Simple answer: No. Long answer: Who knows? Apple has always developed the Mac port of Java, with a lot of customization in the GUI (custom Swing properties, e

Simple answer: No. Long answer: Who knows? Apple has always developed the Mac port of Java, with a lot of customization in the GUI (custom Swing properties, events, etc). This was historically because at the time, the Mac user base was too small for Sun to support themselves. So, Apple took over the project and has run with it ever since. They've added some good things to their JVM too, such as shared memory for libraries (I believe). However, I think that now, Apple has decided that it isn't worth it for them to support it. So the answer to your question will largely be up to Oracle. If they decide to port Swing over to the Mac, then I think there is a shot of having a good JVM for 10.7+. If not, I think that you can say goodbye to the JRE in the Mac. It isn't like the client has ever been a big focus for Oracle. To them, Java is all about the backend. They may want to work on a JVM for the Mac just to allow developers to still code on their Macs, but I'm not sure.