Using RoboVM to run JavaFX on iOS

RoboVM is the bridge from Java to Objetive-C. Using this, it becomes easy to develop JavaFX 8 applications that are to be run on iOS-based devices, as the ultimate goal of the RoboVM project is to solve this problem without compromising on developer experience or app user experience.

As we saw in the previous chapter about Android, using JavaFXPorts to generate APKs was a relatively easy task due to the fact that Android is based on Java and the Dalvik VM.

On the contrary, iOS doesn't have a VM for Java, and it doesn't allow dynamic loading of native libraries.

Another approach is required. The RoboVM open source project tries to close the gap for Java developers by creating a bridge between Java and Objective-C using an ahead-of-time compiler that translates Java bytecode into native ARM or x86 machine code.

Features

Let's go through the RoboVM features:

• Brings Java and other JVM languages, such as Scala, Clojure, and Groovy, to iOS-based devices...