Sun: We'll put Java on the iPhone
Sun Microsystems is developing a Java Virtual Machine for Apple's iPhone and plans to release the JVM some time after June, enabling Java applications to run on the popular mobile device. — The JVM is to be based on the Java Micro Edition (ME) …
Context & Ripple Effects
This announcement lands nearly a year into a running thread: Sun demoed its Java twist on the iPhone at the May 2007 jPhone showcase, mid-summer reports claimed Apple had sneaked Java support onto the device, and by October Sun was stepping back from mobile-specific Java even as Business Week asked whether Apple would open the iPhone at all. What changed this week is specificity — a confirmed plan for a Java Micro Edition-based JVM shipping some time after June.
The timing sharpens the stakes: two days earlier Steve Jobs publicly dismissed Adobe's Flash Player as not good enough for the iPhone, making Sun's claim that its runtime will get on the device an immediate test case. Techdirt's syndicated framing — that Apple's walled garden hurts iPhone innovation — captures exactly why a third-party JVM matters more here than on any other handset.
First-order effects
- Java developers gain a credible route to the iPhone's user base through Sun's post-June JVM rather than waiting on Apple's own tooling decisions.
- Sun converts a year of demos and ambiguity into a dated deliverable, putting its credibility with the mobile Java community on the line.
Second-order effects
- Apple faces the decision Jobs' Flash rejection implied: accommodate Sun's runtime or treat any non-native execution environment as a threat — the practical answer to the open-iPhone question raised last October.
- Rival handset makers' mature Java ME ecosystems become a selling point against the iPhone unless Sun cracks Apple's platform, raising the cost of Apple staying closed.
Third-order effects
- If the JVM ships with Apple's cooperation, it establishes that platform owners can selectively admit runtimes; if it ships without one, it becomes the template for middleware circumventing handset gatekeepers — either way, who controls code execution on the phone becomes the structural battleground.
- A successful third-party runtime on the iPhone would push the industry toward treating handsets as hardware beneath competing software layers, weakening the carrier-and-vendor lock-in model the draft wireless bill already targets.
The trend: Mobile computing is becoming a contest between handset makers' closed native stacks and cross-platform runtimes, with Sun betting Java can breach Apple's walled garden where Flash was turned away.