Recently I have been looking forward to acquiring a new Apple laptop with and M1 CPU as I’ve already heard that as soon as macOS Monterey there will be some features not available to Intel based macs.
The checklist
So I started with the typical developer checklist:
- Docker: OK (if it is relevant for you this is the install guide: https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/apple-silicon/, rosetta is required )
- Node.js: OK (guide to install Node.js on Apple M1)
- Git: OK
- VSCode: OK
- Virtualization: Pararells if needed, paid platform.
- Java… java where art thou?
The search
I started look at Oracle website, not too brilliant from me, I tried to find out JDK 8 for Apple Silicon:
The only version for macOS was x64, maybe it was logical that Oracle did not update JDK 8, a product 7 years old with Premier support ending on March 2022.
So I jumped to Java 11, the next LTS (Long Term Support) version and W*F?
Still no Apple silicon support, just x64 as you can see for the extension.
I finally checked latest Java version, Java 16 and then…
Does this mean that I cannot run Java on an Apple with M1?
The discovery
Not really. You have alternate JDK, remember our Java series of articles? Here you can find a list of alternatives: https://santandergto.com/en/abyss-of-java-11-affects-java-8-update-212-is-its-end/ so, I checked some of them:
- AdoptOpenJDK only has Linux and windows distributions, so no macOS version.
- Amazon Corretto lists only x86 for macOS, bad luck, but they state it is on their roadmap ? (https://github.com/corretto/corretto-11/issues/165)
- Azul Zulu lists ARM version, yes, even for Java 8.
- Bellsoft also lists macOS Java 8 version with ARM version ?
There it is, some options to run Java in macOS, finally. Albeit younger languages like node.js and others have more hype Java was necessary.
Hidden knowledge ?
But I had the itch, how was it possible that Oracle, the owner of Java, didn’t have an Apple silicon macOS version?
A bit more research shows this forum thread: https://community.oracle.com/tech/apps-infra/discussion/4479447/oracle-jdk-8-on-apple-m1-macbook
So it seems that at least Oracle took care of Java 11 in M1 albeit not easy to figure out.
Also Microsoft is building a version of Java 16: https://github.com/microsoft/openjdk-aarch64/releases/tag/16-ea%2B10-macos
But… hey! ⚠️
One thing to keep in mind is that I’ve seen some videos over there that shows you how to install Java on Apple M1 but it is downloading x86 version so indeed it is running Java on top of Rosetta 2, what is not very desirable.
BTW remember that brew is your friend in terms of developing with Apple it even has a search tool to find out if your beloved tool is available.
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Juan Tavira
Universia
Specialist, architect and interdisciplinary geek passionate about all kinds of innovations. This is easy to say for oneself, but when my computing colleagues, my geek friends and even my wife say so, then it must be true somehow ;-). I also like to build violins as a hobby. I see code
