Unfortunately Java 7 does not yet have an improved date and time API.
There is JSR 310, which is a project to add a new date and time API that will probably look a lot like
Joda Time. Joda Time is a popular date and time library for Java with a much better designed API than Java's Date and Calendar classes.
See the
ThreeTen Project, which is where the new API is being developed.
I hope this is going to be added to Java 8. In the meantime, I highly recommend using the Joda Time library when you have to work with dates and times.