These instructions are ISA specific though; i.e. in C you'd have to implement your solution once using x86 SIMD instructions and once using the AArch64 counterp

These instructions are ISA specific though; i.e. in C you'd have to implement your solution once using x86 SIMD instructions and once using the AArch64 counterparts. You'd also have to account for different vector lengths. Whereas the Java API does all that for you automatically, e.g. automatically taking advantage of longer vectors when running on AVX512, and shorter ones elsewhere. I think that's what people consider "better" about the Java approach (at least I do). That's of course not to say that you cannot do all this in C as well, but I think having these capabilities in that portable way available in Java makes SIMD useable for a huge audience for the first time which didn't consider that a realistic option before.