At WWDC, I shared a brief "yeah, what's that about?" moment with Apple's VP of Developer Relations, Ron Okamoto. The subject was Java, and we were wondering why Sun has never played the Mac for its potential as the premier Java client showcase. On Windows and Linux, desktop Java works. On OS X, it glistens as if the whole OS and GUI were built with Java in mind. Yeah, I know, blah blah Apple blah is all you ever At WWDC, I shared a brief “yeah, what’s that about?” moment with Apple’s VP of Developer Relations, Ron Okamoto. The subject was Java, and we were wondering why Sun has never played the Mac for its potential as the premier Java client showcase. On Windows and Linux, desktop Java works. On OS X, it glistens as if the whole OS and GUI were built with Java in mind.Yeah, I know, blah blah Apple blah is all you ever hear from me. One day you will see I’m right, but forget that. Even before I took up Apple’s flag, I beat on Sun for spending more effort and resources on Microsoft, which it was suing, than on Apple, which is as close to a sister company as Sun will ever find. Apple did all of the Java heavy lifting for OS X, which is the other non-SCO-targeted Unix (hello?). So what was the deal? Was it Apple’s use of IBM’s CPUs in its systems? Was it Steve Jobs’ giggle at the prospect of being a subsidiary of Sun?It doesn’t matter now; Apple took care of OS X Java itself and, says Apple, sent Sun thank you cards in the form of contributed patches. Apple’s Java looks fantastic, it installs with one click and it’s part of Apple’s nifty–and free–Software Update service. I don’t use another Java that patches itself. What’s more, Apple bent over backwards to plug Java into Cocoa, OS X’s application framework. That makes Java a first-class Mac language on a virtually equal footing with Objective-C. Sun has never granted first-class platform status to OS X. That seemed awfully dim considering that such status could have been conferred by adding a link on Sun’s Java download page pointing to Apple’s Java download site. I’d allow that Sun just wasn’t paying attention–that was my problem for a while–if Sun’s own developers weren’t grabbing PowerBooks as fast as Apple can crank them out.At WWDC, Sun treated its estranged sister to a brief and very quiet reunion. The Java One and WWDC conferences were a couple of blocks apart during the same week. Apple threw an impromptu lab for Java programmers who wanted to explore the Mac. The plan for the lab proved inadequate; neither the size of the room nor the duration of the lab (originally one day) measured up to developers’ interest. The Mac Java lab became as close to a continuous event as Apple’s staff could make it, while up the street, Sun pretended not to notice. Developers at both venues roasted Sun for failing to include OS X in its new tools strategy. Sun relented, adding the Mac to the supported platforms list for its Java Creator IDE, and going one better by waiving the $99/year subscription fee for new purchasers of 15″ and 17″ PowerBooks.A cynic might point out that Sun got to this party after IBM/Eclipse.org, which have been special friends with Apple from the get go, and after Borland, which put the Mac back on its Java tools platforms list. Can Sun make a credible run at tools without matching its competition’s embrace of OS X? If Sun’s smart, no one will have to ask that question. ——– Technology Industry