Java for iPhone urged by Sun official
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(InfoWorld) - The Java platform may run on 2 billion handheld phones, but not on Apple's trendy new iPhone. Apple's stance was called a mistake by a Sun Microsystems executive Wednesday at the AJAXWorld conference in Santa Clara. "I think it's a mistake. I think it would provide a lot more flexibility in applications being developed," for the iPhone, said Bob Brewin, Sun Distingushied Engineer and vice president for software. JavaScript runs on the phone and someone will put Java on the iPhone, Brewin said. But by not having it on there now, iPhone users and Java developers are being shortchanged, according to Brewin. Current Java applications, such as the LimeWire media-sharing application, could be easily ported and developers could choose the Java language for building new programs for the iPhone, he said. There also could be a lot of Java-based games made to work on the device, Brewin said. He attributed Apple's stance to the company wanting developers to develop for only a small set of APIs. "Fundamentally, they don't like open systems," Brewin said. Apple representatives could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday afternoon, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been dismissive of having Java run on the iPhone. Brewin also noted the status of Sun's JavaFX multimedia display technology. JavaFX could give the benefit of rich applications to the iPhone, Brewin said. The JavaFX compiler is available in an early-access release right now. Sun expects to release components of the JavaFX runtime next year, Brewin said. Binaries for the JavaFX Mobile component of the platform will be showcased next year as well. While JavaFX will compete with highly touted technologies such as Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe Systems's Flash and Flex, Brewin believes JavaFX offers advantages. "I think the biggest strength to JavaFX, sort of from a core principal, is because it is built on Java, you know it is ubiquitous," Brewin said. "You're not ... beholden to a proprietary implementation of another vendor," Brewin said. JavaFX also offers a simpler programming model than AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), he added. Also, Brewin said the Java Community Process, a multi-vendor effort on making changes to the Java platform, is going through a transition because of the recent open-sourcing of Java. "When we open-sourced Java, it just changed the dynamic a bit," he said. One example of how it has changed is contributors have to think about whether they want to contribute their intellectual property to what is now an open source platform. But Brewin anticipates the continuance of the JCP. "I think the JCP will thrive," he said. During a morning presentation, Brewin spoke of a "blue shift" and "red shift" phenomenon in computing, comparing IT to the physics concepts of blue and red shifts,Â  in which light turns red as it becomes more distant and blue as it gets closer. The red shift represents applications on the Web, which go out worldwide and scale to millions of persons. The blue shift represents computing in the enterprise, Brewin said. Building red shift applications requires thinking about a different application space, one in which there will not just be 10,000 people using the application behind the firewall but one that could serve 10 million customers, Brewin said.
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When it begins shipping on June 29, the revolutionary iPhone will run applications created with Web 2.0 Internet standards Apple today announced that developers can create Web 2.0 applications that look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone and that can seamlessly access iPhoneâs services. That includes making a phone call, sending an email and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using Web 2.0 standards can extend iPhoneâs capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.
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Apple Inc.  will allow  independent developers to write applications for its upcoming  iPhone by tapping into the device's built-in Web browser, Chief  Executive Steve Jobs said on Monday.
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(InfoWorld) - Gartner, IDC, and 451 Group research analysts, this week warned IT administrators to keep iPhones away from their businesses. "We're telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting [iPhone use in] the enterprise," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said. "This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities, and it's important that it be recognized as such." As if that will stop people from buying them anyway when they hit the market in the U.S. next week. The reality is that no matter how hard IT administrators try, the iPhone will be snapped up by their employees -- and not just the average Joes either. The device is a status symbol that will likely be snapped up by business leaders as the digital technorati. Try telling your CEO the iPhone doesn't play well with your IT systems. Dulaney and other researchers notwithstanding, this device can be good for the enterprise because of the business needs of smartphone users. It is an iPhone, after all, with an emphasis on phone. It offers e-mail -- currently the most popular means of business communications. There's an address/phone Book for quick access to contacts. It offers SMS, a quick way to contact other mobile phone users, and voicemail -- both useful to road warriors. There's a real Web browser -- by far the most underpowered and underappreciated part of a mobile phone. And it contains a slew of enterprise-worthy apps, including a calendar, access to maps, spreadsheets, and a document reader. All of these things are important -- and all can be done to a greater or lesser extent on most business-focused PDA phones. But in the business world, the mobile Web browser is the key to the future of business apps, and it is becoming a platform unto itself. One thing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs made abundantly clear at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is that the iPhone would include a full browser. The Symbian and Linux platforms' best browser is Opera Mini -- which isn't that bad -- but it by no means constitutes a full browser. Windows Mobile's browser isn't bad either, but it also falls well short of Internet Explorer 7. Additionally, the iPhone browser has a lot of zooming and panning tricks that make it more usable on the relatively small screen. In that crucial area, advantage: iPhone. Why is the browser crucial? Because most new business applications are being built around it. AJAX and other browser technology innovations over the past few years have turned the browser into a veritable platform. Sure, a lot of legacy applications still require browserless, platform-specific client applications. But those days are numbered. It's not just the isolated applications that are moving to a browser. All of the stalwart office applications are also moving to the Web. With Google Office (which now works with Safari -- the iPhone browser), Soho Office, and even Web-centric versions of Microsoft Office applications, the browser is truly the new business platform. The iPhone is not without its business-use flaws. It doesn't natively sync up with Lotus Notes or Exchange - and Microsoft, at least, will most likely do everything in its power to try to keep it that way to protect its Windows Mobile business. It can, however, hook up to IMAP email, LDAP address books, and WebDav for calendaring; with a bit of tweaking, that will work well for Exchange-based companies. Microsoft SharePoint can also be browsed from the Web interface, but to what extent? Time -- and the work of apps developers -- will tell. A newly anointed relationship with Cisco on all things iPhone should also let the device into the VPN and might even let an iPhone play well with Cisco VoIP solutions. And of course, don't forget the arduous task of getting your conservative IT department to accept the idea of letting loose an Apple phone -- or even MacBook Pro -- into the office. Previews of the phone haven't yet touted an instant messaging client like Apple's iChat or AOL Instant Messenger. It is likely, however, that Apple will include something with instant-messaging functionality in the near future -- there are still four slots left in the iPhone's application window. It's also true that the first-generation iPhone isn't the raw specs winner by any stretch. That honor goes to the Symbian/Windows Mobile 6 Phones coming from Toshiba (the G900), Nokia (the N95), Samsung (the F700) and HTC (the Shift). AT&T's EDGE wireless network is slow by today's standards, and while Wifi connectivity will help, there are questions about why Apple has forsaken the HSDPA/UTMS component and when an update might occur. Given that battery life is a factor -- Apple this week released updated specs that go beyond what it touted in January -- EDGE makes sense because it's more energy efficient. Also, the 8GB max on storage is seems low. At a time when you can buy an 8GB SD card for less than $80, Apple likely looked to keep costs down with an eye on upping that storage when it's economically smart. Most users would likely be happy with a micro/mini/SD card slot now standard on most smartphones. There is, of course, the price. The iPhone's hefty $499 and $599 price tags, depending on which model you buy, is a definite disadvantage in business. With relatively comparable gear (from a corporate standpoint), such as the Motorola Q, which is almost free with a service plan, buying an iPhone requires serious justification. We're talking about spending the equivalent of a budget laptop. Of course, something that you spend half your day using should justify the premium that this delicious piece of hardware demands. And then there are at least two intangibles: Usability. Apple's legendary reputation for making painful tasks easy will totally transform the mobile phone industry. And remember, companies love productivity from their workers. Until now, the big players have been Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, and Linux. They all had successes. But it's the last 10 percent of usability that Apple always manages to squeeze out its products will be the differentiator. Apple did the same in the computer industry until Microsoft caught up. Apple has learned from this and patented every minute detail of the iPhone, making it harder for copycats to appear anytime soon. The few seconds here there that the iPhone saves users will quickly add up. It's the little things that make for big savings across an entire enterprise. Business bling, baby. Everyone knows that this is the phone to have. Just look at the buzz ahead of the June 29 launch. Apple has spent the last few years building up its brand across all channels and is reaping the rewards like no other company in the industry. As much as the enterprise IT guys will want to recite better specs for rival Windows Mobile devices, nobody wants to hear that. I can imagine any number of CEOs saying, "I don't care! Just make the iPhone work on our systems!" And if it works for the CEO, you can bet the sales folk will want in on the action, too. Think they'll want to show up to a meeting with an important client and whip out last year's "hot" phone? They might as well wear parachute pants as well.
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Sun exec: "If we want to keep Java relevant, we have to support this newer programming model."
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Some users more equal than others Sun Microsystems in the next few days plans to issue an update that plugs a serious security hole in the most recent version of its Java Runtime Environment, more than a week after providing a fix for the same vulnerability in an earlier version of the program. The lag has prompted a prominent security researcher to lambaste the effectiveness of the company's security team.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems has added Ruby support to the NetBeans IDE and bolstered the JRuby platform as well, company officials acknowledged on Thursday. The early-access release of the NetBeans Ruby Pack is comprised of a plug-in to the open-source NetBeans development environment supporting Ruby and JRuby, which is a Java implementation of Ruby that runs on the Java Virtual Machine. NetBeans has been centered on Java but is being extended to Ruby. Ruby developers typically have not been using IDEs, Sun officials said. But Sun's announcement "really gives you a much more productive environment than you've had for Ruby before," said Tor Norbye, a Sun senior staff engineer. Sun has taken notice of the popularity of Ruby. "It's offered a new way of looking at development: more agile, more fun in a lot of ways," said Charles Nutter, also a senior staff engineer at Sun. He and Thomas Enebo are the core developers of JRuby; both began working at Sun in September. By accommodating Ruby, Sun is branching out from its Java mindset, said James Governor, principal analyst at RedMonk. "If you just look at this overall, there are some sacred cows being slaughtered here," Governor said. "There is a real change in Sun's thinking, and it really does [appear] that the Java permafrost is beginning to thaw," with Sun supporting scripting languages like Ruby, he said. "Ruby is the hottest scripting language out there right now," said Governor, who added he expects Sun to make a similar move to support another popular scripting language, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). The NetBeans Ruby Pack enables features like code completion. Integration documentation pop-ups are offered for Ruby API calls. Also included is semantic analysis with highlighting of parameters and unused local variables. "The key thing is Ruby developers have not been used to getting a lot of the features you've had in the Java world," such as code completion, said Norbye. NetBeans Ruby capabilities extend to the Ruby on Rails Web framework as well. "This helps you write Ruby on Rails apps faster," Norbye said. Ruby support is available for NetBeans 6 Milestone 7 as a download. The upcoming NetBeans 6.0 platform, due in November, will be bundled with Ruby support. To access the Ruby technology, NetBeans users can click here and then choose the Q-Build option under Build Type. Meanwhile, Sun is formally announcing the 0.9.8 release of JRuby, with enhanced support for Ruby on Rails on Monday. Compatibility issues have been addressed, according to Sun.
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php|architect has a new link to an article from OnJava.com concerning the use of JMS with PHP.
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Company unveils 'WidSets' for Java-enabled phones.
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The company teams up with Sun Microsystems to bring its e-mail application to Java-enabled cell phones.
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Note: There was no permalink for the story on Apple's news website, here's the full text, with permalink. DW Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers&#185; hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers. It will take until February to release an SDK because we&#185;re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once&#139;provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones&#139;this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target. Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than &#179;totally open,&#178; we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone&#185;s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs. We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones. Steve P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]
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WWDC 2007 - Responding to feedback from developers, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Monday that the company would open up the iPhone platform for third party application. The initial concern with such a capability was security, but Jobs says Apple came up with "a very sweet solution."
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems has been quiet about its JavaFX technology for building graphical applications since introducing it in May, but on Friday the company added a compiler to the platform. Also on tap is an updated plug-in to outfit the open source NetBeans platform for building JavaFX applications. New online demonstrations also are being made available. Based on the Swing GUI toolkit for Java, JavaFX is intended to bolster development of graphical user experiences for systems ranging from desktops to mobile clients and even TVs. "JavaFX makes the power that existed within Swing more accessible to developers so they can create exciting applications," featuring visual interaction, said Jean Elliott, Sun's senior director of Java software product marketing. At the JavaOne conference in May, Sun unveiled two critical components planned for the platform: JavaFX Script, which is a scripting language for content creation, and JavaFX Mobile, which provides a software system for mobile devices. JavaFX technologies are only in a very early stage of development. Applications will run with a Java Virtual Machine. A beta release of JavaFX technology is intended for release at the JavaOne conference next May, but early access code -- described as "sub-alpha" code by Sun -- has been made available. Source code for the OpenJavaFX Compiler is available here. The compiler enables JavaFX Script code to be compiled into Java code. "What you really want to do is compile an entire program, get it all into Java to begin with and it compiles much faster," said Chet Haase, Sun Java chief client architect. The NetBeans plug-in, meanwhile, will provide for developing JavaFX Script programs in the IDE. JavaFX programs can be built easier, Haase said. JavaFX programs will be available as NetBeans projects. The plug-in will work with NetBeans 5.5 and is due to be incorporated this fall into NetBeans 6.0, the upcoming version of the IDE. The NetBeans 6.0 version of the plug-in features a preview of JavaFXPad integration. JavaFXPad is a lightweight tool for building graphical elements using JavaFX Script. The NetBeans 5.5 plug-in can be accessed here, while the NetBeans 6.0 variant is available here. Two demonstrations are available showing an instant messaging client and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) integration. Users must first have the Java development kit installed to view the demonstrations. The demonstrations can be found here.Â  With JavaFX Sun seeks to enable more lightweight, easier development of consumer-oriented applications, Haase said. These could include Web sites with rich animation and user interfaces that are more dynamic than a typical forms-based application, he said. JavaFX joins what is becoming a crowded market for technologies to create graphical interfaces. "The market is only recently crowded," said analyst Joe Niski, of Burton Group. Adobe's Flash and Flex technologies have been around for a while but have not generated a lot of excitement lately, Niski said.Â  But Sun's JavaFX and Microsoft's new Silverlight platform have been added to the mix, he noted. Sun is off to a good start with JavaFX, said Niski. "They have a really compelling story, at least with the platform penetration, because JavaFX will run on any JVM," Niski said. "The one thing that it lacks is good graphical tooling targeting Web designers," he said. "It's good to see Sun putting attention into the user experience," said Niski. JavaFX extends beyond AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). "AJAX makes it easier to build more dynamic Web pages but itâs still about static Web pages," Haase said. "It's not as rich an interface for the user," as JavaFX, he said. JavaFX Script was built with developers of graphical and GUI applications in mind, Elliott said. JavaFX Script code was downloaded 3,000 times from May 13 to June 10. Microsoft is set to soon ship a release candidate for Silverlight. A release candidate is considered a precursor to the general release of the technology.
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Mobile web apps will take center stage this weekend at the first ever iPhone Dev Camp in San Francisco. The three-day unconference is an open forum for developers to build, test and optimize web applications for Apple's handheld device.
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With an eye toward both consumer and enterprise needs, Sun Microsystems is reworking the plug-in architecture of Java in an upcoming update to Java Platform Standard Edition (SE) 6, company officials said Wednesday evening.Overall, Sun officials at a briefing in San Francisco stressed the company's new emphasis on not just the enterprise space but consumer systems as well, with the company extending Java and rich experiences to various devices.With the plug-in platform, a ground-up rewrite is under way, said Ken Russell, from the Java SE deployment team. "This will change how your poker game in [a] Web browser is run as well as your corporate app," Russell said.The new architecture is planned for inclusion in the upcoming beta of what is now being referred to as Java SE 6 Update N, due in December."Really, the defining feature of it is that it runs the applets in a separate process than the Web browser," Russell said.Features of the plug-in plan include improved scripting support and reliability. More powerful applications can be supported than in the past. Users will be able to tune an applet to run in a particular version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE); this will enable developers to target one JRE without having to change the behavior of any other applet. Testing also will be simplified.In addition, better backing will be offered for Windows Vista, including capabilities for signed applets. Support will be offered for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 browsers as well as for Firefox 3 alpha builds and the Firefox 2 browser. Platforms capable of running the plug-in include Solaris, Windows and Linux.Current plans call for the plug-in technology to be turned on via a switch in the Java control panel.Sun also delved into other features planned for Java SE 6 Update N."Update N is about fixing the consumer experience," with a more solid browser plug-in experience and a better installation experience, said Chet Haase, Java SE client architect. Sun also wants to better enable Java for rich Internet applications.A faster startup for Java is also planned. This is important in the Web ad and lightweight game space, Haase said. Also planned is inclusion of technology from a project called Quickstarter, which preloads disk cache to bolster performance of lightweight applications. Faster graphics is planned as well, as is Nimbus, which provides a new look and feel for Java Swing client systems.Haase also noted Sun's plan for the Java Kernel, which enables downloading just the parts of Java that are needed to run an application. While that application is running, the rest of the platform is downloaded.James Gosling, chief technology officer for the Sun client software group, reviewed plans for JavaFX, which is Sun's platform for building rich, consistent user experiences for a wide variety of devices and systems."JavaFX really is a marketing term that is sort of an umbrella for a set of activities," Gosling said. The platform covers consumer-facing technologies and features a services layer based on Java and a database, a presentation layer with HTTPD, and an edge device component, covering desktops to phones to TVs."This edge part of the universe -- this is what JavaFX is all about," said Gosling.Featured in JavaFX is JavaFX Mobile, which is a software stack for mobile phones; Java SE 6 Update N, also known as the consumer JRE; the JavaFX Script scripting language, and JavaFX designer and developer tools."[JavaFX Script is] a scripting language sort of in the sense of PHP [Hypertext Preprocessor] and Python and all the rest of them. But while those are focused at generating HTML from the presentation layer outward, JavaFX Script is really all about rich user interactions," Gosling said.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun MicrosystemsÂ has released a new version of its Java Enterprise System (Java ES) set of subscription-based enterprise middleware with the emphasis on making the offering more modular. The vendor unveiled Java ES 5.0 Thursday, the first major release of the bundleÂ since October 2005. The offering brings Sun's infrastructure software, support and training together into a single product and is aimed at companies looking to purchase the vendor's middleware at a gradual, predictable rate. Java ES is also available in the form of individual software suites known collectively as Java System Suites. "Java ES 5.0 continues a lot of what we started four years ago," said Jim McHugh, vice president of software infrastructure at Sun. In 2003, the vendor introduced what became Java ES as Project Orion as a way for customers to buy an integrated middleware stack made available on a regular quarterly release cycle. Users can begin by buying the Java ES 5.0 Base for $100 per employee per year, which includes Sun's application, portal, and Web servers, and then choose to add on subscriptions for Sun's Java System Identity Manager or its Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS). Adding in identity management brings the annual cost per user to $140, which then increases to $200 when Java CAPS is also included. Sun sees its prime middleware competitor as IBM with its WebSphere offering. "They have the same breadth of software we offer, but we did our [product] integration three years ago," McHugh said. As Oracle continuesÂ integrating its Fusion middleware, it'll also be more of a significant Sun rival, he added. Major enhancements in Java ES 5.0 include work on a monitoring console and monitoring framework and a common installer for the software components, McHugh said. The vendor is also keen to incorporate more of its own and third-party open-source components in its middleware. Java ES already includes Java DB, Sun's supported distribution of the open-source Apache Derby database. The middleware also supports the PostgreSQL open-source database. Sun now lays claim to more than 1.3 million subscribers for Java ES compared to the nearly 1 million it declared in October 2005. When Sun released Java ES 4.0 in 2005, the major focus for the new version was the additional support of operating systems from Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. As well as Windows and HP-UX, Java ES supports Sun's Solaris and Red Hat's Enterprise Linux. Sun is continuing to debate whether Java ES should also support the other leading Linux distribution, Suse from Novell, McHugh said, and is seeing demand from some European users. Although Sun doesn't support IBM's AIX across the entire breadth of its middleware stack, many elements of Java ES do support the IBM operating system, he added. Java ES users include credit reporting company Equifax, auto manufacturer General Motors, health-care insurance company Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Australian telecom carrier Telstra Corp., McHugh said.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun is taking a page from Microsoft's security group and changing the way it updates Java for the desktop. On Tuesday, Sun announced that it will start providing advance notification of its Java SE (Standard Edition) security updates and that it will also scrap its controversial practice of staggering the release of Java patches. Instead, it will release updates for all supported Java SE platforms simultaneously. Sun Spokeswoman Jacki Decoster said that the changes were designed to make it easier for enterprises to patch all of their Java systems at once. But Sun's new system also happens to remedy what some had called a serious security risk. In July,Â eEye Digital Security CTO Marc Maiffret blasted Sun for waiting months between the release of some versions of its desktop Java. In January, Maiffret's company had discovered a serious bug in the Java Network Launching Protocol, which is used to run Java programs over the Web. But Sun made its fix for the problem available to developers several weeks beforeÂ it pushed out the update to the Java community at large. Though this practice gave attackers a chance to reverse-engineer Sun's security fixes and use them against some of Sun's 800 million desktop users, surprisingly, the Java platform has only rarely been targeted, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations with nCircle Network Security. "It's still the number-one platform for IT enterprise development in-house. But we haven't seen a whole lot of attacks against it." Besides staggering developer and end-user releases, Sun would also wait before releasing updates to users of older versions of Java. Previously, it was standard practice for Sun to fix older versions of Java, such as J2SE 5.0 and J2SE 1.4, weeks or even months after it had patched the latest Java SE 6 software. That will all change under the new system, which will offer simultaneous developer and end-user releases for these three versions of Java. However, users of J2SE 1.3 will have to wait until next year before their software is updated at the same time as the rest of the platform, Decoster said. She could not say whether Sun planned to offer this type of synchronized release for its embedded or server-based Java platforms, Java ME (Micro Edition) and Java EE (Enterprise Edition). Sun's advance notifications will not be released according to a pre-set schedule, as is the case with Microsoft and Oracle, but they will come out within a week of the actual security patches, Decoster said. Customers can receive the advance notifications via e-mail or read about them on Sun's security blog , she added.