Carl Sziebertis a software engineer with an interest in Spring, Hibernate, Red5 and jQuery development.

Having been a Java developer for the better part of a decade and an Apple fanboy for longer than that, I am left wondering what the hell they were thinking when they decided to not add Java 6 to Leopard. Keeping in mind, of course, that Apple has been notoriously bad about updating Java for OS X, the release of Leopard took just over 2 years to complete. They couldn’t find the time to get it done? James Gosling is quoted for saying that Mac OS X is his preferred platform, but that he laments Apple’s decision to ‘roll their own’ JDK. I, like many other developers, believe that the time has come for Sun to regain control and promote Java on the Mac to a first class citizen by providing a JDK along side Windows, Linux and Solaris. It has been well over a year since Apple posted the preview release of JDK6. Then in preparation for the launch of Leopard, the download was removed from the ADC site leading many of us to believe that our wish had come true. Sadly, this is not the case and is the number one reason why I won’t be upgrading anytime soon. Java is my bread and butter, it is how I keep my bills paid. So until Apple gets their shit together, I’m sticking with Tiger and the preview release of Java 6.