Don’t get me wrong, I think UI design is very important, and I hate badly designed applications, and I’d prefer everyone to write Cocoa Touch apps (or have a good Java/Cocoa Touch bridge), but I think that my analysis reflects the reality that Java on the iPhone would encourage uptake by business.

Whether compromising the interface for internal applications is a good trade for increased sales for Apple is up for debate though.

This is the first real pro Java I’ve read so far. But the question is, how many Enterprises are out there that use custom Software? Because software companies surely can earn money from custom Cocoa touch programms.

Java simply is platform dependent when it comes to UI’s. We see how MS Office struggels to put the controlls in the Mac Experience. And remember we are talking about two mouse controlled enviroments. If you think about D-Pad, Stylus and finger controlled systems they simply haven’t enough in common to make it work.

Without the Java prmisse it simply is not sexy enough.

BTW: If you read the comments carefully there seems to be enough materiel for a next gen language article?

Java is faster than Objective-C because it has runtime information available to its optimizer. It knows how many times to unroll the loop or which way a branch is likely to go based on actual runtime information. It compiles down to native code then runs the native code. It also is not quite as dynamic so can inline more aggressively. It’s a great tradeoff for embedded devices, which is what Java was invented for.

And as for the iPhone in particular, the ARM chip in the iPhone and iTouch CAN RUN JAVA BYTECODE NATIVELY through the Jazelle engine. Java bytecode to these chips is just as “native” as the ARM ABI, and since Java bytecode is more condensed than the ARM ABI (it’s much closer to CISC), it’s likely to run faster. Apple has chosen not to promote this capability, but it’s there. So claiming Java isn’t “to the metal” is disingenuous.

As for good UIs, I humbly submit my own company’s products:
http://www.gdc4s.com/content/detail.cfm?item=ed47b98d-97b1-47cd-8ff3-fe2f94b12882
It’s true they’re not embedded, but isn’t that the point of the iPhone? That we’re no longer limited by what typical mobile devices are capable of? Simply through Swing out the window and the sky’s the limit– you’ve got a blank canvas to implement any UI you want.

Besides, not only can we not bring our UI directly to the iPhone, we can’t even link in our Java libraries behind a “native” UI. In other words, if we want to create a hand-held version we’ll have to go Android. (Which, as a huge Apple and iTouch fan would bum me out.)

In the end, though, Java is just a language. gcc can compile it to native code, javac and a modern JDK can run the bytecode fast, and there are tons of libraries and trained developers on it. It’s more secure and more mature with better tools than anything Apple’s come up with so far.