14 DAY TRIAL // iPhone lovers will be happy to find that the next SDK, yet to be released by Apple in February 2008 will bring Java support. If the rumor is true, this will be a real milestone for Apple, which "by default" doesn't like and doesn't accept open source operating systems.
Even after Steve Jobs stated that "Java's not worth building into the iPhone", it seems that Apple reconsidered the fact that the iPhone is not really a business phone and agreed to give it some entertainment functions. Furthermore, you should know that Apple thought about embedding Java compatibility into the iPhone even before launching it on the market.
This is proved by the ARM11 family processor running at speeds up to 667 MHz that is compatible with Java accelerated engine Jazelle. Jazelle is a technology that executes the Java bytecode directly in hardware on many ARM microprocessors. It is able to achieve a similar high peak performance to software compilation techniques, with fast start-up and smooth execution in a small memory footprint. Jazelle also enables multitasking, which means that users will be able to run multiple Java applications and games in the background with minimal overhead.
Anyway, the source of this rumor is Sun's technical evangelist for the Java mobile and embedded community, Terrence Barr, who said: "It is quite likely that people will start porting phoneME to the iPhone to provide Java that way. I expect that to happen as a community effort". This will most likely happen at the beginning of next year when Apple is set to release another SDK for iPhone owners.
Even if there's nothing official stated by Apple, let's hope that this will become real and that iPhone fans will be able to use and play Java applications and games on their devices. I hope that this will also stop those that were "mourning" because of the limited functionality of the device.