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Comment by mtinkerhess | Hacker News Reader

Does this mean there's some chance you'll be able to use Java for Mac App Store apps?

Java will still be an "optional" install, much like Flash, Silverlight, et. al. Because Apple can't guarantee that it will be pre-loaded on every Mac, any apps listed in the Mac App Store that used Java wouldn't work on "factory" Macs. I'm guessing that's a deal-breaker for Jobs & co.

No they state right in the Mac App Store guidelines that you cannot.

Apple has certainly back-pedaled on App Store guidelines before. Lately they seem to start with the most restrictive set of guidelines to set a precedent and then ease things as they see fit. It's always easier to start strict and then relax over time, than it is to go the other way. Especially when the topic is programming languages/frameworks where over time a large code base can be built up.

Perhaps now that Java will not be considered deprecated from the platform, it will be allowed for us in App Store applications.

I expect it will be allowed only if you ship the JVM and runtime with your app. (And then I suppose Apple might reject you for your app being unreasonably large.)

Hello!? 2005 called and wants it's misconceptions back!

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/stanleyh/archive/2005/05/deploy...

7.5M if you want to strip.

This sounds nice in theory, but can you point me to any examples of Java apps that are actually distributed this way and are less than, say, 20 MB (or some reasonable threshold for the app's complexity)? I know that, just looking at my JVM framework on my hard drive, it's more than 200MB. Is it really a practical option to shrink this footprint 98%?

I think you've just proven my point, that packaging the JRE isn't going to kill the distribution of apps because of download size. Mostly, it's the frugality of the app's coders which will make or break it with regards to this.

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