[jonhendry]

"(And as for Java, it was my understanding that Apple had hobbled it by refusing to release updates on a timely basis.)"

That's a different, later issue.

Early on in the life of OS X, Apple offered a Java interface to the Cocoa class frameworks. In theory, you could write OS X applications using Java, calling into the Apple frameworks instead of using Swing or whatever Java frameworks.

This wasn't all that well supported, didn't perform well, and wasn't popular.