Pony Fail: Why Java App Store won't take off

There's a big split between animators who couldn't imagine using Flex and programmers who can't stomach Flash Authoring. Flex and "traditional" Flash have little in common other than using the same runtime.

Looking at JavaFX, it's not clear which audience Sun is targeting. It looks like it's oriented towards programmers, but the language also has things like built-in animation.

That's exactly where I stopped reading. Someone who _wants_ to use Flash for programming has to have something very wrong in his or her head.

If they ditch the Java part, or relegate it to it's rightful place as a tech bullet point, then I think they're onto something. There is a point that would not just be imitation of Apple. There are a lot of users out there who need serious hand-holding -- the kind that they have to bug their tech savvy relatives, pay lots of $$ for, or that they simply don't get right now.

If someone can deliver a dead-simple system for getting slick, high-quality, security vetted desktop applications to people, it would serve an urgent need. It doesn't matter if the underlying tech is Java, Python, .Net, whatever. Most people will only care if it's easy and useful.

Do most people know or care that much of the iPhone code is Objective-C? Nope. They care that it works.

There is a big problem, however. The iPhone App store could get a critical mass of potential users because the hardware was so sexy, people bought the phone even when apps weren't available. What's going to do this for the Java App Store? Are they going to slip it into the JRE? Also, Sun has a history of not being able to make things easy or slick enough for the general populace. Heck, they have a hard time making interfaces gearheads like!

"My powers of whit fall short..."

Unintentional irony is often the funniest.

That's an insane comment. Don't even know where to start.