Why no Java on the iPhone?
The whole discussion (see “Java to the iPhone: Can you hear me now?” on O’Reilly Blog) is pretty interesting as the Java motto is “write once, run everywhere”. It’s true at least on every machine that have its own Java Virtual Machine. But looks like iPhone wouldn’t have its own JVM, so it won’t be possible to run Java applications on the iPhone at all.
But the question is not why Java wouldn’t find a place to the iPhone, but why it should. The only reason to keep Java on the iPhone is to let it use Java applets on some websites. But how many websites uses Java applets: 1%? And how many of them have to be used by future iPhone owners? 2? 5? So for sure it’s not worth to support another environment.
However, there are much more arguments against putting Java into the iPhone:
- iPhone won’t allow 3rd party applications – no Java is needed
- Java applications look ugly and are slightly slower than those build with native languages like Objective-C
- there would be problems integrating Java apps with other, non-Java ones
- Java doesn’t offer good interfaces for interacting with peripherals, such as USB, controllers, etc.
- I’m almost sure Apple has more experienced Objective-C developers than Java ones
- Apple wants to control iPhone in every aspect – needless to say games market is worth millions
- There’s also no Java on the iPod – a coincidence?
- (more still to come… ;-)))
But don’t get me wrong – Java is not bad. No doubt it is one of the best languages for the server-side programming. If not the very best one…
