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My question

I own a Samsung Galaxy S Relay 4G smartphone running Android 4.1.2 "Jelly Bean". I want to use a Windows 8.1 laptop to compile software which will run on the phone.

Oracle's Java SE Support Roadmap states that most parts of Java SE 7 reached "end of public updates" around April of '15. If I want all further Java SE 7 security updates, I'll have to pay at least US$1,200 per year for Oracle Premier Support.

I'd rather not pay.

In order to do Android development, can I install and use Oracle's Java Development Kit (JDK) 8 as a drop-in replacement for the JDK 7?

Note that I don't want to use JDK 8 in order to use any of its fancy new language features. I want to use it so that I can continue to get security updates for free.

If there's a way for me to use JDK 8 without installing or using Retrolambda, this would be even better.

An update, added a month later

[Edit: It looks like the JDK 8 is unsupported but is usable for Android development. See here for details.]

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unforgettableidSupportsMonica
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1 Answers1

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The JDK is not the JRE.

If you're using Java for Android development (JDK), that's a totally separate thing to running Java on your desktop (JRE).

Since Java allows a great many versions to run concurrently (both JDKs and JREs), I'd simply stick with what you have for Android and ensure your JRE is kept up to date for security purposes.

Given that the current Google Android Development pages tout Android Studio for development, and it has a prerequisite of JDK7, that's the one I'd be sticking with. Google themselves will "support" that, irrespective of what Oracle does.

If you're really worried, you shift your Android development into a virtual machine so that the earlier version of Java will have no impact on your physical machine.

Basil Bourque
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paxdiablo
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