DO NOT BUY IT. If you wan to check your email, chat, skype word, excel, powerpoint etc buy a palm foleo or similar (asus) and save money.

The Jva6 is not there and if you update your current os form tiger to leopard you will not be able to run some java applications. I bought a mac book pro instead of a machine with windows vista. Now I believe that I made a mistake because I can't use it for my main purpose, to write java applications. I am now force to remove leopard and install ubuntu or debian. It's sad that java developers can't use anymore mac machines(with leopard). Leopard is a great product but lately it is also becoming a black box (like many apple products like iphone etc). I was a big fan of apple not anymore. DO NOT BUY IT.

Yakov - Jobs statement about Java was about J2ME - and hey, even Sun seem to be saying J2ME is dead (long live J2SE for mobiles) so maybe he was right. After all, J2ME never had the write-once advantages desktop and server-side Java offer. Although I think even with J2SE we'll still be dealing with phones offering varying displays, features, etc, but maybe in 4-5 years time there will be a good solid base spec all developers can rely on.

Macs are still fine platform for Java 5 development, which is really the current version (unless you control your own servers) - but I must admit I'd like to see more commitment and a roadmap - it's not as if there's any value in keeping it under NDA - it's a public spec.

(Plus Apple.com and iTunes are powered by Java on OS X so they must have plenty of internal development going on).

I don't quite buy the hours making things work. There's maybe a couple of weeks getting used to how things work, but beyond that I found most things do. Few apps require a reboot on installing, for instance. The standard colour picker, allowing you to grab a colour from anywhere on the screen is another small timesaver ('I need to re-use the shade from the corporate logo'). It took a few weeks to get used to the idea that drag and drop between apps really worked (well, modern apps). It's the myriad of small 'just working' features that add up to saving time.

You don't even need to download a Java runtime - although the downside is, of course, you're at the mercy of Apple to update it. But then we don't know how well Sun would have done either in keeping a minority platform up to date.
(see Adobe)

Guy,

I'm talking about people who use Java to make a living. Macs are great for non-programmers, that's for sure. Macs are great for geeks who do not mind spending hours on making things work. But what about a regular Java developer? Should they install Parallels to run Java under Windows? Talking about convenience...
I'm sure Apple will fix this problem, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Jeez Louise. How about the fact that a Macbook allow one to work efficiently without worrying about malware, worms, viruses, or inherent Windows instability and slowdowns as reason enough to buy one? Oh, and the fact that when one inserts a CD into a drive, the disc icon appears right on the desktop as it should, as opposed to requiring you to click on "My Computer" to access it. It's not about what's hip or cool, a basis you seem to imply lies at the heart of the Mac's popularity; for many Mac users, it's about what works. Life's simply too short to deal with Windows and it's plethora of issues.

Jobs did NOT say that no one uses java anymore. He said that compared to flash/ajax/etc in safari on the iPhone java (applets) were too heavy.

Geez....

Yes, it sucks that j6 isn't in leopard right now. There's NO indication that java is getting dropped and plenty of evidence that they are working on it.