Submitted by El Reg reports: “Less than a day after Apple unveiled its much-discussed iPhone SDK, Sun Microsystems has told the world it will build a Java Virtual Machine for Steve Job’s handheld status symbol. ‘We’re very excited,’ Eric Klein, Sun’s vice president of Java marketing, told the The Reg. ‘We’ve spent the last 24 hours furiously looking through what information was made publicly available, and we feel comfortable enough at this point on the information we have to commit the engineering resources to bring the JVM over to the iPhone and the iTouch as fast as our schedules and Apple’s release schedule will allow.'” Sun plans to distribute the JVM free of cost via the App store.
Snap Sun Decision Launches Java at iPhone
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Eugenia Loli
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It’s no surprise though, really. Sun has every reason to port it’s JVM to the iPhone, especially since it’s now being targeted at corporate customers.
Here comes a wealth of other apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. I just wonder what kind of performance we are going to see from it.
I wonder if MS will port .Net to it anytime soon? Just joking.
As the official .net zealot on this site, I was downright itching to bite at that. Why did you have to make it so obviously a joke??
If I wasn’t a .net guy with a serious outlook 2007 addiction, working at a business which is end to end microsoft, I would so own an iPhone, so it just goes to show that .net availablility does affect some people. Even with the abusive lock in policies it is hands down the most gorgeous phone on the market. Apart from the interface made of pure sex, and the only usable soft-keyboard on the market, the way they handle voice mail is so obviously the way it should be done in the digital age, it is embarrassing that nobody came up with it before them.
I just invested 700$ into a new HTC TyTN II though, so that has somewhat reduced my phone envy.
That sounds like a bummer. It’s a beautiful phone alright but the lock in potential has curbed my interest in it so far.
As for .Net, it really wouldn’t hurt MS to release a version for the iPhone. It would certainly add credibility to their interoperability claims so I wouldn’t lose all hope.
I’d like to see it too. At least Silverlight (which already works on OS X and Safari… the next step would be ARM).
Worst case scenario, someone might be convinced to put Mono on there.
It’s a nice implementation, but it’s not really unprecedented. I know several people who have have had “visual voicemail” setups for some time now, thanks to push-EMail and the voicemail-to-EMail forwarding that’s offered with most VoIP services.
“It’s no surprise though, really. Sun has every reason to port it’s JVM to the iPhone, especially since it’s now being targeted at corporate customers.”
Call me skeptical, but how is a phone targeted at corporate customers? That is an individual purchase. Maybe I have just worked at the wrong companies, but rarely, if ever, does a company buy phones for employees, let alone pay the monthly costs associated with the phones. Maybe executives can get away with doing that?
I think you’ve been working for the wrong companies
The last three places I worked for gave me a phone and I’m only a lowly engineer and admin.
The again, just look at the popularity of the BlackBerry. I think the Apple wants a piece of that pie.
“I think you’ve been working for the wrong companies
The last three places I worked for gave me a phone and I’m only a lowly engineer and admin.
The again, just look at the popularity of the BlackBerry. I think the Apple wants a piece of that pie.”
I must be, might be time for a new job where I don’t have to pay out of pocket. I do see a lot of BlackBerry’s around, and actually the CEO wanted me to get the BES up and running for his email.
Doubt it.
Right. Because they want you to be on call and accessible when they need you. Which is a kind of handcuffs. No thanks. My personal time is my time.
Did you actually read DrillSgt’s post? Here is a reminder in case you just forgot.
I haven’t been on call in my last two jobs, so no, that’s not the reason. I was given my phone to be used during office hours only, have yet to receive a call after hours.
So is mine and I get a free phone with it.
If that is the case, your free time is indeed your free time, but you don’t have the phone then, only during work hours…
Part of the deal is that I can use the phone for personal use up to a max of ^a`not50 a month. Anything above that I have to pay for.
It’s a really good deal and part of a larger packages my employer uses to find and keep good employees.
????
Every company I’ve worked for in the past 10 years or more has provided cellphones to mobile workers. There is none that I know that expects you to use your personal cellphone for their business. What exactly do you mean?
“Every company I’ve worked for in the past 10 years or more has provided cellphones to mobile workers. There is none that I know that expects you to use your personal cellphone for their business. What exactly do you mean?”
Like I said, I must have worked and do work for the wrong companies. I would love them to cover my expense, trust me lol. I work as a sysadmin, and had to get my own phone just to monitor the network.
The company I work for bought me a cell phone with email and text messaging capabilities, then gave me a corporate credit card to pay the monthly bill with.
It wasn’t all nice-nice on their part though. When that sucker goes off at 3:00 AM, I’m expected to get out of bed, log in to the network, and fix the problem!
I work at a company that provides everyone in IT (where I happen to work) a BlackBerry and they do pay the cost it really has made it easier for us to coordinate work and fix things quicker. Would they get us Iphones probably not unless they can integrate with lotus notes and run Yahoo messenger.
Mono from Miggy perhaps ?
I think someone has Mono working on jail-broken iPhones. Mono’s official mac guy was waiting to see what the SDK was like before doing anything else. Given that the SDK license seems to prohibit things like Java or Mono or .Net from being put on the iPhone, I doubt it will be useful in getting Mono on the iPhone.
I think at some point people just have to accept that if you want Apple products, you are not going to have the freedom to use them however you want. This is of course fine for the majority of people, which is why they are popular. But for the people who want to control their devices, its probably best to look elsewhere.
What about the license prohibits Java from being put on there? Don’t you think Sun would have checked that out before making an announcement?
OK, the distribution of the JVM itself is decided, but what about the apps that run on top of the JVM? Will Apple allow those apps to be downloaded from the App store as well, even though they don’t follow “the Apple philosophy”?
Another unanswered question is: Will this JVM run JavaME apps or SE? ME would make more sense, but SE might actually be easier to port from the desktop version of OS X. Also, how good will the GUI integration be? If Sun does a good job making Java apps look iPhone-esque they might have more luck convincing Apple to host the apps on the store…
Edited 2008-03-08 20:03 UTC
and if pigs could fly….
I assume your comment is not specifically based on the difficulty of integrating with the iPhone UI, but is rather based on the assumption that Sun is incapable of making Java apps look like their native surroundings.
If that is indeed the case, may I point out that Swing apps actually look pretty decent on Mac OS X. Just take a look at LimeWire, for instance:
http://enscreenshots.softonic.com/s2en/21000/21803/0_20050102163334…
With Java 6, they look spot-on in Windows too. And they use GTK+ native controls under Linux as well.
I understand where the prejudice comes from. Swing apps on Windows under Java 5 looked terrible, especially since there was no antialiasing. Java 6 is another story, however.
Edited 2008-03-09 00:33 UTC
Yeah, Sun doesn’t give a shit about making Java applications look Mac-esque on OSX, which is why Apple took over the distribution and development of the apple version. What makes you think Apple will even allow Sun to release a JVM for the iphone if Sun didn’t even try to make their apps look god on OSX. Sun didn’t seem all that interested in Java on the mac before but all of sudden hey see market share numbers of the iPhone and they want to play to. f–k off!
Yeek! I don’t pay much attention to mobile phones. I dislike the whole concept. But… Apple controls who can and cannot produce software for the iPhone?
If so, I think it’s Apple that can, as you say, f–k off.
Edited 2008-03-09 23:28 UTC
Apple controls who can and cannot produce software for the iPhone?
I’ve understood that they don’t tell you not to develop for iPhone but that they will not allow any apps not conforming to their (IMHO plain ridiculous) requirements to their apps store. I haven’t been paying much attention to iPhone but I’ve gotten the image that you can’t install software on it any other way than going through the official store unless you’ve hacked your phone. Such a lock-in is just something I will not tolerate on any of my devices, be it a computer or be it a phone. I actually have an old Nokia 6630 which uses S60 platform. It may be old but atleast the SDK does not tell me what kinds of apps to develop or not, or how to use them on my phone. Oh, and you can install those apps in pretty much any way you see fit too.
iPhone may be a remarkable peace of technology, but, given all the lock-ins and restrictions Apple has enforced I will rather find a phone will less features but with more freedom to do as I please, even when developing for it.
I personally don’t see an issue with the lock-in. I see it as quality a control. the iPhone is extremely popular and has a pretty big and growing market share, chances are that some people would like to take advantage of that fact an develop apps that could affetc a user negatively or be something that will affect Apples image. Apps could be written that run like pure crap on the iPhone, that don’t even conform to the UI standards already set. Basically it could turn into a real mess without someone mediate. Apple is in the consumer business, they market primarily to regular joe users, their goal isn’t to make it easy for geeky people like you and me to download apps for the phone, but to make it easy for regular users to download apps without inadvertently downloading something harmful to their phone.
Their have already been some cases of Jailbroken apps being malicious, do you think Apple would risk their image just because you think they aren’t open enough?
[q]I personally don’t see an issue with the lock-in. I see it as quality a control./q]
I’m trying to think of the last time I saw lock in tactics defended by anything *other* then the “QA/Security Argument”. The quality control gambit is so convenient, because it justifies exactly what the perpetrator wants it to justify, but with no accountability. i.e. It justifies them not allowing things which they do not like to be run on hardware owned by their customers. Never mind that they *sold* the phone to the customer. It’s the ultimate “have your cake and eat it to” scenario.
And about the only thing that a reasonable person can do is simply refuse to buy one.
In my personal opinion power without control is nothing, what is the point of the good wheel and tires if road is the straight line!?
Anyway, its hard to say something about phone that lacks decent file manager for example, phone that lacks cut/copy/paste feature or isn^aEURTMt capable to process crappy MMS format or record video in 3gp format at least, or phone that has BT but can^aEURTMt send a files over it, will stop it here as I haven^aEURTMt enough time to count all cons.
We all know that iPhone is nothing but the crap, but general public won’t know that and most of them won’t even realize that when they actually buy one.
The iPhone brings nothing new to the market, except multi touch of course, actually, if it brings anything new, its the look, and honestly, slim and sleek design has been seen before, and it will be done again, Prada is nice example and it going to be even better and better equipped phone with more features.
Price, size, weight, height, width, design, brand, OS, who really care, features before all and in terms of features it simply sucks, it^aEURTMs a piece of **** with nice screen over it and extremely good marketing behind it.. . .
http://www.symbian-freak.com
Teo
Price, size, weight, height, width, design, brand, OS, who really care, features before all and in terms of features it simply sucks, it"i? 1/2 ^a`not"i? 1/2 s a piece of **** with nice screen over it and extremely good marketing behind it.. . .
I think your definition of “quality” is quite different from the average person’s. If the average person tries out one phone, and the only features they can figure out how to use are making calls and sending SMSes because the interface is so clunky, whereas they immediately figure out how to use a second phone to its fullest extent (even if that full extent is slightly less capable than the other phone, whose full extent is a royal PITA to use), they will perceive the second phone as having better quality, and the first phone as being a piece of shit because it’s so goddamn annoying to do anything on it.
That’s the iPhone equation.
Usability has far too long been underrated in the phone industry, and while I agree with you that the iPhone is missing a few key specs for the power user, I applaud its efforts, because if Apple hadn’t stepped in, it seems no one else would have bothered to look at usability at all.
I want to like using my phone, and not have to navigate labyrinthine menu structures to get simple tasks done. The iPhone is the first, and still probably the best, mobile phone out there that matches this description.
I don’t think it was a matter of Sun saying “we don’t want to develop the OS X look and feel” but rather that they made an agreement with Apple.
I’m not at all certain that this was entirely Sun’s decision. It probably had just as much to do with Apple wanting full control.
The ME is discontinued. search the archives for that particular news item.
What on earth are you talking about?
About Java ME (Mobile Edition).
The ME stands for Micro Edition, and it’s alive and well.
I like how Mr Jobs is playing this whole thing out.
“You see, Steve Jobs has allowed third-party applications onto his phone, but each and every one must be funneled through his own private software market.
That said, Apple has allowed developers to set their own prices.”
Not an owner of the device nor a particular fan of it but its interesting to watch its development.
I will be surprised if Sun is able to get a JVM on the iPhone before Adobe gets a usable flash player on the iPhone. I would have bet that it would have been the other way around.
*Yes I know the iphone can play you youtube videos, but it doesn’t have a fully functional flash player yet*.
Edited 2008-03-08 19:57 UTC
Well, Steve has basically said that there will be no Flash support unless Adobe can create a “medium” version of Flash somewhere between desktop Flash and Flash Lite… so actually it may take quite a while…
He didn’t mention that Flash runs like pure crap, but I’m sure thats what he meant.
I wouldn’t. Sun has quite a large group of Cocoa developers/Java developers that understand both technologies and won’t have the problem bringing the JVM to the iPhone.
SDK Section 3.3.2: An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means.
Hmmm…
A possible way to circumvent this might be to bundle the JVM with every Java app. Wouldn’t be a pretty solution though.
That means any language that targets that JVM can be used for development.
people seems to be forgetting that this is only sun talking…
apple have yet to say yes or no to this…
It would be pretty embarrassing for Sun if Apple says no…
And in our next exciting episode of “Celebrity Ego Deathmatch” Steve Jobs stands on stage and battles it out in real time with a computer monitor displaying Jonathan Schwartz’ blog.
Edited 2008-03-08 22:50 UTC
and it would not surprise me if they do so…
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/07/sun-iphone-java_1.html
Key points:
-Based on Java ME
-SE features and Java FX support could come in the future
-Speculation from analyst that “it takes out of Apple’s control which applications are ‘right’ for the iPhone” – even though this would seem to be a false assumption given the “no installation” clause cited above.
I think Sun can build the JRE (or JRME, whichever) for the the iPhone. I don’t see Apple caring too much about this, especially if there’s any buy in from Apple. Specifically, Sun will keep the JRE within whatever boundaries Apple sets and be a Good Citizen. They may well collaborate with Apple, and they could make the iPhone JVM closed source.
Once it’s on iTunes, Sun will also create a iPhone App Wrapper that will let a Jave developer plop their classes and JAR files in to a iPhone compatible launcher. The launcher lets them specify icons, and whatever, plug in nicely with the native iPhone app UI, etc. It also checks out that the JRE is installed, and if not, alerts the user how to go get it (if in fact it can’t get it itself).
It would be nice if the App Store has some kind of dependency manager built in, so if you go and get JavaGame.app, it will know to grab the JRE as well from the App Store at the same time.
Apple shouldn’t fret too much about this because of the sand box nature of the JRE, Java apps should be “safe”, and I doubt there will be access to JNI.
So, it could work. And probably won’t take to long to appear either.
Apple can whine about it, but I don’t think that’s in their best interest to go to war with Sun in the papers over something silly like the JVM on the iPhone.
That would be a neat trick given the GPLv2ness of java.
Tp.
Sun has full copyright to the Java source code, they can license it however they want. YOU can’t, but they can.
There is far too little awareness of this factor in the community. People hear that “Product XYZ has been released as Open Source” and think that no one can control it because it it now “Free”. When in fact, a single player, which holds the entire copyright set, is *far* more equal than the other contributors, each of which only owns a small piece. Sun plays this game. As does Trolltech (soon to be Nokia), and MySQL AB. The FSF does, too, albeit to a lesser extent, as I understand that not all projects require such an assignment.
And they get away with it with little in the way of PR flack due to the general lack of awareness the community has regarding this technique.
Please don’t get me wrong. I certainly applaud any company which releases code under a FOSS license. But it *makes a difference* when they insist that all contributions to their tree, which is almost always the one that matters, come with a copyright assignment or joint copyright assignment agreement.