| If the author wants to rant, I would think digging into the motives for Apple backing away from Java support might be more fertile territory. At least it'd have more substance to it that what amount to PR positions on numbers. Things to ponder... Could Apple be trying to throw a wet towel on doing Java development for other platforms (Android in particular)? Of course if they're wanting more of a closed system, they're probably also aware that some of the more popular peer to peer apps use Java too. (Limewire / Frostwire, Vuze / Azureus). Between not being allowed on the store, Java probably not being installed by default soon, and questionable robustness of future Java options, they've thrown a wet towel on the sharing apps too. It's not like the cost of paying developers to work on Java is a burden for Apple, and it doesn't have the reputation Flash does for crashing/slowing the system. Vulnerabilities could be an excuse to stay clear of Java, but like Flash, if users have it installed and have to get updates outside of the (semi) automatic software updates, users are less likely to be up to date, not more. If the author wants a little speculation for his rant, he ought to ask questions like will Steve kill X11? The Mac with OS X has had a lot of respect as a stable very interoperable do-everything platform. If Apple wants to change that, some of us will be kicking and screaming.
Apple has been able to give users an extra nudge towards new hardware by limiting the length of time old hardware sees major OS updates. (The 1985 Mac Plus was still supported under System 7.5, well past the five year period seen now). Killing support for something without the justification of certain hardware being inadequate is a tougher pill to swallow. If Apple goes too far, they'll certainly lose more science/engineering types to Linux. |
No, because Android already distributes an SDK for Mac, and can easily deploy whatever Java stuff they need along with it: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
* Of course if they're wanting more of a closed system, they're probably also aware that some of the more popular peer to peer apps use Java too. (Limewire / Frostwire, Vuze / Azureus). Between not being allowed on the store, Java probably not being installed by default soon, and questionable robustness of future Java options, they've thrown a wet towel on the sharing apps too.*
Transmission, the best BitTorrent client, runs natively on Mac.