It's only taken them just over 6 months to implement the fix that Sun released... About b****y time!

And add that to the two years Apple users have been waiting for Java 6 to appear. A shocking job by Apple I must say. Though it means I can program with everyone else next year at uni

That would be some Apple users. I don’t think I use Java at all, and I’d be interested to know how I can tell if I am. If it sneaks in on the quiet, I’d be concerned. I just wonder how this impacts your average user.

I've been surfing sans Java for some years now. It's usually the first thing I turn off in my browsers. I have always found Apple's implementation of Java to be buggy and slow and prone to crash browsers, so find no use for it at all in my surfing experience.

Very few things that I get involved with seem to need Java installed these days. I don't have it installed on my PC and probably won't need it on my macbook either.

Still, 6 months!!

I would guess it may affect anyone running Java through a web browser if the browser uses the system installation of Java.
It will allow the NeoOffice project to update their code if they want to, and will give any users the benefits.
Someone was asking about Java 6 for Limewire of something a while back, now they can use it
If the Eclipse IDE uses Java 6 to build various parts, then they can add that to the Mac release now.

If you want to see if anything is using Java on your Mac, open up activity monitor and have a look for Java processes, IIRC, Java apps don't have a process called "myapp" they are all listed as java processes.

Yep, I use a couple of apps which require Java. But corporate applications are a big user of Java, if they aren't using ActiveX...

Well, that's okay then, because obviously Apple doesn't work in the corporate sector.

Given this and a couple of the other replies in this thread and in the one in the Mac section, I’d say that Apple had more important things to do. Clearly, Java is not as important.

Heather - Apple’s interest in the corporate sector is much talked about. They seem more keen on small businesses and consumers. Dislodging Microsoft from a major enterprise is a massive job, and once done would need a lot of resources to maintain.

But seeing as it's a security hole, and I think that every OS X install comes with Java, you'd have thought that Apple might have been a bit quicker in plugging it, even if they didn't add all the other goodies at the time...

I'm sorry, if it was just a version upgrade, it would have been annoying. But as this was a known remote execution exploit, which was being exploited - and the fix has been publicly available for 6 months, all Apple needed to do was copy it into their tree and test it. The "hard" work had already been done.

Normally Apple are good at sorting out security problems, but this time they have really dropped the ball.

They have a deal with Sun to provide the customised Java for OS X, they are given the fix and they don't patch it?

Do you think that this is maybe a symptom of an Apple without Jobs? Add this to the DNS flaw they took ages to patch, the SATA150 limitation on the new 13" and 15" macbook pro's and the unresponsive trackpads. The prices are better, but they've cut corners where they probably shouldn't have. Just seems a bit directionless.

I'd say they're anything but lacking in direction - new iPhone, new iPhone OS, new Macs and a new Mac OS all coming out around the same time.

The latest "problems" are hardly symptoms of a deeper malaise. Even with Jobs at the helm, Apple has taken its sweet time to address problems in the past - sometimes outright denying they exist before quietly addressing the issue. I'd put a lot of the latest slips down to Snow Leopard, which I think Apple is absolutely focused on getting right as it is the fundamental future of the company.

In other words, they've been busy polishing the family silver and have left some corners to get dusty. Now they're starting to clean up the rest of the house, starting with the Java fix.

I don't care about this security hole.

WHERES MY 3.0 UPDATE DOWNLOAD?! BIIIIIIIITCH!