6 ms·

Java for iPhone

51 points by suyash 14y ago

Ex Oracle/Sun Engineers build this tool that Java developers can use to run their code on multiple platforms including iOS. Beta version is free, so download and check it out!

fcoury 14y ago
This just looks... Wrong :) Doesn't look or feel like iOS at all...
- bengl3rt 14y ago
  Of course not. Like so many desktop Java apps, it will look and feel like Java, no matter where it's running.
  - tfm 14y ago
    To be fair, it's hard to know how much of that sluggishness is the app itself and how much is just a video-encoding artefact. Certainly the API has some interesting inclusions -- Facebook and analytics built-in.
    - bunnyhero 14y ago
      Also note that the demo video is from the Simulator, not an actual device.
      - potatolicious 14y ago
        Which is probably worse - the Simulator consistently outperforms any real device.
  - veeti 14y ago
    Of course, good UI toolkits do exist for Java, but nobody just uses them. SWT and Qt both provide native UI.
- mbell 14y ago
  > This just looks... Wrong :) Doesn't look or feel like iOS at all... I don't know, looks like game center to me :/
- modarts 14y ago
  As someone who's put together a few iPhone apps (hell, used an iPhone app) in his day, that looks fucking terrible. The iPhone really sensitized people to fluid and seamless design.
zht 14y ago
the video looks really really strange
jaybill 14y ago
This isn't "running Java on iOS". This is cross-compiling Java to Objective C, the exact same way that other toolkits like MonoTouch, Titanium and RubyMotion do it. The difference is important. You can use this toolkit to target iOS from Java, but that doesn't mean that you get that language's infrastructure with it. I'd argue that's probably a good thing, but either way it's a far cry from "running Java on iOS".
- MichaelGG 14y ago
  MonoTouch does not compile to Objective-C. It compiles to native code, just like Objective-C, very much like Mono, CLR, or JVM do on other platforms. The real difference is running the compiler ahead of time, versus JIT. That, and disabling some functions that Apple deems bad, like keeping the ability to modify or emit code on-the-fly. In the case of MonoTouch, you do get the infrastructure; they have the runtime ported over, and other libraries get compiled in as needed. So, in Mono's case, it IS "running .NET on iOS". I see no intrinsic reason this could not be done for Java, although I don't know what this specific implementation is doing.
- thebluesky 14y ago
  Yeah, from the site it looks like they are running "true native applications", so probably using native UI widgets.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  > You can use this toolkit to target iOS from Java, but that doesn't mean that you get that language's infrastructure with it. I failed to understand you here. Assuming the Java language runtime is also available in native code, this is no different than using any other compiled language runtime like, say Objective-C.
- jbrechtel 14y ago
  None of those things compile to Objective-C. They each provide a runtime for C#, Javascript and Ruby respectively with bindings to the underlying Objective-C apis. And they each do it in a different way, with different levels of layers between the normal Cocoa APIs. What 'language infrastructure' are you talking about?
dhconnelly 14y ago
I think this is a little too heavyweight. Since platform-consistent UX is so important, I'd prefer to stick with Apple's tools--at least for UI development. It's usually easy to tell when an app is faking the native look-and-feel in a webview, for example, and I doubt that this will be much different.
- nl 14y ago
  It's usually easy to tell when an app is faking the native look-and-feel in a webview, for example, and I doubt that this will be much different It looks like this uses native peer controls; ie it will appear identical to a platform specific app because the compiled version is platform specific.
DeepDuh 14y ago
So much negativity here. IMO the themes alone could be worth it. However the whole thing seems a bit laggy in the simulator he shows. 3GS is still on sale and I find that even with native iOS 5 it feels slow - I wouldn't want to run such a heavy handed framework on there.
nilburns27 14y ago
Did any of you really use it or only look at the video? I agree that the UI needs much more work (the entire Swing programming is really old - and not really convenient). I really didn't like the resource-ui tool. However, being able to write once and compile on the cloud (not needing to open 2 environments - eclipse & xcode ide like in PhoneGap is a huge plus). If they will get their act together regarding the UI (html and css for example)they might be the winner in cross-platform development world... Also I wonder their future support in Scala.
- pietrofmaggi 14y ago
  It seems that you are talking about something like RhoMobile Rhodes open source Framework[1] and the RhoHub hosting solution[2]. Rhodes uses HTML5 and ruby to target multiple OSes and RhoHub allows you to build this apps in the cloud. [1] https://github.com/rhomobile/rhodes https://github.com/rhomobile/rhodes [2] https://app.rhohub.com/ https://app.rhohub.com/ disclaimer: I work for Motorola Solution, the parent company of RhoMobile.
  - nilburns27 14y ago
    I prefer native or html5 for fast deployment - how are the performance in Rhodes (from yours experiences not from "Google Result") vs native?
mangler 14y ago
Why is it so hard for Java programmers to learn anything other than Java?!
- thebluesky 14y ago
  Citation?
  - mangler 14y ago
    Original post. iOS in Java?! Why?! GWT! Why. Just learn ObjC, Javascript, whatever the local language is... It's not that hard really...
    - pjmlp 14y ago
      The same can be applied to legions of other programmers that what to everything in C, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, whatever is their be and end all language...
    - bnr 14y ago
      The advertised benefit is reusing your code across platforms.
      - smcdow 14y ago
        yes, write once, lag everywhere.
    - gubatron 14y ago
      it's just that the syntax of ObjC is a total mind fuck. Wish you could code in whatever you wanted and then compile to native code with a plain compiler, no need for the UI designer BS. Just give me a Java to native compiler and wrappers to all the Cocoa libraries.
- philbarr 14y ago
  Er - as a seasoned Java programmer I think you'll find I've worked in C++, C#, PHP, and any other number of languages thankyou-oh-so-very-much.
tsunamifury 14y ago
I've used this in the past to get something across Android, J2ME and iOS -- even with the best of intentions an app turns out like a ugly mutant frankenstein.

Java for iPhone

51 points by suyash 14y ago

Ex Oracle/Sun Engineers build this tool that Java developers can use to run their code on multiple platforms including iOS. Beta version is free, so download and check it out!

fcoury 14y ago

This just looks... Wrong :) Doesn't look or feel like iOS at all...

bengl3rt 14y ago
Of course not. Like so many desktop Java apps, it will look and feel like Java, no matter where it's running.
- tfm 14y ago
  To be fair, it's hard to know how much of that sluggishness is the app itself and how much is just a video-encoding artefact. Certainly the API has some interesting inclusions -- Facebook and analytics built-in.
  - bunnyhero 14y ago
    Also note that the demo video is from the Simulator, not an actual device.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      Which is probably worse - the Simulator consistently outperforms any real device.
- veeti 14y ago
  Of course, good UI toolkits do exist for Java, but nobody just uses them. SWT and Qt both provide native UI.
mbell 14y ago
> This just looks... Wrong :) Doesn't look or feel like iOS at all... I don't know, looks like game center to me :/
modarts 14y ago
As someone who's put together a few iPhone apps (hell, used an iPhone app) in his day, that looks fucking terrible. The iPhone really sensitized people to fluid and seamless design.

zht 14y ago

the video looks really really strange

jaybill 14y ago

This isn't "running Java on iOS". This is cross-compiling Java to Objective C, the exact same way that other toolkits like MonoTouch, Titanium and RubyMotion do it. The difference is important. You can use this toolkit to target iOS from Java, but that doesn't mean that you get that language's infrastructure with it. I'd argue that's probably a good thing, but either way it's a far cry from "running Java on iOS".

MichaelGG 14y ago
MonoTouch does not compile to Objective-C. It compiles to native code, just like Objective-C, very much like Mono, CLR, or JVM do on other platforms. The real difference is running the compiler ahead of time, versus JIT. That, and disabling some functions that Apple deems bad, like keeping the ability to modify or emit code on-the-fly. In the case of MonoTouch, you do get the infrastructure; they have the runtime ported over, and other libraries get compiled in as needed. So, in Mono's case, it IS "running .NET on iOS". I see no intrinsic reason this could not be done for Java, although I don't know what this specific implementation is doing.
thebluesky 14y ago
Yeah, from the site it looks like they are running "true native applications", so probably using native UI widgets.
pjmlp 14y ago
> You can use this toolkit to target iOS from Java, but that doesn't mean that you get that language's infrastructure with it. I failed to understand you here. Assuming the Java language runtime is also available in native code, this is no different than using any other compiled language runtime like, say Objective-C.
jbrechtel 14y ago
None of those things compile to Objective-C. They each provide a runtime for C#, Javascript and Ruby respectively with bindings to the underlying Objective-C apis. And they each do it in a different way, with different levels of layers between the normal Cocoa APIs. What 'language infrastructure' are you talking about?

dhconnelly 14y ago

I think this is a little too heavyweight. Since platform-consistent UX is so important, I'd prefer to stick with Apple's tools--at least for UI development. It's usually easy to tell when an app is faking the native look-and-feel in a webview, for example, and I doubt that this will be much different.

nl 14y ago
It's usually easy to tell when an app is faking the native look-and-feel in a webview, for example, and I doubt that this will be much different It looks like this uses native peer controls; ie it will appear identical to a platform specific app because the compiled version is platform specific.

DeepDuh 14y ago

So much negativity here. IMO the themes alone could be worth it. However the whole thing seems a bit laggy in the simulator he shows. 3GS is still on sale and I find that even with native iOS 5 it feels slow - I wouldn't want to run such a heavy handed framework on there.

nilburns27 14y ago

Did any of you really use it or only look at the video? I agree that the UI needs much more work (the entire Swing programming is really old - and not really convenient). I really didn't like the resource-ui tool. However, being able to write once and compile on the cloud (not needing to open 2 environments - eclipse & xcode ide like in PhoneGap is a huge plus). If they will get their act together regarding the UI (html and css for example)they might be the winner in cross-platform development world... Also I wonder their future support in Scala.

pietrofmaggi 14y ago
It seems that you are talking about something like RhoMobile Rhodes open source Framework[1] and the RhoHub hosting solution[2]. Rhodes uses HTML5 and ruby to target multiple OSes and RhoHub allows you to build this apps in the cloud. [1] https://github.com/rhomobile/rhodes https://github.com/rhomobile/rhodes [2] https://app.rhohub.com/ https://app.rhohub.com/ disclaimer: I work for Motorola Solution, the parent company of RhoMobile.
- nilburns27 14y ago
  I prefer native or html5 for fast deployment - how are the performance in Rhodes (from yours experiences not from "Google Result") vs native?

mangler 14y ago

Why is it so hard for Java programmers to learn anything other than Java?!

thebluesky 14y ago
Citation?
- mangler 14y ago
  Original post. iOS in Java?! Why?! GWT! Why. Just learn ObjC, Javascript, whatever the local language is... It's not that hard really...
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    The same can be applied to legions of other programmers that what to everything in C, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, whatever is their be and end all language...
  - bnr 14y ago
    The advertised benefit is reusing your code across platforms.
    - smcdow 14y ago
      yes, write once, lag everywhere.
  - gubatron 14y ago
    it's just that the syntax of ObjC is a total mind fuck. Wish you could code in whatever you wanted and then compile to native code with a plain compiler, no need for the UI designer BS. Just give me a Java to native compiler and wrappers to all the Cocoa libraries.
philbarr 14y ago
Er - as a seasoned Java programmer I think you'll find I've worked in C++, C#, PHP, and any other number of languages thankyou-oh-so-very-much.

tsunamifury 14y ago

I've used this in the past to get something across Android, J2ME and iOS -- even with the best of intentions an app turns out like a ugly mutant frankenstein.