Why Doesn't Sun Release Their Own Java Implementation for OS X?

Question

Sun's Java SE 7 is set to release next year, and we still have yet to see a stable, complete implementation of Java SE 6 from Apple. Why doesn't Sun release their own implementation of Java for OS X?

Answer 1

Sun's losing a lot of money right now. A project without an immediate "cash in the door by the end of the quarter effect" won't be greenlighted.

Answer 2

From what I've heard, Sun is respecting Apple's strong desire to develop their own implementation.

I remember a more pointed blog that I'll keep trying to find, but you might get sense of the issues from this Editor's Daily Blog.

Note that individuals have gotten OpenJDK 7 running on OS X.

Answer 3

AFAIK apple has exclusive rights or practically exclusive rights to controlling the supported Java version on the mac os platform. Not sure why Sun agreed to that but this seems to be the case, especially as other vendors haven't picked it up.

This is generally considered Apple's fault, since Apple was initially on the Java bandwagon, and then stopped supporting it as they started focusing on objective-c and cocoa. I am guessing (though have no proof) that they wanted to kill Java on the mac.

Especially now that macs run Intel processors, it should not be difficult, yet we only rarely got an ancient version of Java 6 that is still causing problems.

Also, the Eclipse environment doesn't support Java 6 on mac yet, so you're stuck compiling your plugins for JDK5.

Answer 4

I used to develop java on the Mac until i got fed up jumping through hoops to get my IDEs etc to load with Java 1.6. I recently installed Ubuntu and have not looked back.

Java on Apple is always many versions behind the latest release of the JDK it was only may of this year that java 6 was officially released.