OS X Java Definitive Timeline
Panic! Panic! No, wait. Let’s learn from history. I spent some time this afternoon putting together this timeline comparing Sun’s Java releases with Apple’s Java releases:
Focus on the right side of the timeline. It is perfectly clear that Apple releases major JDK updates on, or shortly after, major OS updates. I believe we will see Java SE 6 on Leopard within days or weeks.
Apple is not a slave to Sun’s JDK release schedule, nor should they be. Apple’s own operating system is its core business, and it makes perfect sense for them to schedule major JDK releases to coincide with major operating system upgrades.
Apple’s Advantage
This philosophy (keeping JDK and OS releases in sync) gives Apple a huge advantage because they have far fewer backwards compatibility issues to worry about. Each major JDK release can be optimized to take advantage of the very latest OS X features and optimizations. Windows and Linux JDKs do not have this luxury. When Sun releases new JDKs, they must support a wide variety of Windows and Linux OS releases, including 32 and 64 bit versions. The term “least common denominator” comes to mind, and not in a good way.
Striking a balance between backwards compatibility versus moving to new technology is a classic engineering trade-off. Apple chooses to move away from older technologies at a relatively fast pace, while Sun tends to be more conservative in its support of older operating system versions. Each has its pros and cons, but for now, this is what we are given.
Anyone wanting a faster JDK release cycle on OS X will have to look to someone other than Apple to give it to them.
So most OSX users won’t have java 6 installed until the next version of OSX provides it by default? Or is apple pushing their new Java versions replacing the default one?
Some Java releases go out by software update, some don’t. Some become the default for the system, some don’t. Apple did several non-beta releases of Java 5 that couldn’t become default in any official sense. But in this case it’s been so freaking long since Apple’s last Java 6 beta it’s hard to fathom them releasing anything that is not 100% done. But then, the company tends to reward such optimistic assumptions with a lump of coal. In any case the infrastructure and precedent is there for the runtime to be pushed out and become default; the only question is when it will emerge from the Cupertino cone of silence.
Way cool info! Beats the heck out of the doom-and-gloomers who are wanting to go back to non-Mac systems to get their work done. There is nothing like facts and graphs to shed light on the dark. But it seems to be no big secret that Apple has other plans besides giving support to Java technology. Another red-headed stepchild?
The must important problem here, is not Apple not releasing Java 6 with Leopard. The problem, is that they are keeping their users in the dark. They don’t say why they pulled the previews from ADC, and they are not willing to say when they are going to release Leopard. This sucks.
Oops… sorry for lots of typos, etc. I meant they are not willing to say when they are going to release Java 6…
soma, history says Apple’s updates for Java will install the new one alongside the old one. Their way of installing Java allows for multiple versions to be installed and essentially use symlinks to have the latest one as the default while leaving older ones in place for compatibility if needed. FWIW
The problem isn’t when. The problem is Apple is being silent on the issue and pissing off the Java community.
http://www.zeitgeist.com/2007/10/29/os-x-leopard-vs-java-6-everyone-calm-down/
> The problem isn’t when. The problem is Apple is being silent on the issue and pissing off the Java community.
The problem is the Java community.
I appreciate your timeline, but where does that leave people who develop non-mac based Java stuff for a living? Out in the cold? At least with python, ruby, php, etc. I can download the latest or compile the latest. If they truly do want developers to use their computers at all, they have to somewhat be slaves to the development cycle, yes, that’s right. I don’t think it’s being slaves at all. If a photographer can’t have support for their camera until the next version of the operating system?
What really gets me though is why, with all of this new-found money and the slow and deliberate hiring process, can’t they get a couple more Java VM engineers on their campus? It’s not like it’s a huge deal, especially with their dev team growing. Don’t they realize the percentage of Java developers who like to use a Mac or don’t they care? Don’t they realize that many of the Java developers that own macs really don’t care about Swing, but are just writing server applications? Don’t they realize that having the latest version of Java isn’t just a luxury, but a necessity in many circumstances because of needing to fit in with other developers on projects that use the new version of Java… ahem, 11 months? The pulling the beta off of the adc? What’s up with that? Do they not hire *any* PR people for their devs connection?
At what points in your timeline did Steve Jobs promise to the Mac “The best Java development platform” and which point did that change to “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”. I think anybody taken in by Apples apparent inital enthusiasm for Java has every right to feel put out.
After the earlier beta of JDK6.. the lack of even a working beta begs the question so what happened? If the forums are to be believed and Apple have actively been deleting threads on their own message boards from developers just wanting to know where they stand. The deleting of threads goes beyond silencing NDAs to showing outright contempt for their users. God knows they’ve made a larger than most investment in their hardware.
The deprecation of Java as a Cocoa development in favour of Ruby and Python is also going to be a worry.. oh yeah vital support for all those client-side Ruby apps, WTF? It’s almost as if Java just isn’t niche enough these days.
[…] OS X Java Definitive Timeline (tags: apple mac osx java development virtual machine timeline) […]
The one detail missing here is that Java 1.5 was released for developers long before Tiger. It wasn’t a broken beta. It was a full release that had the full API — and it was available right after Sun released the regular GA 1.5.
The only peep we’ve heard from Apple on Java 1.6 a year later after the release is a badly broken beta88 of Java 1.6 (which they’ve made completely unavailable at this point) and it is a full year after the Java 6 GA release.
This go-round is very, very different and your graph doesn’t give a very accurate picture as to why the Java 1.6 anticipators are so antsy.
[…] not alone in that view either as Eric Burke points out: "Panic! Panic! No, wait. Let’s learn from history. I spent some time this afternoon […]
I hate to break it to you guys, but Java is irrelevant to the Mac ecosystem. If they completely removed it from Leopard, it wouldn’t impact the user experience in any way.
I figured I’d chime in on my reactions to the comments, because the article seems well-written to me and I couldn’t agree more.
@Richard: Ruby is a huge language, maybe just not as much in America. The language exploded in Japan, and its picking up a bunch of steam in America now. To call it a niche language is pretty much flat out wrong. Additionally, its pretty damn easy to include ruby and python, as John Gruber of daringfireball.net points out. Just because its not your language of choice doesnt mean its a bad decision, in fact, in terms of globally expanding the mac market, its in Apple best interests to support languages like ruby out of the box. Especially when the cost to them is next to nil.
@Behrang: Apple isn’t pissing their users off, because I’ve yet to see a (non-obscure) Java app thats not still working after the leopard update. They’re pissing off their developers. And not even that, they’re pissing off their java developers. Oh wait, not even THAT, but just the Java developers who can’t chill out and who are relying on Java SE 6 on the mac platform. You want them to hold a release up for that? Well theres a reason why you don’t run a big software company then.
Now, for the hard truth, if you think Apple doesnt treat its java devs like first class citizens, you might be right. And you’d be stupid to think that Apple was going to put java on the level of say, Objective-C. Java, as a platform for mac apps, sucks for the user. The GUI is inconsistent with the rest of the OS, and yeah, the users do notice it. And the reason Apple wanted to control it is because they’re doing a better job than Sun ever would have. Do you think Sun was honestly going to care about making sure the look and feel was even close to an app using Apple’s native Obj-C language support? Please. Apple is the sole reason Java apps are passable on the platform.
As for why Apple’s being secretive, well, who knows, it could be because they’re about to push out an update and they just dont want to deal with questions right now. Who knows. If this delay seriously impacts your work, then maybe you need to jump to a platform where Sun controls the release schedule and you can be on the cusp with everyone else. I just think you’re wasting your time if you think Apple’s going to rearrange their priorities for a bunch of pissy devs on the java platform. Nor should they.
@Richard
That was in the year 2000, so it is not on the timeline.
quote:
“The problem isn’t when. The problem is Apple is being silent on the issue and pissing off the Java community.”
Except for “the very last time” (I meant: TV, iPhone, iPhone’s SDK) Apple “has being silent” to everybody in its all hardware/software business!
@Andrew
I agree with you… I’m a bit peeved that they have not released 6… I use a couple features from 6 in my server apps at work, but nothing major… It just means I have to work off a linux laptop instead of my mac (reason -> work refuse to buy my a macbook)…
If you are a serious java developer, you should not be writing JDK 6 applications yet, for the following reasons:
1. You force your user base (for new application) to upgrade to Java SE 6.
2. Most java applications are server based J2EE applications these days, which means that it uses Java EE 5. This means? That in theory we should all still be using 5.
3. An extra point to 2, IBM have still not updated their JVM to 6.
Companies take time to upgrade, users are a pain in the neck to keep up to date, so by screaming about Java 6 is not valid as most people should always stick to at least one release previous to the current…
4. I’m still pissed that I’ve waited all year for java 6… But hey, I’ve waited this long, it’s not going to kill you to wait a short time longer…
I don’t like the fact that Apple keep things a secret so much, but that’s just jobs at the end of the day, sometimes it works because it builds up hype without effort, sometimes it fails when the more vocal minority scream about something not being right…
> Oh wait, not even THAT, but just the Java developers who can’t chill out and who are relying on Java SE 6 on the mac platform.
No - just the Java developers who deploy server-side code on linux and jdk1.6, and who would be very happy to use an Apple for a) their main development work and b) pretty much everything else, but not if they have to boot into linux on their workstation to do the main work. This group of people is surprisingly large in my sphere of contacts. We Java developers apparently just like OS X.
Then again, I’m not complaining. I’ll just wait until jdk1.6 is available, even if I am eager to get virtual desktops and easy personal backups.
@Andrew
I was talking explicitly about the Cocoa bindings. So Ruby GUIs are very much niche. I’m not knocking Ruby, its new and hot but there’s still far fewer developers using Python and Ruby than there are Java. As you say Mac users don’t like Java because it’s not possible to create a convincing native OSX application with it — removing Cocoa for Java only reduces that likelihood further IMHO.
@Richard
Maybe with the removal of Cocoa for Java, Apple’s trying to send a message to Java developers. You know, maybe something like “We’ve tried for the last several years to make Java a first class citizen but there’s just too much that it can’t do, users still dislike it, and we want to focus our priorities elsewhere. Stop making Java apps, please.”
So, who’s actually using Java 6 for anything RL? Everyone and every company I’m familiar with either just moved to 1.4, or are developing using JDK 5. The couple of JDK6 things I tried need to be JDK 5 compatible, which breaks due to JDK6’s annotations for compiler compliance being broken.
So, do I give a damn that JDK 6 isn’t officially released for OSX yet? Not really. It’d be nice, but the beta works fine.
I keep reading replies stating that nobody uses Java for front end apps and you can name apps that do exist on one hand. Also people saying nobody should be using Java 6 ! Are these people actually developers or just users ?
I write Java front end application and have done so for years. People don’t seem to realise how much specialized Java front end software is out there being run day to day within businesses (warehouses, telecomms, gis, education ….). Now these might not be application that a normal user would use but so what they are used by big business with big pockets, they don’t throw money around for fun. Haven’t people ever noticed the ammount of Swing jobs/contracts available, what do people think these jobs are for ? Like I say lots of specialised one off apps or systems which in the main are developed to run on more than one platform.
As for Java 6, its been out for around a year or so which means that developers were probably using it in beta before that ready for the release. The last two projects I have contracted on have been based on Java 6. We have used desktop integration, the extra modality controls, the performance improvements, concurrency enhancements ….. I could go on. I should mention I don’t touch server stuff (well no web based server stuff but I do write lots of backend processes in Java).
As of yet I have not come across a single company who entertains the idea of using apple for any projects using Java. And I can’t really blame them. How Apple plan on making a splash in the server market without robust Java releases I don’t know but thats their look out.
As other people have said things could have been greatly improved with a simple “yes it’s coming soon fella’s, or we aren’t supporting Java from now on guys”.
So for all those people who complain Java isn’t used for front end apps, advertise yourself as a swing contractor and your be in for a big shock
While it’s not an ideal situation you can run Linux under Parallels or VMWare. That’ll let you do your development on a Mac. Of course if *all* you are doing is Java that might not be ideal. But I agree that it is likely Apple will release Java 6 this month.
[…] from the point of view of starting a dev round which in Apple’s case was two years ago). It always gets added fairly soon after, but it is nonsense to say that b/c they didn’t stop their development of an entire operating […]
@Andrew: Apple isnât pissing their users off, because Iâve yet to see a (non-obscure) Java app thats not still working after the leopard update.
Leopard broke Java4/5 apps like Google Web Toolkit, and some Eclipse RCP/SWT apps. It has some issues, so it is incorrect to say it didn’t break non-obscure apps when it broke 2 or 3 of the most popular apps.
I think that both sides of this argument are right: Apple is slowing down Java development but they will eventually release Java 6. Obviously, ever since Apple deprecated the Java Cocoa bindings and Steve Jobs made his typically loudmouth “nobody uses Java” statement while announcing the iPhone, that Java on the Mac was one of Apple’s lower priorities. I personally think Steve Jobs can be awfully stupid at times despite his overall excellent market accumen. The fact that untold millions of mobile use Java apps every single day underlines the fact that his statement was mainly made to illustrate the fact that Apple wanted developers to use ObjC with the iPhone SDK. This is sadly, a very Microsoft type of behaviour.
While I’m sure that the major reason for the slow Java 6 development on Apple is due to the major resource drain of developing the iPhone/iTouch SDK and OSX 10.5 Leopard and that we will eventually get it, Apple is playing a dangerous game with developers: Those who rely on Apple’s new found love for Ruby might discover that Apple is only a fan of Ruby as long as its hip and coll and might attract more customers, just like Java was years ago.
Amen brother!
I say Enough with theOS X Java drama queens myself!
> As of yet I have not come across a single company who entertains the idea of using apple for any projects using Java.
The reason this is so *isn’t* because of Java.
The vast majority of businesses bought into Microsoft’s FUD on (Windows) single-platform “benefits” and standardized on Windows PCs a long time ago. And the technology media didn’t help matters any when they parroted much of what MS was saying. As a result, we live in a world where Windows (perhaps the *worst* OS possible among what’s available) is by far the dominant OS - in both business and consumer markets.
Organizations are STILL converting all their computers to Windows machines (just this past year, the organization I was working at - around 35,000 people/computers - which was largely UNIX-based, was forced to convert to Windows by Executive nincompoops who still believe MS’s hype.
Apple certainly has an uphill battle to gain any market share in the business world, but they are making some headway, if only a little at a time. Apple has to overcome a huge hurdle to gain any significant market share in business: corporate idiocy that blindly sticks with Windows. I know of two small companies that have left Windows: one company replaced all their servers with Linus and has started using a few Macs to connect to them, and the other company has stopped all Windows software development altogether (remaining in maintenance mode only) and is instead developing its software for the Mac. So there is hope yet for the Mac in business.
As for Java on the Mac … I agree with with others who have said: allow Apple a little slack. Given past indicators, it seems likely that Java 1.6 *will* be available for Mac shortly.
>> The problem isn’t when. The problem is Apple is being silent on the issue and pissing off the Java community.
> The problem is the Java community.
+1
Seriously…Take a break from spewing bile, have a walk outside, and realize not everyone is out to get you.
The probably is that business can’t rely on terms such as “shortly” and thats the real issue. Business won’t buy into something as a platform they can use or pass on to customers unless there is a clear roadmap of where it is going.
Oh and personally I find most companies I develop for now either are already using Linux/Unix or are looking into it. Certainly projects I’ve worked on seem to be easier to manage and run more efficiently when linux is the platform of choice. I still find java performance on windows very clunky for graphic related applications.
[…] Java on OS X Timeline spells out the details but, essentially, when Mac OS X added Java 1.4 support, Java developers sat […]
“I hate to break it to you guys, but Java is irrelevant to the Mac ecosystem. If they completely removed it from Leopard, it wouldn’t impact the user experience in any way.”
Well, removing it will affect at least 1000 WebObjects developers, including many at Apple who use WO for the iTunes Store and the online Apple Store.
Java may be irrelevant to some, but is far from it to me. My entire business requires Java on Windows and MAC OS X. The marketplace is education.
We never add new Java features to our code until they are out on all platforms and tested. If you don’t care about the Mac users, that’s your lookout. We use extensive Java servlets and applets. We are changing all of our servers to Solaris so that we’ll have no problems running Tomcat and Java servlets. We’re being very careful about release-specific features and only adding them long after they’ve been available.
In another area, for example, we’re just now getting ready for mySQL stored procedures. Our developers have used these on Oracle, Sybase, etc. extensively over ten years ago. Our first mySQL implementation didn’t have them. We did not change over as soon as they became available for many reasons among which is simple caution.
If Apple does release Java 6 by Thanksgiving (and it’s reasonably bug-free), I’ll be quite happy. If they release it with lots of bugs, then I think everyone will be more unhappy than if it’s not released. Sun released an update to 1.6 that completely broke our application and caused us innumerable support calls. Fortunately, they listened to us and had a fix in about three months. In the meantime, they helped us find a workaround.
Many of you want earlier release of 1.6 on Leopard? Watch out! You may get your wish and wish you hadn’t. I do agree that Apple should at least say that a release is planned.
@28 Theo:
> Apple wanted developers to use ObjC with the iPhone SDK.
You guys need to read up on LLVM. Apple already has a way to make applications portable across its products, and it doesn’t involve using Java.
Notice I said “portable across __ITS__ products”. If you follow Apples rules - use Obj-C, the SDK, Cocoa, LLVM, etc., you will be able to write code that compiles down to binary applications that will run on all Apple H/W, including the iPhone.
This is Apple’s notion of portability. Follow Apple’s rules, and you’re portable across Apple’s platforms. Java is not in this picture.
I think it’s a smart move. They have complete control over their platforms.
Anyway, if apple does not do it, the community will be able to as soon as the openjdk project emerge.
As other people already said, 1.5 is bleeding-edge when you talk about enterprise apps, which is what most Java developers much support (Many enterprises are still using 1.4 and even 1.3)
@Ian Mitchell: http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/printfriendly.do?assetkey=1-26-102934-1
That’s why developers SHOULD target later versions of Java, and users/corporations should update.
[…] Mac user, but to the Java development community, Leopard has been a bombshell. Apple’s been slow with Java releases before, but something’s different this time: there’s been almost no information on the topic, […]
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Java is essential in education, which is a huge market. We must be cross-platform and thus Objective C is not an option. Ruby et al. will not work in scientific computing. I hope Apple realizes this.
Umm, this is a geek website…. and your making a fuss over apple.
News Flash:
Geeks don’t use Macs. lol
I’ve yet to look over the rest of the site, but you’ve just lost a lot of credibility as a geek.
PiousPinhead Says:
“News Flash:
Geeks don’t use Macs. lol”
Most of the geeks I know use a Mac. Anyone with half a brain knows they’re much more pleasant to use than Windows or Linux as a Desktop environment to sit in front of (while you SSH into all the other machines you use/manage).
You’ve lost all credibility, period.
I’m still waiting, we are almost a month of Leopard launched but no sign of Java 6, not roadmap, nothing, What is going on with apple?.
Finally caved in and bought a MBP only to find out that Apple still hasn’t released Java 6 for OS X? Now what? Go back to using my Linux desktop and use the MBP as a glorified Web Surfing doo-dad? Major buzz kill Apple. Sorry, but Java 6.0 is far from bleeding edge at this point and YES there are API differences between 5.0 and 6.0.
I wonder if the Apple/Java vacuum has to do with the fact that Java is now GPL’d. I seem to remember that one of the reasons that Apple chose BSD over Linux for OS X was due to the way GPL’d software is licensed. Think about it… Apple has done A LOT of work to integrate Java into just about every aspect of OS X. Probably, under the GPL, they’d have to cough up a lot of their proprietary integration source code. I think that this is also why there is no official QuickTime Player for Linux. If Apple were to come out and announce that they won’t support Java on OS X because of the GPL, it would probably cause much worse press than the present situation (which also sucks, btw).
I’ve been an Java developer for quite a while and an Apple user for almost as long. I can understand that Apple would rather have desktop apps written in Objective C than in Java - especially with all the security implications of JVM’s these days - Apple even locked down Quicktime for Java in QT 7.3. However, Apple has a lot invested in Java-based technologies. Especially in their pursuit of the server market. OS X Server ships with JBoss & Tomcat - even WebObjects, Apple’s own app server was converted to Java.
At the last WWDC, while there was certainly an air of frustration among Java developers, I left with a positive outlook on the future of Java on the Mac… Maybe I was just in the “reality distortion field” too long…
Since OS X, Apple has been a big supporter of Open Source software - but NOT Free (GPL’d) software. My feeling is that before we see any future versions of Java for OS X (or on the iPhone), Apple will have to figure out how their proprietary technologies such as Aqua, QuickTime, etc. will be able to legally integrate with GPL’d Java. Either that, or Apple will cease in-house Java development entirely and give it back o the community - relegating it to unsupported third party add-on status.
@kwolf Surely the Classpath Exception license would protect Apple’s java interests thou?
Mark - My understanding of the Classpath Exception is that it allows applications that are built with (or run on) a GPL’d implementations of Java to be licensed with a non-GPL license. In Apple’s case, however, they are not using a GPL’d implementation of Java. They’re using the Apple implementation of Java which I imagine has its core components licensed from Sun under a non-GPL license that allowed them to create a platform specific derivative work. I know that Apple distributed J2SE 5.0 with an Apple License that states, “…you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any part thereof.” Presumably, this is to protect the proprietary parts of Apple’s implementation of Java that link to the rest of their proprietary code. So, it seems to me (BTW, I am not a lawyer) that the GPL Classpath Exception doesn’t apply to Apple’s Java Implementation.
My fear is that since Apple’s Java 6 implementation seemed ready to go - especially in Leopard, Apple pulled their Java 6 implementation because they are unwilling to comply with the terms of the GPL. Keep in mind that Java 5 (Apple’s current implementation) is not to be GPL’d.
I think that is unlikely. Apple could only get into GPL Trouble if their implementation was directly based on the GPLed source, which seems to be unlikely to me.
Anyway, not communicating is the worst thing they can do right now. If they said they drop Java because of GPL then we at least knew what is going on. Waiting a couple of month until every last Mac-using Java developer is on the edge of going Postal and then saying “Oh, we decided months ago to spit in you guys faces and drop Java” would quite obviously be much worse.
@Regarding Apple failing to offer a timeline for Business Developers.
Are things better in the Windows world, where software versions are anounced long beforehand, but turn out to be vaporware, or delays in bringing out the software actually run up years? (cf. Vista).
Yet businesses are still banking on the dependable Windows platform.
@Regarding experimenting with Java 1.6 on Linux
- Use Parallels or VMware and do these experiments under Linux
- Insert a plugin layer with a version that is functional under 1.5 and a version that works better under 1.6.
That would also take care of the API incompatibilities between 1.5 and 1.6
I have used mac for my java development machine since i was in bachelor degree, now i worked as java SE developer and now i took my graduate in computer science and build IR core application for my thesis. Java SE 6 is a need, I need their new SwingWorker and many other new class from java.nio, java.io etc packages…
I developed using netbeans and it doesn’t has UML module for mac version because of java se 6 not available for mac, I can’t afford to buy 3rd party tools because you know how much it will cost, while windows and unix users can use a free and great UML module on netbeans 6.0 for free.
I also used many Java application as alternative way to use legal but free software on my mac, sometimes I just simply developed it by myself. Java is my life, but mac too.
the point is, Apple should throw their java development to SUN or to Community, so we can use OPENJDK release on mac but still official and natively working on mac environment.
Anyway even vista has java se 6, i rather use mac with java se 5 to develop my projects, i don’t trust my entire career and my entire life to a completely expensive and un-reliable OS.
No JDK1.6 for thanksgiving, no hint of anything ever. Oh joy.
Most of you probably know this already, but Landon Fuller’s SoyLatte does a pretty good job of porting the FreeBSD 1.6 JDK to OS X. I’m running all my usual development tools, including Eclipse; the only thing that’s cause a bit of a pause was a custom Eclipse module’s progress window failing. (Fortunately the tool itself works, otherwise the development environment wouldn’t be built…)
So, if you didn’t know, go see: http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/macosx/
Who needs Apple…
Well I sure hope bikemonkey.org being offline is just some server hiccup and not the result of some Apple legal B.S.!! Can’t download today. I stupidly upgraded to Leopard on my dual-G5 thinking Apple’s Java 6 beta would run on it (fine print, you idiot!!) It only runs on 64-bit Intels (which means my original MacBook Pro won’t run it either, dammit). So now I _need_ SoyLatte because the Leopard upgrade DELETED my previous Java 6 beta install. How do you like that one?
It is getting a little ridiculous that Apple still hasn’t released Java 6 for the Mac. The same DP is still up on ADC, but there’s been no word as to when we might expect the official release. That said, for those complaining and talking about dumping their Macs, there are ways to work around it.
First, endo meme’s suggestion of using the FreeBSD JDK is one option. Personally, I’d rather not muck up my Mac with that, so I opt for the second (free) option.
Get yourself Innotek’s wonderfull free VirtualBox. Download Ubuntu. There, you have a separate, Java 6 capable development environment running inside your Mac. Plus, you get to test your app on both Linux & Mac (or Windows if you have the license), and Java 5 and 6.
How about that timeline????
Quiet, they try to beat the 22 month record.
There is a solution though. Format the hard drive and remove that fisher price toy operating system (OS X, duh) and install Windows or Linux and you will have most up to date development environment.
http://www.macworld.com/article/133225/2008/04/javase6.html?t=101
What’s that…16 months?
yeah, looks like they blew it again.
Also an “update” only for 64bit-Intel Leopard 10.5.2 Machines not enabled by default clearly shows the target audience - to appease the developers who have more than enough to use VMs with Linux. Basically an “officialised” beta previously only available though their developers subscription program.