Analysis: Is the iPhone an Opportunity for Java Developers?

The news this week was underwhelming for many developers: Apple will not open the iPhone to third-party development. Speculation about future toolkits or opportunities flared, but for the forseeable future the only way to extend the iPhone's functionality is in the form of web applications. Could this be a boon for Java developers?

Steve Jobs has said that application security and device stability are the reasons why the iPhone is closed. That may only be part of the truth. US mobile carriers are notorious for not wanting to allow open development in their platforms. Most mobile phones are sold to the public with a heavy subsidy from the carrier, who in turn gets paid for the device over time through the service contract. Though this doesn't appear to be the case with iPhone, other mobile devices will continue to be sold in this manner. Mobile carriers also like to gouge consumers with services at ten times the price per unit than equivalent services on the Internet, and they can get away with it thanks to lack of competition within their walled gardens. J2ME implementations are crippled because neither the carriers nor a number of device manufacturers want to open the device capabilities to cross-platform development.

Apple has historically preferred closed-platform development more often than open. Except for the Apple II family of computers, almost every device that the company produced has been as proprietary as they come. Except for the iPhone, however, Apple always provided a SDK for them. It's possible that business considerations (Patents? Existing agreements?) prevented Apple from releasing the iPhone without being tied to a carrier. Thus, the iPhone is closed to third-party development by a double whammy of carrier demands and Apple policy.

Companies who developed, or tried to develop, products and services for the US mobile market know that there is no way to play in this area without support from both the carriers and the device manufacturers. These agreements are fraught with restrictions about what the applications can and cannot do, and how many of a device's capabilities will be accessible to the third-party development. Why do you think there are no combination wifi and cellular devices in the US market? It's not because RIM or Palm don't know how to make them.

Anyone familiar with this process could have predicted that, since the iPhone is tied to a mobile carrier, equal or even stronger restrictions would be in place. The iPhone runs a full version of OS X. That makes it the most powerful mobile device in the US market. If the carrier allowed third-party development on it, it could open the floodgate to applications that can get around price-gouging policies and business models. The iPhone developer community would like third party tools to be available, maybe Apple as well, but it's likely that contractual obligations with AT&T prevent Apple from opening up the device.

The iPhone, running OS X, would be ideal for a Java. Not J2ME, but perhaps even a full JRE. There would be no J2ME limitations on the iPhone. This wouldn't play well with the carriers' business model, a more likely reason why Java isn't on the device.

And so the iPhone will launch closed to third-party application development on the device. That may be good news.

The iPhone will come with a full-featured version of the Safari web browser. Information leaked by AT&T sales reps to the 'net indicates that the service plans will include a pricey compulsory data plan over the carrier's network (a move that discourages use of the iPhone's wifi capability). This is also good news because it guarantees that all iPhones "in the wild" will be connected to the Internet in one form or another. Since Apple's current policy is one of Web 2.0 development for the device, that's where the opportunity lies for Java developers.

Most Java end-user development takes the form of web applications. That's what the Java community is really good at. Web applications and frameworks are the engine of Java evolution. Most mission-critical and scalable websites run on Java, and most serious Web 2.0 frameworks are implemented in Java. iPhone-specific web applications with a matching look-n-feel, written to match the device's screen specs and capabilities (CSS, xhtml, etc.), that store data in a combination of cookies and server-side sessions, and customized to leverage Safari's strengths, are a golden opportunity for the Java community to play in the mobile industry in general, and in the iPhone in particular. This could drag the iPhone and the rest of the handset manufacturers and carriers toward incorporating full-featured browsers in the devices, and later to open their development models and to stop crippling their devices on purpose so that they can gain a competitive advantage.

Will the first killer app for the iPhone be powered by Java? It would be ironic to contradict Steve Jobs' assertion that "Java is not worth building in." What do you think?

Eugene Ciurana is the director of systems infrastructure at LeapFrog Enterprises and is a contributing editor to TheServerSide. He's led the development and roll-out of mobile applications in coordination with the largest US carriers. He can be reached on the Freenode IRC network (##java, #awk, #theserverside, #esb) under the /nick pr3d4t0r.