Does the iPhone support Java?

Does the iPhone support Java?

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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Comments

Anonymous replied on

You can't be serious!!!!!

Anonymous replied on

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.

Anonymous replied on

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.

Anton replied on

Java not excellent programming language only, Java is GREAT platform. Show me alternative to Java + OSGi + Equinox + Eclipse RCP.

Frank replied on

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

SHLee replied on

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.

Richie replied on

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..

LeeLists replied on

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/brunogh/archive/2008/05/java_on_iphone.html

Foulkes replied on

I dont beleave it; in the mobile world applcations have been made in java for the last 5 years or so Jobs just wants to scape all these million hours of man time for his x-code system. tuh...

if you don't beleave this is right visit this facebook group

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21361278617

we need your support to bring java to the iphone.

Anonymous replied on

Don't you all people see, that's the way apple is making the money. After releasing java for iphone they will not be able to sell you their crap software from itunes anymore, nobody will buy it. That's because in java almost everything that could be written is already written. The day someone makes technologically competitive iphone-like gadget with java, will be the day of iphone funerals. And this is difficult due to superior quality of iphone hardware.

Anonymous replied on

You must have heard of Google phones!. And quite a bit of Industry alliance behind it!. iPhone is a terrific phone, I've been using almost from the start when it appeared in mass market. iTune sucks, specially when it comes down getting those crappy applications.

iPhone recently passed the mark of 13 to 15% of the smart phone market. So they know how to carve out the market .Objective-C is one fence among others. Same with c#, same with java once.

It is easy to conclude that the ration between java and Objective-C developers is strongly in favor of java, so what is the point of making such a shitty comment about java??? Nothing but carving out market segment.

Anonymous replied on

Nokia does not support Java either. Having said that go google Java on Nokia mobile phones and you may not have enough years in your life to go through all the links. Whoever couldn't stop Java on Nokia phones won't be able to stop them on the iPhone either. So stick around.

milton replied on

Funny, you cannot be more wrong. In Nokia's Symbian OS, Java applications are first class citizens - user do not see difference between symbian and java app. I would bet my salary that you will not find SINGLE current (or even 3 years old) nokia phone without java support.

Anonymous replied on

I can't believe one would say this... I have had more than ten Nokia phones. (I am a Nokia user) All the recent ones that I have bought in the last few years have already got native Java support. The latest versions of JavaVM were already installed when I bought them.... Nokia IS very much supporting Java in a way, especially in recent years.

How can you say Nokia does not run Java?

deuxbits replied on

Pure greed factor - Apple gets a piece of all apps on iTunes. And iPhone can only get apps from iTunes. Java would break that monopoly. No java is a deal breaker for me - there are important web sites I use every day that use java. Important stuff (weather radar, satellite image animation, etc.) will not work without it. Funny thing is that there are alternative sites that use flash to provide the weather radar animation - guess what, no flash either.

Spaz replied on

Hah! They've been saying the same about flash, copy and paste. It's not going to happen for several years or maybe 3rd or 4th generation iPhone. By then. All but the apple desciples (fanboyz and girls) will have ditched their Jesus phone for something better that supports the missing apps.

Anonymous replied on

It looks like someone's figured out how to get Java on the iPhone. Here's the article I saw: http://java.sys-con.com/node/811229. It looks like you can get a trial on their website.

Canis replied on

I Personally Believe One Of The Major Reasons They Cut It Out Was Due To The Fact That Some Pretty Amazing Virus's And Trojans Are Coded In Java, Due To The Fact Its Bytecode, Join That With Superior Obfuscation And These People Practically Don't Have A Chance In Reverse Engineering It Making It Untraceable Through Those Means, And Team That Up With The Free Internet Packages On Most Of The Contract Handsets = Massive Oppurtunity For Coders To Infect, Use As Part Of A Botnet Or Whatever Intentions They Hold. But Saying Java Is Dead Is The Biggest Load Of Crap Since Vista...

Anonymous replied on

Jobs, Jobs.....I wonder if you really know where you stand sometimes when it comes down to "Pulsing" today's computing world.... eat your words Steve. hey BTW , do you know your apple Iphone developers website and forums uses Java JSP. So if Apple Still to this day using Java, Why can others still use Java ? eat your words Steve... Every time steve open his mouth I see more and more how he is not too far away from microsoft motto - Closed systems. Your dont want the iphone to run java [which someone else already hacked that] plus you don't want the iphone to run Flash . Plus you have an SDK that its almost a joke. whatever steve

Anonymous replied on

Historically, everybody would get mad at Apple for dropping big things at seemingly stupid times, but then that very same thing would me seeing no use a few years later... I wonder how Java will die, or at least how long until Apple changes its mind.

Anonymous replied on

Sorry to say that Steve Jobs said nobody uses Java. I feel bad that his ailing health has now touched his brain. He cannot think well now knowing the fact that over 90% of any new phones is shipped with JVM and runs J2ME applications. Steve, hope you will get well. Do not die.

Anonymous replied on

Objective-C sucks. When Apple finally adds Java support to the iPhone, there will be a whole crapload of extra applications and games suddenly available for it.

Steve Jobs is being an emotional fool, which I suppose is typical of him. He thinks Java is bloated, but obviously he's uninformed because the ARM processor that the iPhone uses already has the ability to natively handle Java bytecode without any JVM-software-based overhead since it's part of the processor.

I don't own an iPhone, and the big reason is because it doesn't support Java. If the iPhone had Java support, I wouldn't hesitate to replace my other phones (which do support Java) with it because then I could develop a lot of applications for it very quickly (I don't have the time nor the desire to learn Objective-C because it looks like a terrible mess and the source code doesn't look like it makes much sense at first glance).

Jayansh replied on

Hi,

iPhone support objective c as a development laungauge. I think the the reason behind this restriction is because more than 90% mobile applications are developed in Java. If every one is using java then who will be using objective C. But recently sun annonces to develop JVM for iphone. Now what step will be taken by Apple.

Thanks

Jayansh

taptamus replied on

Today the trend is to reduce development time and cost. Hardware is cheaper than software development. Java is faster development platform than C/C++. Php is faster than Java. Apple should count on that.

Mike replied on

Java is amazing. Bytecodes get translated to machine code. Code inlining is second to none, *much* better and more effective than C/C++. The garbage collector has improved enormously, and has become pretty much invisible in most cases.
At runtime it discovers how to tune the application to the platform it's running on.
Given others are stuck in static compiles, Java is way ahead of its time.
Sun (and IBM surprise surprise, mutual research made it possible - perhaps in a competitive way) has done an amazing job perfecting it.

Simpleton comments that dismiss Java using insults and other childish baseless emotional outbursts have no place in the developer world. We know better, because we know what's inside. And it's really very very good. In fact, it's second to *none*.

Apple rejects Java for business reasons. They want to tightly control what happens on the iPhone. They don't want existing applications to be able to run, but want to make it so that only newly created applications run. Then these new applications are channeled through their store, and they get a cut from every app sold.

That is the single only reason why Apple rejected Java.

Moo replied on

But well, Java is already available for the iPhone if you jailbreak it:

Moos-iPhone:/private/var/mobile/java root# jikes -cp /usr/lib/rt.jar /private/var/mobile/java/HelloIPhone.java

Moos-iPhone:/private/var/mobile/java root# ls
HelloIPhone.class HelloIPhone.java

Moos-iPhone:/private/var/mobile/java root# java HelloIPhone
Hello iPhone!

Which means, that by simply spending half a minute, you can both get all the applications they (Apple) offer through their App Store for free (Appulous ftw!) AND use existing Java apps.

Anonymous replied on

Aaaand, is also available WITHOUT jailbreaking it ;) , with iSpectrum:
http://www.flexycore.com

This gives you access to full Java 1.5 development with Eclipse.
Ah, and it's free for open source projects too ;)

Anonymous replied on

i was looking through wikipedia this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture. where it says it has this processor core ARM1176JZ(F)-S which has Jazelle DBX. so would this mean you could possible use this feature on the iphone i execute java bytecode?

Anonymous replied on

java is fast and widely use in credit cards, in cars,webs sites and any computer that has a java complier.Why not? :P even this website uses Java

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