On the contrary, OS X had first support to Java via the Java Bridge and Apple's own JVM implementation, because they weren't sure if the developer community educated in Object Pascal and C++ would be willing to touch Objective-C, so they decided to play safe with having Java for the ride, doubling down on Java uptake.
Objective-C was embraced by the developer community in such a way that they quickly deprecated Java Bridge and eventually got rid of Java development costs altogether.
I remember running Java applications on a powerpc g4. It was incredibly slow and ugly, no wonder why developers still preferred objective-c over Java on Mac.
That was certainly not Apple's Java, as it had good JIT compiler with code cache, and the same L&F than Objective-C applications, that wasn't definitely it.
I remember the Java IDE like Eclipse or NetBeans being incredibly slow, and ugly, compared to the same software on similar priced computers running windows or GNU/Linux, or compared to more native software like Xcode or TextMate. But perhaps the powerpc g4 was simply a bad CPU for a JVM and Java developers were not very good at designing UIs for Mac.
I also remember having to wait a long time whenever the JVM was starting. It was annoying when a website did contain a Java applet because my web browser would be stuck until the JVM was ready.
It is. It's modality was an anti-inspiration, as in... how the hell can we not have modes (a GUI)... sort of... then everyone started burring crap under menus though feature accretion... hence we go full circle, because people get fed up of bloat, leading to both UX fatigue and performance fatigue, which eventually gives you a kind of appreciation for simple modal interfaces.
Now it's a bit better with Swift or web applications using Electron.