While Flash for the iPhone might still be some way off, another much-anticipated function – the ability to run Java applications – might be here much sooner.  Sun have announced that they’ll be coding a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for the iPhone and iPod Touch using the official Apple SDK, with a preliminary release date around June.  It’ll be based on the existing Java Micro Edition and company VP of Java marketing, Eric Klein, is ambitious as to the functionality he wants to open up.

“We’re going to make sure that the JVM offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible … Once our JVM is on the phone, we anticipate that a large number of Java applications would run on the phone” Eric Klein, Sun

Apparently Sun spent the 24hrs following Thursday’s iPhone SDK announcement examining the documentation to see whether a JVM would be permitted and even possible under Apple’s terms.  According to Klein, there’s nothing in the public statements preventing the JVM as an official iPhone app, which would mean it could also be distributed via iTunes.  Following the JVM release, Sun have plans to leverage other, more sophisticated aspects of their platform to the handsets, possibly including Java Standard Edition or JavaFX:

“It’s a new platform for us. We might be able to bring additional technologies onto the iPhone and the iTouch [sic]“ Eric Klein, Sun

Analysts have been brusque about the possibility of the SDK diminishing some of Apple’s control over the software environment of the iPhone, with Chris Silva of Forrester Research quoted as believing the SDK “takes out of Apple’s control which applications are ‘right’”, but the recent discovery that third-party apps will not be allowed the same degree of flexibility as native ones – for instance in multi-tasking – shows that the company is still hovering anxiously around its flagship consumer product.

[via iPhone Buzz]