Iworld

Java Coming to the iPhone After All

Sun takes a look at iPhone SDK, decides within 24 hours that virtual machine is doable

By Filip Truta, Apple News Editor

11th of March 2008, 14:59 GMT

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Sun Microsystems is planning to roll out a Java Virtual Machine for Apple's iPhone this summer, "some time after June," according to InfoWorld. The virtual machine is said to allow Java apps to run on the both Apple's devices using touchscreen and motion sensing features, the iPhone and iPod touch.

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is to be based on the

Java Micro Edition (ME) version of Java, according to Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun. The InfoWorld piece reminds readers of Apple's lack of interest towards Java running on its iPhone, with AppleInsider mentioning Steve Jobs' saying that Java wasn't coming to the iPhone, describing a full Java engine as "a burden" to the phone and that it was highly unlikely to be used by developers.

JavaScript is "built into the phone," said Jobs, while a full Java engine would only be a "heavyweight ball and chain," the website threw in as a relevant quote. Speaking of Flash, on the other hand, Jobs was more optimistic last year, stating: "you might see that."

Sun of course knows what it can do with Java and made the big announcement just after the iPhone SDK was out: "Now, the iPhone is open" as a target platform, said Klein, according to the aforementioned source. The JVM will be made available for free via Apple's newly announced App Store.

After using the SDK for 24 hours, Sun came to the conclusion that a JVM could work on the iPhone. Klein also notes that they didn't see anything in the public statements about preventing the release of a JVM as one of the applications enabled on the iPhone.

The man went on assuring that Sun would be working hard to "offer the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible," through the JVM Klein explained.

According to the same man, developers could very well bring enterprise applications to the iPhone as well, such as ERP or CRM, besides Java games.

TAGS:

iPhone | Sun Microsystems | Java | javascript | Klein

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