#3961 (drop Java 6) is coming to a close. This issue is to track dropping support for Java 7. Or rather, using Java 8 language features. As discussed in #3961, Android has fine support for Java 8 language features. Java 7 isn't supported any longer and the Java community jumped on Java 8 pretty quickly. gRPC in particular would love to be able to use default methods on interfaces, and similar Java 8 features.

This issue is to track what needs to happen before we can drop Java 7. If that is "wait for X to happen," that's fine, but if we decide we can't drop Java 7 support yet we should have an idea of when it would be possible.