They have put in an "improved for loop", which acts like the foreach keyword in php and perl. This is a fantastic idea.
They have also added rather marvellous auto-boxing/unboxing (no more messing about with wrapper classes), and Generics (typed lists)
http://java.sun.com/developer/techni...ases/generics/
Overall, they have filled out a lot of people's wish lists (wish generics?)