I think the problems with [non-native] GUIs on the Mac are compounded by their developers likely not having as much passion for look & feel as Cocoa-heads to start with, regardless of the quality of the APIs.
I was under the impression that the IntelliJ IDE was a diamond, then I saw a dude use it in a screencast and the design looked grim.
I wouldn't go so far as to say grim - but it definitely shows that even with the best of efforts, Swing is never going to cut it for non-developer applications. IntelliJ is about as good as Swing apps get on OSX.
Gotta feel for the JetBrains guys, I have a feeling that a good chunk of their users are on Macs and it's not clear that they'll have a way forward. It does look to me like Eclipse will be a viable option in future. Which, as an IntelliJ fan using a Mac, doesn't make me super happy.
That said, I think the original article was spot-on.
IntelliJ does use JNA quite extensive, already, on the Mac. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine more extensive use of JNA e.g., for custom widgets.
JetBrains guys are very smart (I dislike Java as a language, but I continue to be impressed by IntelliJ)
and I have no doubt they'd be able to switch a native layer if needed: they have all the motivation to (it's a commercial product).
IDEA (IntelliJ IDE) is a diamond - but not visually. In terms of editing (and this applies to scala, ruby, javascript as well as java) the experience is amazing - it really understands what you are doing.
But it is the ugliest thing... just horrible, but if you can get past that, it is a great tool.
OS-X users are a big paying contingent for Jetbrains - so I expect they will find a way, one way or another, to make it run well.
Huh? I don't get this at all. IntelliJ is a phenomenally great IDE. I'm sure that is blinding me to the ugliness you're seeing. But thinking about just the visual elements, I still don't see your point. What exactly is the problem?
Font rendering is horrible (at least on linux), you have to try various l&f before finding one that is "acceptable", etc.
It's a great IDE, general usability is certainly better than Eclipse (it was meant to be an IDE as opposed to Eclipse which is a platform with an IDE built on top), but personally, font rendering was a deal break.
Thankfully that bit is fine on a mac. And really - that is 90% of it there - the rest is a distraction.
Their icons are, well, tasteless is the best way to describe them.
I know people don't often talk about usability and developer tools - but it really really matters. You spend a LOT of time on it - may as well fuss over it and make it right. IDEA gets so much right.... and this is also a good example of when user experience can be great, but design (graphic) not so great.
Nice UI's can be done on the mac with swing. As you mention they require passion. Take a look at what this guy has built with Swing.
http://code.google.com/p/macwidgets/
Back when I worked at LimeWire (probably the largest Swing install base in the world) I played around with MacWidgets. It's really an admirable effort, but trying to emulate Cocoa in Java always feels a little off. It's sort of an Uncanny Valley effect...you can't easily point out what's wrong, but you know it's not quite right.
Either build a real Cocoa interface, or go LimeWire's route and don't make it look native at all.
I was under the impression that the IntelliJ IDE was a diamond, then I saw a dude use it in a screencast and the design looked grim.