“I love Java. A large part of my success as a software developer over the last decade is due to the fact that I was an early Java adopter. Java also allowed me to grow professionally and become a Software IT Architect at IBM,” Huibert Aalbers blogs.
“Over the years I have written many J2EE web apps, some J2SE applications and even one Java2ME program for a Sony-Ericsson handset,” Aalbers writes. “The fact is that I am totally convinced by the many benefits of Java and I do not feel attracted by any other language to write enterprise web applications. But seriously, Java for the iPhone? Why?”
“The iPhone [and iPod touch] is a device that lies somewhere between a computer and a phone. It has an amazing user interface that users expect applications to fully embrace. Java currently does not offer any solutions to work effectively with that aspect of the device. However, Java could still prove useful to help quickly migrate all those games written for other handsets to the iPhone. Is this important for Apple and iPhone customers? I doubt it. With over 100,000 SDKs downloaded in just over four days, it seems that the iPhone will not lack native software (including games),” Aalbers writes.
“I abandoned Java on the desktop for Objective-C years ago because Cocoa allowed me to get the most out of the Macintosh platform. The same applies to the iPhone. Objective-C is similar to Java in many ways. What makes the difference is Cocoa touch which is a great development framework and allows [me] to get to the guts of the iPhone without compromises. That is why I personally don’t care if Sun releases a Java SDK for the iPhone or not. I am quite sure most of those 100,000 developers who have downloaded the SDK agree with me,” Aalbers writes.
More in the full article here.