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Monday, June 25, 2007
Now that it’s been leaked that the iPhone will not support Java, the critics are all over Apple for it’s decision. Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computing at Gartner, told vnunet.com that axing Java from the iPhone was merely a case of “Apple being Apple”. But is this really the case? Could it be Apple sees what no other company wants to admit? Java sucks.
Since its beginnings in the late 90s, Java has struggled to obtain the goal of its original developer, Sun Microsystems. The idea was that “code once, run everywhere” would really work on OS/2, Window95, SunOS, and Macintosh Classic along with a slew of other operating systems running the virtual machine. But truth was, Microsoft sabotaged it and Sun couldn’t perfect it. Over a decade later, Java is still a dog to run as a client-side process. I dread web pages with Java as I know the experience isn’t going to be as good if some other technology was used. Yes, even worse than ActiveX. I think Apple realized this and hence the reason it said, “No thank you,” to the heavy gormandizer of system resources and chose instead the lighter and pepper Web 2.0 applications instead. With a more stable environment to work with, Apple will not have to worry about stray applications crashing or poorly coded Java applets bringing down the iPhone. Because the truth is, at the end of the day, when your device crashes, it’s always the devices manufacturer and the software engineer of the misbehaving application that gets the blame.
When I read that Java was not going to be supported, I applauded Apple and it gave me yet one more reason to want an iPhone. I’m sure others will see the logic in Apple’s move when reports of stability and ease of coding for the device ripple through the coffee of software engineers everywhere.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:37
They probably looked at Flash the same way. And I applaud them for that.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:26
im glad they said no to java but im pissed off about no flash, flash on the iphone would be so nice, it would ass so much to to phone.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:44
I agree, the only thing worse than Flash on the iPhone would be Java… far more trouble than anything either one could bring to the table. Interesting typo there, alex. Freudian slip?
June 26th, 2007 at 10:42
The problem with Flash and Java is even simpler: How do you zoom to get the apps to fit on the iPhone screen?
Apple has a clever HTML parser to do this on the iPhone, so you can click on the picture and zoom in to see it bigger. But Flash and Java apps wouldn’t work very well.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:01
Take a look at meebo.com and then tell me if no java on iPhone is still a good idea!
June 26th, 2007 at 11:30
Java does suck. I was bloviating on once about how I wish Java was never even invented so that people would be forced to write native apps that don’t blow chunks and gobble up all your resources to print out some text, and this one guy told me that on cel phones, Java is awesome and a whole different story. Well, I just got me a Java phone, and guess what? I experience constant delays when choosing menu options, and am constantly held up for a few seconds by background processing that doesn’t seem to be necessary — JUST LIKE JAVA ON THE DESKTOP.
So, sorry, the cel phone Java boosters are wrong. The effect is somewhat smaller but it is essentially no different than on the desktop. The existence of Java makes my cel phone poorer. If there was no Java, they would still have to write software for my phone, and it would likely be native, and the phone would work better.
Java is nothing but a force out there that makes operating many devices I own a poorer experience.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:43
Murphy’s Law: for every missing feature there’s a dumbass brand whore apologist. In the case of Apple, legions of them.
June 26th, 2007 at 13:17
veggiedude, meebo.com uses AJAX, not Java. I’m not sure if you’re pointing that out or thinking meebo does use Java and thus defending it. But if you read its security section, meebo clearly states that it uses AJAX with no mention to Java.
Sebhelyesfarku, you misspelled your name. Correctly written it is S-U-N. BTW, great defense for why Java doesn’t suck.
June 26th, 2007 at 13:22
Interestingly once Apple went to great lengths to make Java a peer layer in MacOS X. They built native-looking GUI elements, APIs for reaching deep into the OS, set up all sorts of bindings.
Then when Java failed to (yet again) deliver much in the way of unique applications or services on the desktop Apple slowly but steadily depreciated it. Now they’ve a decent, if not cutting-edge, Java implementation but it’s no longer listed next ot “blue box” and “yellow box”. There are a few Mac apps that are Java-based, probably to the surprise of their users, but nothing critical or particularly unique for the masses.
(Java is still popular for back-end enterprise projects, where it is a defacto standard for connecting multiple business logic systems in large, complex, environments.)
The irony is that Javascript, a language that has absolutely nothing in common with Java then a braindead marketing move at Netscape, is supplanting it. Google even offers up a free Java-to-Javascript translator.
If Apple provides a good API for securely accessing MacOS X/iPhone functions then it really could provide some useful, robust, easily built applets. Those could suffice until Apple figures out how to accommodate VARS on the platform.