Does Apple support Java 6 yet?

A while back I released an application in Java. While I targetted it for Java 6, I realized that there was a significant Macintosh user base. At the time, Apple had not gotten around to creating a JRE 6 for their users, so I had to make the application compatible with both Java 5 and 6.

Now I've returned to that project and realize that I can't support those users any more; Sun won't let me download the JDK 5 anymore because it's end of life. So I'm caught at a crossroads; as far as I can tell, PPC Mac users still don't have a JRE 6 to use.

So I ask this question: How do I resolve this predicament? I still want to support those users, but I simply don't have a JDK with which to build. Has Apple released a JRE 6 for their PPC users? Is there an alternate way to get JDK 5 (other开发者_如何学C than becoming a business member of Sun)? Is there some alternative recommendation to supporting these users?

Regards, -- Shirik

EDIT: Some additional info, if Apple has released Java 6 for PPC, how easy is it to get? I ask this because I'm still constantly seeing logs from my users which indicate PPC architecture with a Java 5 VM.

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You could use -target 1.5 -source 1.5 with your Java 6 JDK, to generate 1.5-compatible class files.

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You can download Java 5 from Sun. You just have to look in the right place.

• http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/previous.jsp - J2SE 5.0, 1.4.2, 1.3.1

• http://java.sun.com/products/archive/ - all releases going back to JDK 1.1

Note that these are all existing public releases. The material you got from Sun would have said there would be no new public releases of Java 5.0. They were pointing out that if you needed patches for recently discovered security issues and other bug fixes for Java 5.0 etc, you would have to pay for them.

Obviously, JDKs for Apple platforms are not available from Sun, but this is nothing to do with the fact that Sun have "end-of-lifed" Java 5.0. The fact is that they have never been available from Sun ...

Having said that, in the long term you need to be able to migrate your application to Java 6.0, 7.0 (due out later this year) and so on. At some point you are going to have to draw the line and say "sorry ... no more updates" for the shrinking number of users with old PPC and 32-bit Intel Macs.

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As far as I know, Apple has only released Java 6 for x86-64, and I'd be willing to bet my hat that they will never release Java 6 for either PPC or for plain old 32-bit x86 (note that every Mac released after about mid-2007 or so is x86-64).

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Soylatte might work (I have not tried it myself).

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If you want to support older platforms, including PowerPC macs, it is a good idea to write code that can run on older Java releases. These days Java 5 is a relatively safe bet, but you may want to go even further and e.g. use retroweaver to generate Java 1.4.

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You can download a version of the OpenJDK 1.7 from intricatesoftware.com it is, unfortunately, a headless build of the JDK; i.e., can't open a display, and hence can't use to run IntelliJ, but Eclipse runs on it just fine.

I'm running it on 10.5.8, on a PPC ("cheese grater",) with Eclipse 4.3.2 / Kepler, and it all seems to work fine. :-)
(though, in honesty, a new configuration on the box, so we'll see how it goes over time)