Comments on: OS X Java Definitive Timeline

By: karl childers

karl childers — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:29:58 +0000

Yep. Least common denominator comes to mind and not in a good way. Apparently Apple’s lcd is to wait until Java is out of date before releasing it. Oh, I know 1.6 is available on 64 bit Mac. But with SE7 looming sometime in 2009 and 2 years since SE6, what possible excuse could there be for not releasing 32bit 1.6? OMG it couldn’t be to force us to upgrade once again? If Apple is so insecure about its current OS and extensions, how secure is it about future releases? Clearly open source is much more responsive to customer needs than proprietary systems. If Apple does not remain nimble, it may fall (horrors!).

By: Roy

Roy — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:07:07 +0000

I’m sorry but the way Apple handles java is just ridiculous. At the WWDC in 2000 Steve Jobs announced that Java would be a first class citizen on Mac OS X. And currently even ’stupid’ mobile phones running Symbian or Windows Mobile get more frequent java updates than Mac OSX.

There is absolutely no reason to schedule the releases of Java with a Major OS update, since Java is acting like a normal program on top of the OS, just like any other program like iTunes for example. As long as compatibilty with old programs isn’t broken java will still work.

Also Apple refuses to update java for older systems, in that way forcing users to upgrade (again..). I know allot of Apple people don’t like Microsoft, but damn they have the decency to even make Java1.6 Available for Windows 98 quickly after release of a new java version.

By: J Ln

J Ln — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:10:10 +0000

So I guess Apple will not be releasing a 32Bit version of Java 1.6 then…

Such a shame, this will be the first and last Mac I ever buy, and am going to be contacting Apple later today to pass on my sentiments.

By: Alfredo Ramos

Alfredo Ramos — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:32:29 +0000

Most people focus the Mac OSX/Java problem to Leopard and new releases of OSX. The real issue as this diagram shows, is the amount of time between an offical release of Sun JVM and the time it reaches the OSX platform. This is in average more than a year. This is not acceptable for any Java based development teams that proactively take advantages of new features in new JVMs. I my previous Company we move to java 1.6 just two months after the release, we had no fears of a buggy JVm as we had a strong set of functional, performance and scalability tests. Quite the opposite java 1.6 had much better garbage collection performance.

We are creating a new development team, we were considering whether to use Mac Pros as the development machines. After looking this graph (and other information) is quite obvious it would be a wrong decision, as we would always be behind the latest Java release by more than a year.

We have decided then to go for Linux for development, very probably Ubuntu/Kubuntu given the easy of usage.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:39:53 +0000

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.

By: lolife

lolife — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:25:03 +0000

http://www.macworld.com/article/133225/2008/04/javase6.html?t=101

What’s that…16 months?

By: Mario

Mario — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:50:56 +0000

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.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:34:19 +0000

Quiet, they try to beat the 22 month record.

By: Fotis Paraskevopoulos

Fotis Paraskevopoulos — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:56:01 +0000

How about that timeline????

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:59:01 +0000

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.