Re:Lack of Java (J2MEE) a Big Deal (Score 1)

Touch screens are already supported by J2ME, Apple could have submitted a JSR for multi-touch.

Touch screen != multi-touch UI.

There are lots of things that can be done using multi-touch UI that can't be done using a simple touch screen (which is little more than a mouse-like device). There are things that can't even be easily done using a regular "full keyboard + multi-button mouse". Sure, you can do things like shift-click = rotate, and other "memorize the magic combinations of modifiers and buttons in no real intuitive way" but with multi-touch you can do things like "first finger touch anchors the object, the other finger combines rotations and scaling around the anchor point (and if you add a third finger, it applies perspective transforms around the axis defined by the first two finger)".

The point is that Apple wants things that take advantage of the features of the iPhone - they don't want to be "just another J2ME phone". Instead they focus on the unique features of the platform which make people purchase it instead of the other J2ME phone (after all, if an app can run on any J2ME phone, how does that help the phone manufacturer sell more of their specific phones?). The iPhone isn't the success that it is because it has features just like any other J2ME phone, it's because it's built around unique features. They don't want J2ME apps - they want "Cocoa Touch" apps.