> So, Vulkan is now compulsory
There is nothing to suggest that Vulkan is now required.
> Speaking of which, it is going to be the usual partial Java 8 variant, and Java 12 is going live next week.
Java's version number has been hijacked to mean OpenJDK's runtime version & handful of non-core library updates that don't exist on Android anyway.
It has vanishingly little to do with the actual language or core libraries these days.
The only thing of interest at all between Java 9, 10, and 11 are var handles (compiler-only, no runtime support needed - should work fine on Android), and the Flow class. Which is unfortunately missing, yes, but not particularly significant. Might work better as an AndroidX addition anyway.
There is nothing to suggest that Vulkan is now required.
> Speaking of which, it is going to be the usual partial Java 8 variant, and Java 12 is going live next week.
Java's version number has been hijacked to mean OpenJDK's runtime version & handful of non-core library updates that don't exist on Android anyway.
It has vanishingly little to do with the actual language or core libraries these days.
The only thing of interest at all between Java 9, 10, and 11 are var handles (compiler-only, no runtime support needed - should work fine on Android), and the Flow class. Which is unfortunately missing, yes, but not particularly significant. Might work better as an AndroidX addition anyway.