There's nothing like a big, steaming hot cup of java to clear away the cobwebs and get you started in the morning, right? Except that when it comes to Java on the Macintosh, we've long suspected that the software merchants had sold us decaf instead. Back when Java was new and exciting, Netscape supported Sun's write-once-run-anywhere cross-platform programming language in the PC and Unix versions of its web browser, but it was nowhere to be found in the Mac version. And once we finally did get Java running on the Mac, it didn't so much run as, well, crawl. We remember how excited we were when the first Java-enabled version of Mac Netscape was released; we fired up the browser, surfed to a Java-enhanced site-- and promptly watched the entire system slow to a sloth's pace all for the sake of an animated banner that, frankly, would have been more appropriate as an animated GIF anyway. This is what all the hype was about?

And while both the real-world uses of Java and the performance of Java on the Mac may have advanced over the last few years, one thing has always been more or less true: Java performance on the Mac has, to put it in the nicest possible light, sucked. With no fewer than three widely-available Java Virtual Machines for the Mac-- Netscape's, Microsoft's, and Apple's own-- running a standard applet in the fastest of the three makes a G3 feel like an '030, while a lowly Pentium running Windows hardly breaks a sweat. That's not exactly a demonstration that shows the blistering performance of the PowerPC chip. And these days the number of JVM's is dropping quickly; Netscape announced that they were ceasing development of their own implementation of Java for their Navigator web browser, and more recently Microsoft said they were jettisoning Mac Java as well. That leaves Apple's Mac OS Runtime for Java. And that might not be a particularly enviable situation, if not for the fact that Apple just issued a press release announcing that MRJ 2.1 is now available for free download.

Due to the inclusion of Symantec's Just-In-Time compiler, version 2.1 of Apple's JVM is up to five times faster than the previous release, if Apple's marketingspeak can be believed; it's apparently designed to run full-scale Java applications (not just applets) at optimum speeds. In addition, MRJ 2.1 also complies with version 1.1.6 of Sun's JDK spec, and supports both AppleScript and QuickTime. If you want to spruce up Java on your Mac, head on over to the MRJ 2.1 web page and start downloading; this may just mark the beginning of serious Java support on the Mac, and it's a big step towards Steve Jobs' promise to make the Macintosh the best Java platform hands down. Now all we need is a version of Navigator that will use Apple's JVM instead of Netscape's decidedly anemic version. (Yes, we know that Internet Explorer will let us use the MRJ virtual machine, but Navigator is our "browser of choice.")

Speaking of PowerPC versus Pentium speeds (and we sort of were), we've long wondered how true Apple's G3 performance claims are. That whole "up to twice as fast" thing is based on a single benchmark-- the BYTEmark, which some people dismiss as an inaccurate test of relative processor speeds. Several real-world tests show that in plenty of situations, Intel's finest more than holds its own against the mighty G3; heck, it shouldn't come as any particular surprise that Microsoft Office generally runs faster on a Windows system with a fast Pentium II than on a fast G3 Mac, and given the historical-- and yes, even present-- differences in sticker price, sometimes it may seem tough to justify getting a Mac instead of a PC when looking at nothing but price and performance.

Then again, the Mac's traditional high-end users don't run Office all day long; they run Photoshop. So how does a G3 Mac stack up against a PII-equipped Windows NT system? And more importantly, considering that dual-processor PC's are pretty easy to get hold of (whereas Apple hasn't had a multi-processor system since the 9500), how does Apple's latest blue-and-white G3/400 hold up against an NT system running two Pentium II's, each running at 450 MHz? Remember, Windows NT supports symmetric multiprocessing, one of those modern features that the Mac OS still lacks. Personally, we at AtAT admit it: we would expect the G3 to get smoked. After all, the NT system has a combined clock speed of 500 MHz more than the Mac, and the Mac OS, while loveable, is a little behind when it comes to some of the modern operating system technologies found in NT. So we were fully expecting to see the Mac come in second, at which point we'd have to remind everyone that the Mac offers greater ease of use, higher levels of user satisfaction, and a look that knocks beige boxes flat on their butts.

But when Accelerate Your Mac actually pitted these two systems head-to-head running the PSBench 21-filter Photoshop benchmark, guess who won? Much to our surprise, the G3 finished in 148.6 seconds, while the dual PII box took 177 seconds. Sure, in many of the shorter subtests the NT box was faster, but for beefy filters like a fat Radial Blur, the G3 easily made up the difference and pulled ahead. Color us surprised, but in a good way: it appears that for raw Photoshop performance, a Mac is still the way to go, overcoming a 500 MHz handicap to win the gold. We can only imagine how things are going to look once the multi-processor G4 boxes ship in a year or so, loaded with a symmetrically-multiprocessing Mac OS X-- betcha the Vegas odds will shift mightily in that match-up...

Have you noticed that the rumored feature sets for upcoming Apple products always seem to shrink as the ship date gets closer? Take, for example, the P1-- the first product expected to fill in the missing "consumer portable" quadrant of Apple's product strategy when it finally surfaces sometime within the next few months. Rumors about the P1 have been running wild ever since Apple first announced that they were working on a consumer-level laptop that would combine low cost with high style and killer performance. Remember how the P1 was supposed to include wireless Internet access? We admit, we're still really skeptical about that one, though we'd love to see it happen. Over time, we've seen expectations about the P1 slowly morph from a wirelessly-networked all-day-battery handwriting-recognizing floor-wax-and-dessert-topping still-costs-$999 ÜberPortable to essentially an iMac-styled smaller PowerBook.

The long-standing rumor that the P1 would include Newton-style handwriting recognition and touch-screen/tablet capabilities has really been downplayed in recent months; in fact, just last week Apple Insider's Future Apple Hardware page listed the "Color Touch Screen and Stylus" feature as an "advanced feature that apparently will not make the cut." However, that just changed, following Apple Insider's latest report which indicates that the whole handwriting/touch screen deal still hasn't been officially axed from Apple's P1 features list. According to Insider's sources, Apple continues to work on including these capabilities in the P1, though of course we're never going to know for sure what's going on until Apple finally unveils the product.

Here at AtAT, we would rather wait for a delayed introduction than see Apple introduce a P1 that was little more than an overhyped translucent curvy PowerBook. A feature like stylus input could make all the difference when it comes to the product's success; imagine being able to take notes with a stylus on a P1 in tablet mode. Student sales alone would make the iMac's sales figures look like the first month's numbers for Microsoft Bob. There's a tricky balance here, because Apple has to keep the price low, the feature set compelling, and the ship date well before the back-to-school buying rush for the P1 to be a smash hit. So while we're not holding our breath for handwriting recognition and stylus input, we'll keep our fingers crossed.