It has been interesting to see the various reactions to Java 6 not being included with OS X Leopard. Several people on Javalobby advocated boycotting Apple over this. I  don’t think a boycott is in order - in fact, I just bought a brand new iMac, even knowing Java 6 wasn’t on it :) Other people, such as notable Java expert (and Mac user) Ben Galbraith, have characterized the Java community’s reaction as “whining”. I think this is unfair, and rather unfortunate.

The important thing to understand is why people who are both Java and Mac enthusiasts are upset. It isn’t because Java 6 was not included in Leopard, rather it is due to the complete lack of information regarding Java 6 on OS X. Do I need Java 6 right now? No. But I will need it in the future, and it would be nice to know what Apple’s plans are with Java before plunking down $6,000 for hardware. Is that unreasonable? Is that “whining”?

A lot of people have claimed “that is just how Apple works”, as though it were some cute habit that was merely annoying, and that we are silly for even worrying about it. Why is it that people accept that? I guarantee you, if Microsoft did something similar, they wouldn’t get the free pass a lot of people are giving Apple. Here is what I don’t get - Apple does pre-announce a lot of features they intend to add, and there is no competitive reason to be so secretive about its Java plans - why can’t they say something like “Yeah, Java 6 didn’t make it into Leopard, too bad. We are working on it, and will have it out within the next X months.” How hard would this be? It would mollify most critics. Yet the response so far has been silence. Deafening silence.

As my good friend Mike Heath astutely reminded me the other day, IBM too is quite often behind supporting new versions of Java (indeed, it was nearly 2 years after Java 5 came out that we were able to get a version of WebSphere that supported it), and this is probably even more inexcusable than Apple being behind. So, I don’t think it is fair to be hard on Apple for not releasing Java 6 for OS X yet, especially given the improvements they’ve made to Java 5. I do, however, think it is totally fair to wonder why they are saying absolutely nothing about it. It doesn’t make a bit of sense.