Compatible Java library methods requiring Android 9 API level?

Question

Some Java library methods, such as DecimalFormat.setRoundingMode , have an @since 1.6 entry in their documentation.

 /** ... * @since 1.6 */ public void setRoundingMode(RoundingMode roundingMode) { ... } 

When I tried to use this method compiled under Android 4.2.2 and JDK 1.6, and my android:minSdkVersion set to 7, as shown,

 myNumberFormat.setRoundingMode(RoundingMode.DOWN); 

Android Lint highlighted setRoundingMode red for me and told me that

 Call requires API level 9 (current min is 7): java.text.NumberFormat#setRoundingMode 

How and why can the Android API limit which Java library methods I can and cannot use? I cleaned up my project and the Lint bug disappeared. My project was compiled without errors and launched on a device running Android 2.2.3 (API 8).
My program crashed:

 05-09 11:32:38.436: E/AndroidRuntime(2074): Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: java.text.NumberFormat.setRoundingMode 

Android documentation confirms that setRoundingMode , copySign, and others have been added to API level 9. Does this mean that devices running Android 8 and below are specially compiled / created using JDK 1.5?

And I can understand that. But doesn't the Android support library (or something else) allow us to use these methods?

Associated with Rounding twice with decimal in Android