No, they don't. It's expected in late spring/early summer. I agree that the improvement that have been made are exciting. However, you can still get by with asserts by using your own assert class and Apache's logging code is supposed to be even better (it's called log4j) than the stuff that's standard in 1.4.
I don't mean to come off as an apologist. It sucks that Apple isn't keeping pace with the current java standards. I want to write code using the latest APIs but I can't because it won't run on the mac. Hopefully, they'll get it out soon.
Vanguard