At the Macworld conference, which took place in Boston in early August, Microsoft and Apple announced a partnership that impacts Java in two ways
In his August 6 keynote address at Boston’s Macworld, Apple board member and advisor Steve Jobs outlined the plans for Apple’s partnership with Microsoft. Two of his five points involved Java. The other three were the patent settlement, Microsoft’s investment in Apple, and release plans for Microsoft Office on Macintosh for the next five years.
The first point of note to Java developers brought boos from the audience as Jobs announced that Internet Explorer (IE) would be the default browser on the Macintosh. Both IE and Netscape were bundled with MacOS 8 (which shipped in July), so this change only affects future installations of the OS: When a user installs a future version, IE will be selected as the browser by default.
In his most-quoted line of the day, Jobs added that Macintosh fans “must let go of the notion that for Apple to win Microsoft has to lose.”
Many Macintosh users objected to the announcement because of their experience with Microsoft’s Word 6 for the Mac. The previous version of this pervasive word processing program (5.1) had been popular with Mac users because it was powerful and feature-complete, while employing the look, feel, and features that epitomize a Mac-specific program. With this in mind, many upgraded to version 6 when it was released — much to their dismay. Users complained that Word 6 was simply a port of the Windows version with the Windows look and feel, and that this extra layer made the program sluggish. It was, in their eyes, another case of Microsoft ignoring both the specific needs of Mac users and the special features of the Mac OS.
Bill Gates anticipated these objections and, as he addressed the Macworld keynote audience via satellite, countered them by explaining that the Macintosh version of IE “is really especially developed for the Macintosh. It’s not just a port of what we’ve done in the Windows environment.” Macintosh users who were unhappy with Word 6 for Mac may be unwilling to try Internet Explorer, but the demonstrations of the demo version of IE 4 (which supports Java 1.1) were very Mac-like and included features that worked differently than the Windows version.
Jobs’s second Java-related announcement has more immediate implications for developers: Apple now will “be collaborating with Microsoft on Java to ensure that we can get the best from each other and ensure that there’s compatibility between our virtual machines.”
Developers were told that the exact details of the agreement had yet to be worked out, but that the following decisions were definite:
Macintosh will support both Microsoft’s Application Foundation Classes (AFC) and Sun’s new Java Foundation Classes (JFC).
- The Mac OS and Microsoft Windows Java VMs will be compatible.
Because Microsoft plans to support only AFC on Windows 95/NT, the Mac OS will become the first platform to support both flavors of foundation classes. What that means is yet to be seen. Java developers may feel pressured to use only AFC for Windows compatibility, or Microsoft may be pressured into including JFC. Apple’s plans are to “incorporate Microsoft technology as appropriate to ensure compatibility with the Microsoft Java virtual machine for Windows as a superset of Java.”
In any case, Apple has not yet announced a date or version that will include support for AFC, or any other Microsoft technology.
Shaan Pruden, Apple’s Java for MacOS evangelist, explained that for an application to earn the 100% Java seal, the app must run on two of the three possible systems: Macintosh, Windows 95/NT, and Solaris. The compatibility in the Mac and Windows VM should make it easier for developers to ensure that their app or applet meets the 100% Pure Java criteria.
Microsoft currently does not have plans for Macintosh versions of development tools such as Visual J++, but with quality Mac dev tools from such vendors as Metrowerks, Symantec, Roaster, Apple, and Sun, Mac programmers are definitely in the game. (For a comparative review of IDEs for the Mac, be sure to see Four Mac-based IDEs compared: Which should you use?, JavaWorld‘s September cover story.
The bottom line: The Apple/Microsoft partnership helps to make Macintosh an attractive platform on which to develop and run Java applications and applets. Apple’s past problems with software delivery have been well-documented. Given the long delays in releasing the Macintosh Runtime for Java (MRJ) that supports 1.1, Apple could just ship the Microsoft/Metrowerks Java VM. However, Apple has committed to continuing development of the MRJ as a key portion of the Mac OS. (For more on the MRJ, see my article, “The Macintosh Runtime for Java: What it is and where it’s heading,” in this issue of JavaWorld.)
Apple’s recent release record has been better: MacOS 8 was released on time (and included MRJ), and Rhapsody also appears to be on schedule. The partnership with Microsoft is another encouraging sign that Apple is committed to moving the company forward.
