14 DAY TRIAL // On Friday Apple rolled out the last two Java seeds for Snow Leopard and Lion to be tested and later released as the final versions of the runtime before Oracle takes full responsibility of Java fo Mac.
With the Flashback Trojan infecting over half a million Macs through a Java vulnerability, Apple is no longer willing to support the web component through its own development.
The company had earlier cited offset development cycles between Oracle’s and their own.
The final Apple-developed updates will reportedly offer compatibility with future releases of Java. These will include the ability to disable the runtime after 35 days of inactivity.
The release notes state that “Java SE 6 applets and Web Start disable after non-use”, with Apple adding that “This preview contains a stub applet plug-in and a modified Web Start launcher for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.”
“This technology disables these Java web components after an extended duration of non-use (35 days). This policy is already present in ‘Java for OS X 2012-003’ for OS X 10.7 Lion,” Apple says.
The seed notes continue: “Oracle's Java 7 applet plug-in disables Java SE 6 applets and Web Start.”
Apple explains to developers that “this preview contains additional enhancements to the OS X Java integration features to disable or redirect functionality to Oracle's Java 7 applet plug-in, if present.”
“This includes deactivating most panels in Java Preferences, routing .jnlp file launching to the Oracle Java 7 Web Start launcher, and .jar file launching to the plug-in embedded JRE,” says the Mac maker.
Oracle on April 26 announced the availability of Java Platform, Standard Edition 7 Update 4 (Java SE 7 Update 4) and JavaFX 2.1, stating that the release marks the company’s first delivery of the Java Development Kit (JDK) and JavaFX Software Development Kit (SDK) for Macs.
Oracle hasn't issued an exact date for the release of its final Java implementations on the Mac.