The title of this post is a bit misleading in that you apparently cannot run Eclipse on a MacBook Pro with Java 6 set as the default JDK. Never mind that it took Apple a year and a half after the release of Java 6 for Apple to support Java 6 on OS X in the first place. I thought Apple was “developer friendly”? My experience on a Mac has usually been slightly better than working on a PC, except that the failings of a PC can usually be dismissed as Microsoft’s incompetence. Apple seems to act more like a highly-opinionated jerk.
After I upgraded to Java 6 (and then had to manually change my JDK symlink even after the upgrade), Eclipse refused to start. The system log showed:
[0x0-0xa90a9].org.eclipse.eclipse[4265]: _NSJVMLoadLibrary: NSAddLibrary failed for /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/CurrentJDK/Libraries/libjvm.dylib
[0x0-0xa90a9].org.eclipse.eclipse[4265]: JavaVM FATAL: Failed to load the jvm library.
To resolve the issue, I edited /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app/Contents/Info.plist, and uncommented this line:
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Commands/java
Problem solved. Apparently Eclipse uses 32-bit SWT-Cocoa bindings, and Apple just decided that they weren’t going to support 32-bit SWT any more in Java 6, breaking any app that uses them in the process. So the fix is to just run Eclipse under Java 5 (Java 6 projects still work in this setup). I’m starting to lose track of the consumer-unfriendly attitudes I’ve experienced from Apple. Their version of Java 6 is late, incomplete, and lazy.
I will declare this now – Apple is every bit as evil as Microsoft. If Apple EVER gets the market share that Microsoft once held, Microsoft’s anti-trust violations will seem like trivial misdemeanors compared to what Apple would do with such power. I need to gather my thoughts on this soon and elaborate on this point.
