Imagine a world full of iMacs that can't access content on the web. It's already true to some extent, when you hit a JAVA site.
MacOS Rumors recently touched on Apple's seeming inability to create a strong Java 1.1 and 2.0 compliant product, which is seriously limiting the ability of Web developers to create industry-leading sites and applications with full Macintosh compliance.
As an employee at an Internet communications company, I have had first-hand experience running into Mac weaknesses with Java. Currently, although we built our programs with the intent of working on all platforms and all Web browsers, we cannot get Macintosh running Internet Explorer to work at all.
And would you believe it's not Microsoft's fault this time?
IE 4.5 on the Macintosh uses Apple's MRJ to render Web-based Java and JavaScript, instead of what originally shipped with IE -- the Microsoft Virtual Machine. I'm no fan of Microsoft's Java, but Apple's MRJ is completely inadequate, and makes our job difficult.
We don't want to "dumb down" our products for the Mac, in the same way that we already do for WebTV. Apple needs to wake up on Java, or its role as an Internet leader with consumers will be in serious jeopardy.
We know all iMacs come with IE as the default browser, and the percent of users accessing the Internet with iMacs grows every day. But we can't help them, thanks to the weak Java.
Our current solution is to have an error page, asking the user to instead download Netscape's Communicator. This does not make us comfortable by any means. I have seen other sites that take the other tact, asking me to use Windows when I view them from my PowerMac G3/350 at work. This could be the next step should Apple's MRJ continue to flounder.
Let's all hope not. |
