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Macworld report: Big news for Macintosh enthusiasts

Mac OS X will move Java on the Mac from also-ran to serious contender

By Daniel H. Steinberg, JavaWorld.com, 01/19/01

In my dream, after I've just dropped off my kids at school, I sit at a local coffee shop with a perfectly brewed cup of Sumatran. I pull a new Titanium powerbook out of my bag and fire it up. Mac OS X loads in less time than it takes me to butter a blueberry muffin. I start up JBuilder4 and get to work on Java code that will drive a QuickTime application. I glance at my watch -- the G4 laptop's five-hour battery will have about three hours to spare on this morning. After an hour of solid development I realize that I haven't had to reboot the Mac once. I sigh and realize that the only thing wrong with my dream is that I'm in it.

When will the dream become reality? The Java news emanating from the Macworld Expo in San Francisco last week may shift Mac-based Java developers from REM sleep to a new awakening.

The keynote -- the core and the vision

At the Macworld Expo held in San Francisco from January 9-12, Steve Jobs, Apple Computer's CEO, described Mac OS X as having "the power of Unix with the legendary ease of use [of] the Mac." In a way, that's the Java proposition for the Mac. Much of the power of the Java implementation on Mac OS X comes from the Mach 3.0 microkernel and BSD operating system. Java applications will take advantage of solid thread support, protected memory, and symmetric multiprocessing.

Macworld is not really a show dominated by hard core developers. Instead, Mac developers will tend to go to Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in May, while serious Java developers will often choose to attend JavaOne in June. Even so, the keynote audience applauded loudly as Jobs reviewed the new OS's core components, including an enthusiastic response to his reiteration that Apple would provide full support for Java 2 Standard Edition version 1.3 in Mac OS X.

Not forgetting the hardware side of the Apple equation, Jobs announced the new line of faster PowerMac G4s that boast clock speeds up to 733 MHz with a new 133 MHz bus. Because of chip availability, the models currently shipping will sport a single processor; you'll have to wait to see what the multiprocessor support in Mac OS X means to you, or you can take advantage of the fire sales that Apple is having on its existing stock of the current multiprocessor systems. The second hardware announcement featured the new G4 laptop. The new Titanium was Jobs's "one more thing" announcement.

Jobs also presented his vision for the future of the PC. He sees the new role of the PC as being the digital hub. He champions Apple's applications that allow users to import pictures from digital cameras and camcorders and create iMovies that can be written to DVDs. Positioning the Mac at the center of these small digital appliances is an interesting proposition for Java developers who can write to the Mac using J2SE and to these devices using J2ME.

The Java sessions

JavaWorld sponsored two Java-related events at last week's Macworld Expo -- Wednesday's "Java Advantages in the Mac OS X" and the "Java Report" held on Friday. Both sessions featured the important players on the Apple Java team, as well as audiences composed of serious Java developers. Although the sessions ostensibly focused on different Java-related topics, in practice they turned into a two-session discussion on the state of Java on Mac OS X. And the news was good.

 

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