Java on the iPhone - not going to happen?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 08 March 2008 16:37

Your IT - Mobility

Infoworld quoted Klein saying that: “Once our JVM is on the phone, we anticipate that a large number of Java applications would run on the phone. 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.”

Klein was further quoted as saying that: "It's a new platform for us. We might be able to bring additional technologies onto the iPhone and the iTouch.”

The big question, of course, is whether Apple will ever let Sun bring Java to the iPhone, or not.

We already know Steve Jobs’ original comments about Java being too big and heavy for the iPhone, but we also know that Apple has explicitly stated in the SDK keynote that only approved apps will make it into the App Store.

I registered as a “developer” on the Apple iPhone SDK Developer site, with an Australian address, even though I’m in Australia and the site specifically says that only US developers will be given access.

I did this so I could find the exact part of the SDK agreement that makes it clear software add-ons like Java wouldn’t be permissible, to confirm what I’ve seen elsewhere on the web: a clause that makes iPhone Java implausible.

But I’ve found it in comment #15 on a Macrumors forum on Infoworld’s story which quotes from Apple iPhone SDK Agreement that: “No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)… An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise.”

If you do a search on Google you'll find a number of other articles with this quote, or part of it, meaning plenty of other software could also find itself 'banned' from the iPhone, including Firefox, Flash and more, as seen at Rob Sayre's Mozilla blog.

Given that Sun’s Klein wants to enable all those Java developers to get their apps onto the iPhone, something that would presumably mean they could do it without being official iPhone software developers, the iPhone SDK agreement, if accurately quoted, doesn’t look like it will be possible.

No doubt there will be a big kerfuffle if Sun create a Java VM for the iPhone, and then Apple disallows it, alongside Firefox, Flash and other apps, so it could still happen, and Apple could change their mind... but I’m definitely not holding my breath.