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Java on the iPhone? Say it ain’t so…

Almost as soon as the iPhone SDK was released Sun announced its plans to develop and release the JVM for the iPhone. As a long time Java developer I should be ecstatic about this news. However, rather than causing sleepless nights dreaming about the possibilities of a JVM on the iPhone it somewhat depresses me. Now, I must say that I do enjoy developing in Java and have been doing so professionally since early 1999 with code still being used in large projects ranging from Swing front ends to J2EE backends. In all fairness my J2ME experience has been little more than a hobby but I have had some fun with it.

So, does Java on the iPhone make sense to anyone other than a pre-supernova Sun? Mmmm… well, I’m sure that the thousands of J2ME application developers out there would be pumping for it. There might also be a few users who rely on some mission critical application. Anyone else? None spring to mind, certainly not Apple.

A post-apocalyptic JVM enabled iPhone would soon become a litter ground for the multitude of J2ME apps. Some of these apps, such as the ones developed by Google, are indeed beneficial and well done. They are, however, far from the norm. With Apple’s tight control over the platform any J2ME apps would surely need to be provisioned directly from the iPhone AppStore which might help to eliminate some of the cruft. But, a free for all iPhone application bonanza is not likely to happen in this universe and that includes J2ME apps.

As a fledgling iPhone developer I must also say that a massive influx of J2ME apps to the iPhone would severly dampen my enthusiasm for the platform. All those J2ME apps would immediately have first mover advantage in a lot of important application categories - thus castrating many native iPhone applications. One of the draws to iPhone development is that it is a green field… there are thousands upon thousands of apps that need developing and for the uninitiated that spells “opportunity”.

Java on the iPhone proponents see the iPhone as another smart phone market for J2ME applications. However, the iPhone is much more than just a smart phone. It’s a completely new platform and more than any other device that has come before it is a powerful computer in your pocket. In order to make full use of all that the device offers only native code can deliver. Witness this quote from Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing at Sun (source ars technica),

“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.

Why would we even settle for anything less than complete access to the native iPhone functionality? Do some J2ME apps not need all that the iPhone has to offer? Well, then they aren’t iPhone apps and users will know the difference.

So, why throw my vote towards native Objective-C iPhone apps rather than building on my already deep Java knowledge and J2ME? It’s simple. Hands down the best user experience will be had by witting applications which make use of the unique and powerful native iPhone API’s. As a developer with a user experience mindset I only want the best and adding J2ME to the mix only waters it down.