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Apple releases WebObjects 5.2

By Jim Dalrymple
Macworld NOV 11, 2002 4:00 pm PST

Apple on Tuesday released a new version of WebObjects, the company’s suite of tools and object-oriented frameworks that let users develop and deploy scalable, reusable Web and Java applications. WebObjects 5.2 continues Apple’s move into standards-based services adding more features for developers.

“We have really been refocusing WebObjects over the last year to be standards compliant with a lot of the Java standards,” Brian Croll, Apple’s senior director software, Worldwide Product Marketing, told MacCentral. “With the new version we are also stepping into the Web services domain.”

Web services can be built without writing low-level SOAP, XML or WSDL and they can interoperate with clients written in many languages, including Java, AppleScript, Perl and .Net. WebObjects enables code-free generation, configuration and testing of web services from existing data assets.

“The uniqueness with the WebObjects offering is in the server-side,” said Bob Fraser, Apple’s Worldwide Product Marketing Manager for WebObjects. “What we’ve done is make it really easy for people to build Web services and call those services from many different clients.”

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In addition to adding Web services to this version of WebObjects, Apple also made improvements in other areas including:

  • Improved J2EE integration: WebObjects applications can now be packaged in a single directory (an exploded .war file) that make it easier to deploy to a J2EE servlet container.
  • Java Web Start integration The WebObjects Java Client technologies now generate JNLP files easing integration with Java Web Start. This simplifies the management and deployment of the Java desktop applications generated by WebObjects.
  • Improved streaming file upload: WebObjects now has the ability to stream HTTP request and response content. This is a useful feature for applications in which users upload or download megabytes of data in a single request or response. Other benefits of this feature include a greatly-reduced memory footprint for all sizes of file uploads.

    • WebObjects 5.2 is available directly from Apple for US$699.