Sun Microsystems to put Java VM on Apple’s iPhone
March 7th, 2008 by Scott Janousek
(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
Loading ...I caught this news recently, an article written by Paul Krill, an editor at InfoWorld.
Sun: We’ll put Java on the iPhone
Sun readies virtual machine to make Java apps run on Apple’s mobile platform
Sun Microsystems is developing a Java Virtual Machine for Apple’s iPhone and plans to release the JVM some time after June, enabling Java applications to run on the popular mobile device.
The JVM is to be based on the Java Micro Edition (ME) version of Java, said Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun, on Friday afternoon. Apple had not shown interest in enabling Java to run on the iPhone, but Sun plans to step in and do the job itself after having pondered Thursday’s release of an SDK for the iPhone by Apple.
“Now, the iPhone is open” as a target platform, Klein said. The free JVM would be made available via Apple’s AppStore marketplace for third-party applications.
“We’re going to make sure that the JVM offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible,” he said.
Besides Java games, developers could bring over enterprise applications such as ERP or CRM to the iPhone, said Klein. Apple’s iTouch, which features iPhone capabilities minus telephony, also will be supported by the JVM.
“Once our JVM is on the phone, we anticipate that a large number of Java applications would run on the phone,” Klein said.
“We’re going to work to make sure that the JVM offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible,” said Klein.
By bringing the JVM to the iPhone, Java capabilities in area such as SSL security could be brought to Apple’s platform, said analyst Chris Silva of Forrester Research.
“I think going forward, with the SDK, it takes out of Apple’s control which applications are ‘right’ for the iPhone,” Silva said.
Sun came to the conclusion it could make a JVM work on the iPhone after taking 24 hours to look at information on Apple’s SDK. Sun saw nothing in the public statements preventing the JVM from being one of the applications enabled on the iPhone, said Klein. Apple released the SDK in conjunction with the beta release if its iPhone 2.0 software; the general release of iPhone 2.0 is scheduled for June.
Future plans could include extending more sophisticated Java Standard Edition (SE) and JavaFX technologies to the iPhone, Klein said.
“It’s a new platform for us. We might be able to bring additional technologies onto the iPhone and the iTouch,” Klein said.
Developers, Klein said, have built great applications, and until now they have been unable to get them running on the iPhone. Sun previously has expressed its desire that Java be supported on the iPhone.
Apple could not be reached for comment on Sun’s plans in time for this article.
As a Flash Mobile Developer, this is all a bit heartbreaking, but I’m a bit happy for all those crazy Java mobile programmers out there (just kidding, … plus I shouldn’t talk as I have dabbled into the world of Java ME; just not so recently). 
One thing though … it is unclear whether users will have to separately download the Java VM application before downloading Java apps -or- if there is possibly a technique to download the player from a 3rd party Java application (say, if the VM is not installed) … for those familiar with Flash Lite … this would be something similar to how OTA Flash Lite frameworks work.
If it is the former (player download and then app download), I imagine the adoption will not be that popular as it could be … preinstalled and ready to go is the way to go.
Although, with all the “hardcore” iPhone community (folks who jailbreak and unlock), I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal for the hardcore folks to put themselves through 2 separate downloads!
I haven’t completely dismissed the possibility of seeing a Flash Player on iPhone in the future (in one form or another).
From what I read Apple is saying Flash is being kept off iPhone due to “technical” reasons, but it seems to me it’s merely business … as ever other civilized device manufacturer has adopted Flash on their devices (Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung, etc).
March 11th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Have you seen this response to their announcement?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/10/iphone_jvm_pipe_dream/
March 12th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
iBrent, thanks for posting this.
Yes, it appears this was posted after the fact (after the “release”). So, yes, it looks as though Sun’s excitement got the better of them.
For those that want the whole article, here is excerpt:
“After Sun announced our intent to create a JVM for iPhone and iTouch last Friday, there were questions raised in some blogs & forum posts about whether Apple’s iPhone license agreement allows us to deploy the JVM.
Our announcement was based on our excitement to build a JVM for the iPhone and the iTouch, as well as our assessment of Apple’s publicly available information on the SDK and related business terms. If there are clauses in the iPhone beta SDK license agreement that potentially limit third party application distribution, then these are items that we want to have a positive discussion with Apple about.
Sun and Apple have an ongoing relationship around Java SE on Mac OS X and we look forward to further discussions with Apple about a JVM for iPhone and iTouch. Sun definitely plans to deliver a JVM for iPhone and iTouch if at all possible!”