Java coming to the iPhone after all!

A friend of mine pointed me to this InfoWorld article, which describes Sun's plan to write a Java VM for the iPhone using the just-announced iPhone SDK, with availability after June.

This is an exciting development, and I hope Apple doesn't try to interfere. Steve Jobs made his opposition to Java on the iPhone apparent with the "heavyweight ball and chain" remark. The only possible objection I can think of is that this could open up a way to get applications on the iPhone without going through the App Store, running on the Java VM instead of on the iPhone native platform.

If Apple is smart, they should talk with Sun and work together to bring a great, well-integrated Java VM to the iPhone.