The main difference with casting to Object is that you can use type switches or safe casts which return an additional success boolean, to restore type safety qu

The main difference with casting to Object is that you can use type switches or safe casts which return an additional success boolean, to restore type safety quickly after taking the item out of its container. Yes, you can type-test in Java before you type-cast, but it isn't idiomatic, and it isn't syntax.