On Oct 4, 7:20 am, "Kevin J. Butler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[...]
> When... Sun deliver versions of ... Java that let Apple control the
> applications delivered to the iPhone, Apple will let it happen.
The lack of Java on iPhone has nothing to do with Sun, the iPhone
simply has no JVM. Apple doesn't supply one and there's no 3rd party
JVM for it from Sun or anyone else. Even if there was, you'd either
have to jail-break your phone to install it or get Apple to agree to
install it (by App Store or software update).
The original intention of Java was that anyone could build a JVM, the
specification is open (as in published and freely available) although
still owned by Sun. Since MS tried to subvert Java, costing Sun a
lengthy court case that was bad publicity for Java, Sun now releases
JVMs for Solaris, Windows and Linux. If they didn't, Java would have
died a long time ago. Sun probably helps Apple to build and maintain
the JVM for Mac OS, but it is very much Apple's JVM. Apple knows
enough about the iPhone OS (which is apparently based on OS X) and the
OS X JVM to know that Java apps won't perform very well.
It's worth noting that Apple usually releases updates to its JVM in
sync with OS X updates. As a result, they are often 12 to 18 months
behind the version of Java that is available on Solaris, Windows and
Linux. The fact that they are prepared to do that shows they are
trying to minimise cost and support issues and don't see bleeding-edge
Java support as important.
There may be a JVM on iPhone one day *if* the issue is just
performance. However, I suspect Apple only wants to support the
current SDK because it's a lot simpler and easier to support a single
development environment. Putting Java on iPhone most likely creates
issues in terms of cost and support that don't provide a commensurate
return in revenue (i.e. sell more iPhones since Apple would make very
little out of Java software sales through the App Store).
For all we know, Apple is working right now on a JVM optimised for
iPhone. But there's little point since there are thousands native
apps out there already available through the App Store. Clearly they
aren't hard to build using the iPhone SDK (though good ones are few
and far between), so iPhone doesn't need Java any more than it needs
to support VB or C# or the .NET runtime.
As for Flash, I hope it never shows up - though if I was into on-line
advertising I'd probably have a different opinion about that. :-)
--
Rob
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