs: "This may not be the best way to do it."
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I'd suggest that a "better" way would be for Apple to work closely with Oracle to make Java a premiere development platform for both Mac OS and iOS. Fully Java standards compliant, that would give a swift kick to Google's Android and might help Oracle's case against Android.

But that would collide with Jobs' delusions of moving Mac OS into the iOS closed ecosystem grandeur.
 
For Apple to do this, it signals one thing:

Java is commercially irrelevant to Apple. The cost of supporting it, exceeds the benefit it brings.

I think the Java community need to ask themselves why that is.

C.
 
Carniphage said:
For Apple to do this, it signals one thing:

Java is commercially irrelevant to Apple. The cost of supporting it, exceeds the benefit it brings.

I think the Java community need to ask themselves why that is.

C.
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I disagree; there are a large number of Java developers who came to the Mac platform because of the power of UNIX, a well integrated Java, the ability to run Java applications well with development tools like Netbeans working without any problems. To cut off Java without some sort of alternative plan I think they're ignoring the fact that although the numbers who use Java on the Mac for development maybe few in number their influence is strong when one considers that these people tend to be the 'go to guy' for friends and family - who do you think they're going to suggest after Apple gives them the royal screw job?
 
macintoshtoffy said:
I disagree; there are a large number of Java developers who came to the Mac platform because of the power of UNIX, a well integrated Java, the ability to run Java applications well with development tools like Netbeans working without any problems. To cut off Java without some sort of alternative plan I think they're ignoring the fact that although the numbers who use Java on the Mac for development maybe few in number their influence is strong when one considers that these people tend to be the 'go to guy' for friends and family - who do you think they're going to suggest after Apple gives them the royal screw job?
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The question is does supporting this unspecified number of developers make commercial sense for Apple?

Where are all these Java application that these developers are creating? I can't think of any.

C.
 
Carniphage said:
The question is does supporting this unspecified number of developers make commercial sense for Apple?

Where are all these Java application that these developers are creating? I can't think of any.

C.
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You do realise that the vast majority of software developed never appear on the shelves in shops - Java is used for large enterprise in house built applications to do specific jobs that are required. You'll never see these applications but that isn't to say that it they aren't there being used behind the scenes as we speak. The question isn't directly the number of developers but the developers influence - just as Windows Vista was sunk in part to Microsoft failing to win over the tech enthusiast and professional crowd thus the you ended up with average users who had never seen Vista in action, use Vista personally or known anything about Vista suddenly becoming experts on why Vista sucks.

If Apple thinks that there is no knock on effect by killing of a niche area then they ignore just how much influence that a small niche of highly technologically literate people have over the buying patterns of friends and family. I never said Apple had to continue to developing it but they do have to come up with some sort of alternative way where people can still get access to Java when they need it - be it off Apple or via Oracle or some other third party.
 
macintoshtoffy said:
You do realise that the vast majority of software developed never appear on the shelves in shops
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That's the core of it.

An unspecified number of developers, making software no-one ever sees, on a technology that belongs to someone else, and for businesses that are not paying Apple.

How is that a credible business model for Apple? What do they get out of this investment apart from a few thousand Macintosh sales?

C.
 
macintoshtoffy said:
You do realise
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The guy you're arguing with will argue with you in circles until you give up. He'll never acknowledge any of your arguments and will always find a point to nit pick. He has no industry knowledge at all.

When backed into a corner, he'll wait for a few hours and respond something in hope of getting the last word in and "coming out on top".

Hence why he's on my ignore list. Just a heads up.
 
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