Guest post by The first preview release of RoboVM has just been made available. The primary goal of the project is to make it possible to develop native iOS applications in Java that use native iOS Cocoa Touch APIs. The RoboVM compiler translates Java bytecode into ARM or x86 machine code. The core classes (java.lang, java.util, java.io, etc.) are based on Android’s runtime classes. RoboVM’s compile time tools are GPLv2 licensed while the runtime is released under business-friendly licenses, mostly the Apache License v2.0.
Wouldn’t this violate the Apple terms?
MonoTouch does the same thing (for .Net, and commercial but the idea is the same), and they have been around for years.
So, I think they should be okay.
Why should it?
After the only C, C++, Objective-C mis-step, Apple now allows for native code regardless of the language.
Although for many people Java == Oracle VM, there are several VMs around, including native compilers for Java.
They don’t allow JIT engines.
If this is an ahead-of-time compiler then there’s no reason why not.
I think they loosened the terms regarding programming languages and tools a few years ago. For example, RubyMotion which allows you to write iOS apps in Ruby is allowed.
We need more native compilers for Java.
We just don’t need Java, period.
Kochise
Java is so wonderful :
http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/p/27108/313143.aspx
Ain’t enough programming languages out there that solve the same problem Java does, without the intrinsic hassle of Java ?
Kochise
gcj is also a good java ahead-of-time compiler. ok, ok, I do not know if there is some work on it to be supported on iOS, but, it would qualify, I think.
Edited 2013-01-24 00:19 UTC
The work on GCJ has slowed down to snail speed when most of the developers moved to other things.
Last update on the GCC site is from 2009.
If it wasn’t for the source control history, you would hardly notice any work is still being done.
Most of the native compilers I know for Java are all commercial solutions, maybe this is why people tend not to use them, as they rather use free stuff.
Edit: typo
Edited 2013-01-24 06:32 UTC
Yeah, I’ve been pretty bummed to see GCJ development almost stop, but this project still seems to be moving forward at least (not exactly the same goals as GCJ, but still looks interesting): http://oss.readytalk.com/avian/index.html
Thanks for sharing.