No. The iPhone will not support Java applications of any kind. Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying "Java's not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It's this big heavyweight ball and chain."
We can't disagree with the last part of Jobs' scathing remark, but stating that Java doesn't get used anymore couldn't be farther from the truth - especially in the world of mobile devices.
In any event, the iPhone will not offer Java support.
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That is stupid, java is still widely used, even though java as a whole is complete crap, java is still being used, especially by campus websites as well as many sites that have interactive chat interfaces.
can anyone tell me of a good phone that i could use to acccess a java website?
Since most "java websites" use Java in the backend, this would be any phone with a web browser.
You are stupid, the whole world runs on Java now. I am an expert Java developer, and can tell you that 90% of the companies I know of use Java.
Well if you are a Lava developer it is likely that you will be in contact with companies who use Java and not the ones who don't need your services :-)
Or, alternately, one could simply look for statistics on the matter:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
http://www.langpop.com/
Sooo - seems to me that the previous comment was more accurate that yours, I'm afraid.
expert (ex-spert)
ex- has been
spert- small leak under pressure
Java is unstable crap!
As opposed to those robust "self documenting code" Ruby apps (cough sputter), or those zippy Python apps (gag, hack wheeze), those desktop PHP apps (oh wait, there aren't any, really), or those "Segmentation fault" C/C++ apps. You're obviously indoctrinated, hence your opinion is worth exactly nothing.
And just so we're clear, I'm not a Java evangelist - I use whatever suites the task, be in Ruby, PHP, Java or C/C++.
You're a stupid end user who knows nothing but how to run crappy apple or other sophisticated devices.
Grow up kid.
You're right of course. Apart from a solid but probably declining mass of Microsoft .net apps, the world does us Java, as does open source. Any large shop will use Unix/Linux/Java.
Oh please, this is BS. Java as whole is crap?? What are you on about? There's a lot more to Java than interactive chat sites and applets. Some of us write actual software as opposed to hacking PHP, Flash, or AJAX and between C/C and Java, you'll have a hard time finding someone who'd tell you Java isn't a superior language. Jobs has made some of the biggest mistakes in the history of computing and been able to survive because he's also made some of the biggest innovations. But leaving developers out of the loop of the iPhone will simply mean more and better software on the clones.
It's all about the all mighty dollars Mr. Jobs. The iphone costs $500.00. I won't give you the mula if there is no java on the iphone. It's just that simple!!!
We develop and distribute java-based applications worldwide and have users in over 200 countries. Emerging markets (and consumers worldwide that do not want or can not afford an iPhone) are buying java-enabled mobile phones. The vast majority of growth in mobile sales is coming from these emerging markets. That leaves much smaller prosumer/enterprise market which is then fragmented amoung Blackberry, the multitude of Smartphones (most support java) and now iPhone. I think Steve Jobs comment certainly put him in the minority.
I think Steve Jobs' comments were more of an excuse than a really valid reason. Any statistics site will show you Java is alive and well. Perhaps some usages of it have tapered off (such as Applets), but it's not dead by any stretch of the imagination.
I think his position was really more of "we want to keep draconian control", and this was his lame justification.
As with a previous poster, my position is "no Java, no sale".
Exactly,
Were not going to enable Java because...erm...erm...it's rubbish, lie, lie, etc Dasterdly laugh, hand rubbing etc.
I use logmein.com to take over my pc .. and I am not able to run w/ the iphone. I really hope that they get this figured out.
Just switch in your logmein preferences to use HTML, instead of Java
That exactly worked for me: using Lomein.com to control my PC remotely.
Thanks for the tip!
Roland
As innovative as he is, Steve Jobs could not be farther from reality. Java-base applications are now and will continue to be a vital necessity. The iPhone is a great product except for the huge void of java support. Too bad.
Know you're talking!!!
Steve Jobs has to be the stupidest genius to walk on this earth. there is nothing that rules the mobile world like java all mobile phones support java...'It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain' give me a break... the iPhone has 4Gb of space, JavaME2.0 uses like 20Mb at most. Anyways who gives a sh*t. its soo obvious Apple wants people to only use stuff thats on the itunes store... what a greedy company.. i thought microsoft was greedy but Apple just took the ..'apple' (pun intended)
Nobody cares if your puns are intended.
agreed. and its cake not apples.
LOL . fuck, reading all these nerdy comments is funny enough , but the 'its cake not apples' really did it for me. now lets all take turns making fun of my post shall we? go nerds go
The iPhone is great new device but they need to unlock it's potention by not being greedy and supplying us with the appropriate software.
Steve's disparaging remark about Java is probably better translated as "we tried Java on the iPhone and it ran like crap on this processor, in no small part due to the UI overhead it has to deal with" rather than "Java is crap."
At least that's how I take his remark, as there is no other justifiable reason NOT to have Java on this device... the absence of Java and Flash is just crippling for the stuff I'd like to do on the iPhone that requires me to be able to launch Java appplets - i.e. stuff I need to get work done in internal systems.
I so want the iPhone to be the perfect mobile device for me, but no Java and no Flash make it pretty much no deal.
I've heard Flash is coming... let's hope a Java VM and plugin is at least coming to Safari on the iPhone as well.
I can't believe that we don't have the option of installing it if we should choose...I can't access the full potential of the device....I have wi-fi in my place of work, and it would be really nice to check my work emails, etc, while doing simple things (taking a S@$! for example) however, do to no Java, I can't get past the verification for the wi-fi.. (any ideas)....
I assume that this will be the case with most "free" wi-fi spots as well....
Unless they severely restrict java and flash it would allow people to effortlessly sidestep apples business model, which is "drive people to the iTunes store." This lockdown is nothing new... Apple has always been a communist state operating inside a free market economy(, which is why the loopy, frenetic devotion of the artsy, hippie set has always cracked me up... ) Jobs is still operating under the old fear that allowed apple to thrive in the 80s..."don't lose control of Apple products the way IBM lost the PC market. IBM succumbed to the pressure of the free market...IBM suffered but the world benefitted. Jobs is about money and control.
Written from my iPhone.
Sadly this is true. A pity they weren't a bit more properly communist in ideals, you know like looking after everyones needs rather than themselves; seems to me they've taken fascist control element of Stalinism and combined it with Capitalist corporate greed to create... well... another Microsoft.
I was once happy that Mac OS X seemed to be open to open source collaborative models, but the iPhone well and truly killed that hope. Me; bring on the anarchist-communist Linux ;-)
Current owner of an iPhone and a Macbook (which admittedly wins in the design takes, marginally), probably moving to a Ubuntu based latop and an Android based phone :)
Posting from a XP machine.
My OWN homepage uses java so I can not view it from my $500 phone......
I have supported desktop computers and currently manage a server farm and there are few things that I hate more than Java. I feel that Java is poorly documented (not a single good source, too much scattered documentation), is a frankenstein type technology, and a dinosaur. I have never been an M$ fan as I am a Mac guy, but I would design systems in .Net over Java any day. I am fine that there is no Java on this phone.
I'm on my iphone right now and I would just like to say that for it to be advertised as the first phone with no watered down view on the Internet I think that withought java it really contradicts that statement and I realy wish that someone finds a way to run java on it.
Managing a farm (even a Server-type one) doesn't qualify you to know Java. I am an expert Java engineer, and have not heard crap like that for a while - "java is poorly documented, dinosaur, frankenstein, etc.". Java is very well documented (if you know how to read Javadoc or a Java book, you'll be fine). Java beats C++ and other older generation languages in both clarity and power while minimizing human error (like C pointer/memory leaks, if you know what I mean). It is not a collection of "body parts" put together to create the monster, like many browser-driven initiatives, but a strongly typed and elegant, very scalable and fast (at current JDK level) technology, used anywhere from smart cards, mobile phones to enterprise "farms". Don't make a fool out of yourself by talking about what you know very little about - seems like your Java knowledge is at a level of running an JDK installer.
Thank you for that post!!!!!!!!!
Especially for the documentation part!
well, try java.sun.com and look at the latest J2SE/J2EE documentation... Can't be much more single-source...
Okay, here goes:
"Java is poorly documented" - odd, considering I learned to program in the language using nothing but JavaDocs from the Sun site itself. Each API method is completely documented, and the vast majority of it includes full examples. So either you're just a hater, or you looked someplace really screwed up for documentation. If you want an example of some truly world-class effed up documentation, try checking out Ruby. Now THAT sucks.
"Frankenstein type technology" - okay, you got me on this, I have no idea what that means. If it's because it's a virtual-machine based platform, then I'd like to know how YOU would implement "write once, run anywhere". Besides, if it's SUCH a terrible idea, why did Microsoft do the same thing with .NET (and I believe very early versions of VB, ut I may be wrong on this point).
"a dinosaur" - you mean like the entire heritage of Mac OS X (i.e. Unix)? Or do you mean like that language that Apple uses (you know the one ... C/C++/Objective-C)?
".Net over Java any day" - well, that's a case of personal preference, really. I find .Net apps are absolutely ugly beyond words, and they never look even vaguely the same between operating systems (and I don't mean they look too "native" - I mean the layouts are just complete garbage between them). Also, from my personal experience, roughly 75% of all .NET apps do NOT run on any supported OS, but almost certainly Windows-only - which begs the question why bother with an "interpreted" language which ONLY runs on a single OS? Overhead with no gain = pointless.
"I am fine that there is no Java on this phone" - and that is completely fine. I am NOT fine with it, hence my personal preference to not buy Apple-anything (and no, I'm not a M$ guy either). However your comments on the platform don't gel in the real world, sorry mate. :-P
The iPhone, however, restricts you to that weird ObjC "Smalltalk thinks it is C" concept language which C++ basically took over 20 years ago. And on top of that, the official SDK's crippled on what you can or can't do Buy Essay
I have been researching how Cocoa and Obj-C work in order to learn programming on my mac. The same technology has been brought to the iPhone in the form of CocoaTouch. My first language was java.
My understanding of this technology is that the Obj-C code and NIB files are very loosely compiled and run through a sort of "interpreter" at run time, which seems to be very similar to the Java-VM concept. While there is not the solid compiled .jar the system software in the eye of the user behaves the same way, with the machine to run the software requiring a runtime environment properly configured and installed in order for any programs written for Cocoa to run.
So, is this competition between the Java run-time environment and Cocoa run-time environment, or is there a legitimate reason for the iPhone to not support java?
Or perhaps it's because competing devices use java to allow software to run, and Apple wants to dominate the mobile device market in a similar way Microsoft dominated the desktop environment some decades ago?
This cant get more ridiculous. Not allowing third party(read j2me) apps simply make it useless apple makes good softwares but the more variety of apps we can use the more popular a product is. Time for Mr.Jobs to rethink his strategy.
Update: After receiving access to the iPhone and iPod touch through Apple's SDK, Sun microsystems says it will release a version of Java for the two Apple deviced. The decisions was made just a day Apple announced its SDK plans.
I really hope to see a Java VM on the iPhone. My company develops games for mobile phones and we purposely stayed out of developing for the iPhone because of its low market penetration. By developing in JavaME, we can tarket over 90% of the handsets in the hands of consumers (world-wide). JavaME not only runs on "Java" but also on Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, etc.
From a developers point of view it makes little sense to develop for the iPhone. Within the US, we also do games for BREW so that we can target Verizon (approx. 30% of US Market). With such low market penetration, it makes little sense to spend developer resources porting applications to the iPhone.
Java would change that.
I really hope NOT to see Java on the iPhone!
Games? Most of the people use this as a phone and organizer, not as game console. If I want to play games I'll get dedicated device for it. Also serious game developers would not look into Java, as it is too SLOW for anything.
Java is even slower than .NET, talking of which it is much more organized and easier to develop in to.
So if anything that doesn't run native code, .NET instead of Java, would be better choice for the iPhone, and I believe is coming in form of Silverlight.
I wonder why someone would choose Java for new development, it is only around to support existing systems... Unless someone cleans up Java, I don't see how it is going to survive as one of the major development platforms for much longer.
Oooh... like it seems you've never developed J2EE apps. dot-net basically copied over the same stuff, the only reason .net is faster on Windows systems is because it's integrated to the OS, .net uses MSIL (the MS version for bytecode).
Most apps I know that make my smartphone work are made in Java, and tons of organizer apps are also done in that. So it isn't just the gaming industry thats being left out, dude! Most developers use C/C++ and/or Java for application development, and mobile Java gives the advantage to do Java clients integrating to an existing J2EE application, say, a corporate one? That's what smartphones are SUPPOSED to do, extend your office into your mobile, not just play nice video & mp3's. The iPhone, however, restricts you to that weird ObjC "Smalltalk thinks it is C" concept language which C++ basically took over 20 years ago. And on top of that, the official SDK's crippled on what you can or can't do. Oops!
Make no mistake, the true reason for no Java support on the iPhone is because Java apps can't be tied in to the "iTunes store". Opening up Java support would mean you could circumvent that restriction.
You can't be serious!!!!!
Yeah, he's serious, and I happen to agree with him. .NET is a pile of sh*t when it comes to cross-platform development - get over it. And even if the iPhone gets Java, who cares? Nobody's holding a gun to your head forcing you to use apps written it in. it's called "choice" - perhaps you've heard of the concept?
As for Java being "slow" ... I wish people would drop that argument, really. That may have been true for Java 1.0, but all recent benchmarks suggest perhaps a longer load-time, but beyond that the speeds are incredible. On a Linux machine, Java 1.6 literally runs rings around Mono (.NET). And if you want an example of visuals - try going to "wowhead.com" and look for an NPC with a 3D model available - check out the model in Flash, and then try the same model in Java Applet. You tell me that Java is slower than Flash after that.
No Java???
What a joke, Java is an excellent programming language, its just requires more intelligence than your normal .NET developer has.
Java is used by the biggest banks and stock trading companies in the world. I agree with previous posters, they will not support it because the IPhone just cannot handle it and the Apple developers do not have the required skill base to deal with it.
Java is crap he (Jobs) states and this is coming from a company that used to develop their own Mac Runtime for Java ?
No Java => No IPhone purchase for me.
Orion, stop talking about what you don't understand. It's just not useful, nor attractive.
Oh and by the way, this might shock you a bit, the earth is not flat and it does rotate around the sun.
Cheers
There are still a lot of website using Java for security purposes, like internet banking, real time stock tracking, etc. It is really disappointed that i-phone doesn't support Java.
the iPhone does not support Java because it would open the phone to java based viruses. Java is not crap, it is an amazing language that can run on just about any processor platform in existence..
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/brunogh/archive/2008/05/java_on_iphone.html