Nope. ARC is just slightly better pools but its no GC alternative and won't work with Java code. Java can't be used without a GC so these guys came up with spec

Nope. ARC is just slightly better pools but its no GC alternative and won't work with Java code. Java can't be used without a GC so these guys came up with special annotations for reference counting which is very iOS specific. So essentially you write Objective-C code in Java, I fail to see the benefit here? You have to learn objective-c anyway and use all of the toolchains from Apple. So why add an extra step and not go directly to Objective-C? The benefit of a solution like Codename One is clear, it allows you to forgo Apple's tools almost entirely and work exclusively in Java (which I personally prefer to Objective-C).