Java SE 6 For Mac OS X

wchatam writes "After a long delay, Apple has finally released a version of Java 6 for OS X. 64-bit Intel Macs are starting to see this pushed out via Software Update, but there has not been an announcement for when 32-bit Intel and PowerPC Mac users will get their versions."

Somewhat old.

[aliquis (678370)]

This is 5 days old news, and it's not that big news anyway.

I guess it could be a reason which makes it 64-bit only aswell, or they just considered the other platforms to old to care, but that kind of suck. Pretty normal in Apple-land to consider old OS versions obsulete thought so maybe it's true for hardware aswell?

(Never mind the Apple fanboys which says that a G3 are still future proof.... Or how macs don't crash (mine crashed today for instance, I can somewhat understand it since Safari usually pick up

Re:

[truthsearch (249536)]

You are completely full of it. My entire office is full of web developers working full time on Macs. We use Safari, Firefox, and Flash all day and never run into such issues. Even our Mac Minis with just 512MB ram get along just fine. My 3 year old PowerBook also never has a problem.

Re:

[Awptimus Prime (695459)]

It's no wonder. You should only need a notepad and web browser for that work.

I wasn't able to function in OSX with 1gb, so I had to wipe the system and install Ubuntu. Overall, a mac for business was a bad idea since I had a poorly supported, over priced linux box in the end.

After spending a year around an all mac shop, I noticed people just didn't say anything about something not working until a solution was brought forward, then a collective 'OMG finally!' would be felt.

Re:

[truthsearch (249536)]

A text editor, web browsers, Parallels with XP for IE testing, Photoshop or other image editors, apache/mysql/php/python/perl running locally, OpenOffice, OmniGraffle, and a few other apps. Professional web developers don't "only need a notepad and web browser."

In our case Macs are very much the right tool for the job. Those in the company who used linux desktops and laptops spent far more time dealing with application and configuration issues. They've all switched and they're far more productive and com

Re:

[BoomerSooner (308737)]

Maybe you just don't know what the fuck you're doing. Ever think of that?

I've got 4GB of ram in my mac and 1GB in my G4. Both run just fine.

Re:

[Graff (532189)]

Never mind the Apple fanboys which says that a G3 are still future proof.... Or how macs don't crash (mine crashed today for instance, I can somewhat understand it since Safari usually pick up like 800 MB of ram and I only have 2GB and I had run Google Earth aswell. And if the machine runs out of ram you get issues.

The Mac G3s are as "future proof" a any older processor can get. Apple has continued with every release of Mac OS X to support the PowerPC processors and they will probably continue to do so for at least a while longer. Even when Apple stops producing Mac OS X for PowerPC you can still keep on running whatever version of Mac OS X you currently have on it. Yes, eventually people will stop producing PowerPC binaries which will run on the G3 but by then that machine will be so outdated you're probably bett

Re:

[Sentry21 (8183)]

A G3 _IS_ outdated, OS X is the most heavy OS I've ever used, Windows XP would live very happy on this 2.2GHz C2D, 2GB ram MBP.

Probably because Windows XP is a six-and-a-half year old operating system, whereas Leopard was released six months ago. A more reasonable comparison would be either to compare XP to Mac OS X 10.0.4, or to compare Leopard to Windows Vista (but which version? I'd go with Ultimate).

Windows XP's system requirements are rooted in the cutting-edge technology of 2001, with a few increases on the way thanks to the three service packs, whereas Leopard was designed for the current and previous generation of hardware

Letter of apology

[by Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mac users,

We're very sorry that unenlightened members of our organization have ported this abomination to your platform. I'm quite sure that you understand that large organizations often have rogue elements working against the organization's best interests from the inside. I assure you that we're working tirelessly to end the Java scourge. In the meantime, we offer our most sincere apologies not only to the Mac community, but to everyone who has been forced to use a Java application throughout hi

Re:Letter of apology

[Moochman (54872)]

This is starting to get ridiculous. Over the last few weeks it has somehow become trendy on Slashdot to make ridiculous jabs at "Java". Not any specific aspect or technology of Java, just "Java". And not anything specific about it, not even the stupid parroting that it's "slow", just things like "it's an abomination" etc.

It's getting really old. At first it was stupidly amusing, now it's just stupid.

Java is a powerful, performant (by far moreso than the current batch of oh-so-trendy interpreted languages), cross-platform, *open-source* set of technologies. This suggests to me that it offers a lot to users of all platforms, especially open-source ones. In fact, it doesn't just suggest this to me. It does offer a lot to users of all platforms, and has been doing so for quite some time now. The fact that Slashdot has now become a playground for groundlessly insulting "Java" in the hopes of scoring a few mod points from the (as usual) hopelessly juvenile Slashdot moderators, makes me sad.

I know it's not trendy to bust into your acerbic sarcasm-filled world with my serious comment here. But somehow I doubt there are many people (aside from a few hard-core .NET missionaries) who would seriously want to see the downfall of Java anytime soon. Yet unfortunately, all you are doing by making these sorts of jokes is needlessly acting to divide a healthy open-source community and reduce enthusiasm for Java. There is a wide diversity of tools and technologies out there, all with unique advantages. Java is one of them. As someone who supports and uses Java, I'm getting sick and tired of standing by while Slashdot scheisters such as Mr Coward here hi-five each other every day for upping the Java-deprecation ante.

Go poke fun at BASIC or something. Leave Java alone.

Java6 for Intel 64, and now what?

[theolein (316044)]

What reaaly bothers me about Apple is that their support for anything that doesn't come out of Cupertino seems to be either designed to bait end users into moving to Macs than anything else.

When Apple brought out OS X in 2001, it was all smiles as the system came with free developer tools, a Java-Cocoa API that allowed you to use Java to write native Cocoa apps as well as a C/C++ API that also allowed you to write native Mac apps.

The problem was that the Java-Cocoa api was buggy from the start, apart from having very slow response on a, at the time, very slow user interface. Apple never fixed some of the worst bugs in critical objects (PDF objects for example), and finally, in 2005, dropped further development for the Java-Cocoa bridge altogether.

Last year, Apple dropped further development for the C/C++ API, which is having a major impact on big applications like Adobe's Creative Suite, which now have to move to Apple's in-house Objective-C api.

The overall impression that I get is that Apple is only paying lip service to anything that doesn't come from Apple itself. Apple was known for this in the 90s and there was an acronym for that: NIH -Not Invented Here. This is also Microsoft suffers from, in its Embrace and Extend strategy.

This had serious repurcussions for Apple in the 90s and I, as a long time Mac user worry if it won't happen again. Java6 was available for other platforms over two years ago, and now Java7 is even almost here.

Seriously, if you're a Java developer, is there any actual reason to use Mac OSX? You're far better off using Eclipse on Linux.

Re:

[pizzach (1011925)]

You were marked troll, but I think what you wrote is probably true. If I remember right, Apple releasing the newest Java only on the newest OS is a bad pattern. Some other weirdness was a long standing 10.3 bug which caused third party browsers to be unable to access the newest version of java installed on the machine. So Safari was using 1.5 while Firefox was using 1.4.

Re:Java6 for Intel 64, and now what?

[theolein (316044)]

It doesn't really matter if I was marked troll. The only sad thing about it is that Mac fans are often very loyal to the platform no matter what Apple does. It makes it very difficult to level any constructive criticism at Apple, as Apple fans will often deny the criticism.

Still, it's what kept Apple form going under in the 90s, so there must be something good about it.

32 bit intel macs?

[sentientbrendan (316150)]

I know there are 32 bit PPC macs, but I thought that all X86 macs were 64 bit, since they started with the core 2 duo systems.

What models of macs came with a 32 bit OS? Or are they simply referring to mac os 10.4, which I believe had some 32 bit support, but didn't have all API's (like cocoa) available in 64 bit versions.

Re:

[mccalli (323026)]

What models of macs came with a 32 bit OS?

The initial machines were CoreDuo, not Core2Duo. Our family had a 32-bit MacBook Pro, MacBook and Mac Mini. I've since replaced the MacBook Pro with a Core2Duo model, but the MacBook and Mac Mini continue to do decent service and there's no need to replace them.

Cheers,
Ian

Why isn't this Sun's job?

[argent (18001)]

Microsoft's support for Java on Windows theoretically ended in 2007, and if you want to run Java apps on Windows you go to http://www.java.com/en/index.jsp [java.com] and download Java.

If you're on Linux and you want to run Java apps, you go to the same place and download an RPM.

On Solaris, of course, you go... guess where... and download Java.

Last time I installed it on FreeBSD, I used the Linux binaries in Linus emulation mode. There's a FreeBSD Java project now.

And Sun has recently announced that they'll be supporting Java on the iPhone.

But if you have a Mac, Sun tells you to bugger off and ask Apple.

I'm sure there's some good historical reason for this weird exception, but given that Sun's supporting Java on much smaller platforms than Mac OS X, wouldn't it be in Sun's interest to take on the Mac as well if whatever legacy business agreement with Apple isn't working out? If they did that, then possibly it'd even become possible to get up-to-date Java support for older versions of OS X.

How about it, Sun, are you willing to put your programmers where your mouth is?

Re:No, really, what's Sun up to?

[ChunderDownunder (709234)]

On licensing, the BSD port licensed its code from Sun under a different license before Java went GPL.

At the moment, legal eagles are working through some paperwork regarding acceptance of this code into the GPL source tree. But in coming months we'll hopefully see the BSD and, by extension, Landon Fuller's OS X work hosted in the main openjdk codebase. Patience...

Now on the other matter, the OS X Java, there have been pleadings from Java developers in the past for Sun to take the reins and do an official port. Particularly a few months ago when Leopard shipped without Java 6.

What makes the port to OS X harder than, say, Linux? Among other things:

* A Cocoa implementation of AWT
* Porting the hotspot virtual machine to PPC
* native libraries, e.g. the Java-Cocoa bridge

These are not trivial tasks they require some expertise of OS X and PowerPC internals. If they were simple to implement, Apple wouldn't be 2 years late. For Sun to replicate these existing features from scratch would take many man years. And for 10%, or thereabouts, of the desktop market they obviously don't see a cost benefit. Would Sun be willing to 'buy back' Apple's source tree and GPL it? Some OS X internals Apple may not wish to expose (IP issues) and like Sun's codebase be encumbered by code they don't own.

Ultimately some of the ball is in Apple's court. They have sought to maintain their own Java port for competitive reasons such as low level OS integration. But what competitive advantage they deem to have when their releases are a full version behind Linux, Solaris and Windows is debatable.

Would Apple publish changes back to openjdk? They seem reluctant to. One benefit:

* PowerPC hotspot - someone else can maintain legacy architecture support for the G4. Who else have a vested interest in openjdk? Redhat, who have signalled intentions to support multiple architectures besides x86. Do Apple and Redhat really compete for the same markets, aside from a few Xserves???

Don't look for this in 10.4

[gumpish (682245)]

Apple has a history of denying new versions of Java to any previous version of the OS. (See Java 5 & 10.3)

Frankly I was amazed that Acrobat 8 Professional requires Mac OS 10.4 when it only came out 18 months after 10.4 was released. (But then perhaps Apple was paying Adobe a little bit under the table to help strongarm Mac owners into coughing up their $129 upgrade fee.) And of course Office 2008 requires 10.4 as well.

I have a hard time believing that the OS changes so fundamentally from one version to the next that apps can't be reasonably ported. I guess the only reason legacy versions of Windows enjoy so much support is simply because of the vast amount of market share Microsoft enjoys.

Makes me glad I use a free operating system and free software, still annoying as fuck supporting my users though.

Re:

[JonTurner (178845)]

Look, if you're going to repeat a lame joke, at least be accurate. It goes like this:

"Java: write once, debug everywhere."

Re:So?

[NTmatter (589153)]

I was about to say that this matters to the Java Fanbois, in the hope that they would finally get to play with the Java 6 features now that they're supported on the major platforms. "Doesn't run on Mac, must run everywhere" is a very solid argument against moving to Java 6.

As it happens, I must be new here, and I accidentally read the article.

Sadly, a Java 6 app still doesn't run everywhere. According to the Update [apple.com], it'll only run on 64-bit Intel Macs with OSX 10.5.2 installed. If Apple doesn't do something about that fact, this update really doesn't mean much for anyone interested in developing for broad market deployment. This will only affect the tinkerers that happen to be running the latest version of OSX on 64-bit hardware, or developers that are fortunate enough to be able to target an audience that uses modernish technology.

So, nothing to see here unless you're a bleeding-edge Java+Mac fanboi. Granted, that particular market segment has gotten the shaft for far too long. It's good to see at least a small step in the right direction.

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[c_forq (924234)]

All Macs have been 64-bit for quite a while now. The G5s were 64-bit (but that doesn't really matter, since this update is only for Intel Macs) and the only Intel Macs that aren't 64-bit are the original run of Mac Minis with the Core Solos, and the first iMacs with the Core Duos. All Intel MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and Mac Pros are 64-bit, along with any iMac since late 2006.

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[DurendalMac (736637)]

Um, no, anything using a Core Duo is 32-bit, which means the first gen of all Intel Macs with the exception of the Mac Pro. The Core 2 Duo was a 64-bit CPU, not the Core Duo.

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[dgatwood (11270)]

The MacBook, the MacBook Pro, the Mac Mini, and the iMac all shipped with a Core Duo model initially. The only model that didn't is the Mac Pro. Oh, and Xserve....

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[gumbi west (610122)]

One question might be, with all the java hype of being able to write once and run anywhere, why wouldn't they buy into the universal binary format?

Re:

[FF0000 Phoenix (516214)]

Well, somebody had to post. All of us Mac guys were too busy running our critical Java 6 stuff.

Re:So?

[theolein (316044)]

I hate to bait you, but an appropriate comeback to that would be: Whereas as everybody else was running their critical Java6 stuff 2 years ago.

There is a real problem at Apple with Java. Java6 was in beta 2 years ago at Apple, and has only been released in a crippled form for OSX, now. The thing is, Java7 is already on its way for the rest of the world.