Remember Sex and the City? Sara Jessica Parker lays on the bed with her Apple laptop typing a column for the next issue of the magazine. This is when I started looking at Apple computers. Actually, let me put it this way, I started looking for a reason to purchase one for myself. I’ve got the money, but I needed a reason. The fact that Mac OS is very similar to Unix does not give me goose bumps. The fish-eye menus can be easily emulated on any Windows PC. Parallels is a hassle.
I was always afraid of the fact that purchasing MacBook Pro would start eating my time, which I do not have. I do not enjoy spending days installing software. The laptop should not be in my way – it has to be convenient, an “invisible”. Need to install new software? OK, I’ve got a minute or two for this, but other than that…just let me do my work.
But still, there is something called peer pressure. I often attend various conferences where these cool-looking presenters use Apple computers. Yes, it’s so cool…Entire world is still in Windows, but they are ahead of this boring crowd with these slick white devices...
Now, the Leopard is out, and many geeks and hackers around the world are screaming that it’s cool. But if you spend a bit more time in the blogosphere, you’ll read about the pain people have to go through to upgrade to Leopard. But the real bummer is that Java 6 is not there. Who should we blame for it? Steve Jobs who openly states that nobody uses Java anymore? There are about 5 million professional Java developers around the world. Can you give them a good reason to buy MacBook Pro? I can’t.
What about the open-sourced Java? Theoretically, this should mean that the geeky Mac population will fix this issue pretty soon, but do not hold your breath. This will be a real litmus test for the Java community to show if open sourcing Java really matters.
So as of today, I’m not going to purchase the MacBook Pro just yet. It’s getting late…let me call Sara and find out if she is flirting with Leopard yet.
Disclaimer. This article was originally published more than a year ago. Things have changed since then and I'm considering purchasing MacBook Pro in 2009.
About Yakov Fain Yakov Fain is a managing principal of Farata Systems, consulting, training and product company. He has authored several Java books, dozens of technical articles. SYS-CON Books released his latest co-authored book , "Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and Java: Secrets of the Masters" in Spring 2007. Sun Microsystems has nominated and awarded Yakov with the title Java Champion. He leads the Princeton Java Users Group. Yakov teaches Java and Flex 2 part time at New York University. He is an Adobe Certified Flex Instructor and an Editor-in-Chief of Flex Developers Journal.
Jaime wrote: DO NOT BUY
IT. If you wan to check
your email, chat, skype
word, excel, powerpoint
etc buy a palm foleo or
similar (asus) and save
money.
The Jva6 is not there and
if you update your
current os form tiger to
leopard you will not be
able to run some java
applications. I bought a
mac book pro instead of a
machine with windows
vista. Now I believe that
I made a mistake because
I can't use it for my
main purpose, to write
java applications. I am
now force to remove
leopard and install
ubuntu or debian. It's
sad that java developers
can't use anymore mac
machines(with leopard).
Leopard is a great
product but lately it is
also becoming a black box
(like many apple products
like iphone etc). I was a
big fan of apple not
anymore. DO NOT BUY IT.
JulesLt wrote: Yakov -
Jobs statement about Java
was about J2ME - and hey,
even Sun seem to be
saying J2ME is dead (long
live J2SE for mobiles) so
maybe he was right. After
all, J2ME never had the
write-once advantages
desktop and server-side
Java offer. Although I
think even with J2SE
we'll still be dealing
with phones offering
varying displays,
features, etc, but maybe
in 4-5 years time there
will be a good solid base
spec all developers can
rely on.
Macs are still fine
platform for Java 5
development, which is
really the current
version (unless you
control your own servers)
- but I must admit I'd
like to see more
commitment and a roadmap
- it's not as if there's
any value in keeping it
under NDA - it's a public
spec.
(Plus Apple.com and
iTunes are powered by
Java on OS X so they must
have plenty of internal
devel...
Yakov wrote: Guy,
I'm talking about people
who use Java to make a
living. Macs are great
for non-programmers,
that's for sure. Macs are
great for geeks who do
not mind spending hours
on making things work.
But what about a regular
Java developer? Should
they install Parallels to
run Java under Windows?
Talking about
convenience...
I'm sure
Apple will fix this
problem, but it leaves a
bitter taste in my mouth.
Guy B. Jones wrote: Jeez
Louise. How about the
fact that a Macbook allow
one to work efficiently
without worrying about
malware, worms, viruses,
or inherent Windows
instability and slowdowns
as reason enough to buy
one? Oh, and the fact
that when one inserts a
CD into a drive, the disc
icon appears right on the
desktop as it should, as
opposed to requiring you
to click on "My Computer"
to access it. It's not
about what's hip or cool,
a basis you seem to imply
lies at the heart of the
Mac's popularity; for
many Mac users, it's
about what works. Life's
simply too short to deal
with Windows and it's
plethora of issues.
dave wrote: Jobs did NOT
say that no one uses java
anymore. He said that
compared to
flash/ajax/etc in safari
on the iPhone java
(applets) were too heavy.
Geez....
Yes, it sucks that j6
isn't in leopard right
now. There's NO
indication that java is
getting dropped and
plenty of evidence that
they are working on it.
Virtualization Journal
now reaches more than
60,000 online readers
with monthly digital
editions and weekly
newsletters. The premier
issue of the magazine's
print edition, which
debuts on May 6, 2008, at
JavaOne in San Francisco,
as a media sponsor of
this event, will be
availabl
Sun's mule train has
finally pulled into
Indiana after three years
on the road. Indiana is
the Linux-friendly
Fedora-like OpenSolaris
project meant to move the
Solaris-shy Linux
community off Linux and
on to Solaris tempted by
Solaris widgetry like the
highly scalable,
rollback-e
At Java One this week Sun
has been selling its year
-old-but-still-upcoming -
and definitely
late-to-the-party - Adobe
AIR- and Microsoft
Silverlight-competitive
JavaFX Rich Client
environment as a
potential
revenue-generator capable
of putting ads on mobile
applications and JavaF
MySQL has backed off a
plan to charge for some
encryption and
compression backup
widgetry in the next
version of the database -
and, heavens, NOT OPEN
SOURCE THE STUFF, an idea
it trotted a few weeks
ago and predictably
caught hell for. Sun,
which bought MySQL for a
billion dolla
Conference in San
Francisco. Dvorak held
forth on a number of
topics, including the new
AMD/Intel lawsuit, the
viability of Java and
Sun, the value of (or
lack thereof) of
corporate PR, and whether
or not a new book about
Silicon Valley is really
worth reading.
Mike Neil is general
manager for
virtualization strategy
in the Windows Server
Division at Microsoft.
Mike is focused on the
delivery of the Windows
virtualization
technology, including
Windows Server 2008
Hyper-V, Microsoft
Hyper-V Server and
Virtual PC 2007. Mike
also directs t
SUBSCRIBE TO THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL NEWSLETTERS
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR RSS FEEDS & GET YOUR SYS-CON NEWS LIVE!
Click to Add our RSS Feeds to the Service of Your Choice:
About Newsfeeds / Video Feeds
.gif)
Remember Sex and the City? Sara Jessica Parker lays on the bed with her Apple laptop typing a column for the next issue of the magazine. This is when I started looking at Apple computers. Actually, let me put it this way, I started looking for a reason to purchase one for myself. I’ve got the money, but I needed a reason. The fact that Mac OS is very similar to Unix does not give me goose bumps. The fish-eye menus can be easily emulated on any Windows PC. Parallels is a hassle. 
Virtualization Journal
now reaches more than
60,000 online readers
with monthly digital
editions and weekly
newsletters. The premier
issue of the magazine's
print edition, which
debuts on May 6, 2008, at
JavaOne in San Francisco,
as a media sponsor of
this event, will be
availabl 
Sun's mule train has
finally pulled into
Indiana after three years
on the road. Indiana is
the Linux-friendly
Fedora-like OpenSolaris
project meant to move the
Solaris-shy Linux
community off Linux and
on to Solaris tempted by
Solaris widgetry like the
highly scalable,
rollback-e 
At Java One this week Sun
has been selling its year
-old-but-still-upcoming -
and definitely
late-to-the-party - Adobe
AIR- and Microsoft
Silverlight-competitive
JavaFX Rich Client
environment as a
potential
revenue-generator capable
of putting ads on mobile
applications and JavaF
MySQL has backed off a
plan to charge for some
encryption and
compression backup
widgetry in the next
version of the database -
and, heavens, NOT OPEN
SOURCE THE STUFF, an idea
it trotted a few weeks
ago and predictably
caught hell for. Sun,
which bought MySQL for a
billion dolla
Mike Neil is general
manager for
virtualization strategy
in the Windows Server
Division at Microsoft.
Mike is focused on the
delivery of the Windows
virtualization
technology, including
Windows Server 2008
Hyper-V, Microsoft
Hyper-V Server and
Virtual PC 2007. Mike
also directs t
