Finally, it’s starting to become slowly reality. Namely JDK6 is appearently default JRE in newest OSX version, which is just being published. Which means that we need to wait only 1,5 years until it is safe to base into using it (considering the fact that it takes some times to upgrade all the macs, and I’m not so sure if OSX users are even doing updating so often)
Update 30.8.2009
Based into information available from Apple, JDK 6 in Mac OSX requires
- Mac OSX 10.5 (aka. ”Leopard”)
- 64 bit Intel Mac
This means that JDK 6 is available only in currently newest available Mac OSX version (until ”Snow leopard” (10.6) hits the shelves). Also it excludes 32bit intel and powerPC based macs (for which OSX 10.5 version exists). Also 64bit java6 isn’t default JRE, and appearently also applets and such aren’t supported with it.
Now what changes with OSX 10.6 (”Snow Leopard”):
- JDK 6 is appearently default JRE
- There is appearently also 32bit version
Thus with OSX 10.6, java should work in all intel macs (and never in older powerpc macs).
So is this all true? Well, appearently not quite true, since some hackers have managed to install JDK6 also in OSX 10.4 (”Tiger”) with some hacks. However, since appearently installing JDK 6 in 10.4 requires hack it cannot be counted really as ”JDK 6 is available in OSX 10.4” (i.e. it’s definitely not supported configuration).
References:
- Mac OSX Developer Connection
- Java SE 6 Mac OS X 10.4.5 binary (Intel)
- Installing the JDK 1.6 on Mac OS X
- Does Snow Leopard provide Java 6 for 32-bit machines?
Update 31.8.2009
Hmm… I think so I need to verify this JDK6 in Tiger issue when I’ve next time to access some intel Mac Mini (yeah, I’m Linuks guy no macs in my house, except my wife’s laptop (OSX10.4, bought 8 months ago, no java6 available (never)).