Following an attack on its own computers, Apple has released a security update for Java 6 for Lion and Mountain Lion.

It includes a "malware removal tool" for Snow Leopard and later, but only for those systems with Java 6 installed. Presumably it cleans up the malware that struck at Apple.

The simplest ways to get the update is via Software Update or App Store (as appropriate for the version of OS X you're running), but if you need to apply the update to multiple computers it makes sense to download the installer from Apple's Support Downloads page.

The current version of Java is Java 7, which is developed and distributed for OS X by Oracle, along with those for other platforms. Java 7 does not work with Google's Chrome browser, as it only works with 64-bit browsers and Chrome is a 32-bit application.

According to reports (see, for example, The Mac Observer), Apple acknowledged that some of its Macs had been attacked by the same group that recently attacked Facebook.

According to Cult of Mac, Apple officials said "There is no evidence that any data left Apple" as a result of the attack.

The new Java update from Apple "update uninstalls the Apple-provided Java applet plug-in from all web browsers" according to About Java for OS X 2013-001, which makes it a lot harder for the bad guys to trick you into running Java-based malware simply by visiting a malicious web page.

But if you do need to to run Java applets, you'll need to install Oracle's Java software - clicking "Missing plug-in" on an affected page will help with the installation. Just be sure that you can trust the applet that's trying to run!

There's been a degree of hysteria about Java vulnerabilities in recent months, possibly due to the wide range of devices that it runs on. In some ways, it's the 'new Flash'. But as far as I can see, there's no good reason to avoid a piece of software just because it uses Java.

If you don't need Java, don't install it. If you previously installed Java but you no longer need it, uninstall it. That's called "reducing the attack surface" and applies to any piece of software.

If you do need Java, keep it up to date. This basically means leaving "Check for Updates Automatically" selected in Java Control Panel and accepting updates as they are offered.

If you don't need to run applets, disable the Java plugin in your browser(s).

If you do need to run applets, consider tightening Java's security settings so that untrusted apps will never run without warning. Sophos has some suggestions that you may find useful.

"The truth is we worked on a sub-$500 Mac but we concluded we couldn't make a great product."

That, according to Computerworld, was one of the things Apple CEO Tim Cook told the Goldman Sachs technology conference earlier this week.

Perhaps that should have been "The truth is we worked on a sub-$500 Mac but we concluded we couldn't make a great product that was as profitable as our shareholders have come to expect."

Not that healthy margins are a bad thing - you can only maintain them for as long as competitors fail to offer something as good at a lower price. And something Apple understands is that its customers don't just look at 'speeds and feeds' when judging products. Does a machined aluminium case make a computer run any faster? No, but that object sits in front of you for hours on end, and how it looks makes a difference to the way you feel about it.

Last week's news that Apple is about to discontinue the Mac Pro in Europe because it does not meet new safety standards has been followed by a report that Apple may be planning to introduce a successor sooner than previously thought.

Based on a statement made by Apple CEO Tim Cook, the expectation has been that the Mac Pro replacement will appear later in 2013.

But French web site Mac4ever.com reports that Apple wholesaler France Systems says Apple has told it the new Mac Pro will arrive in the northern spring.

Apple previously indicated it would not be updating the existing Mac Pro to conform with the new IEC requirements, and given the time it takes to develop and promulgate standards it seems most unlikely that Apple was caught unawares by the amendments to IEC 60950-1 and is now rushing to get the new model out.

Whether France Systems really has solid information remains to be seen, but it is quite possible that when Cook said 'later' all he meant was 'not at the beginning of the year', rather than 'in the second half'.

The phrase 'peak oil' is shorthand for "the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached". Tech journalist Dan Frommer posits Apple may have reached 'peak Mac' - the point at which it produced more Macs in a quarter than it ever will again.

Apple shipped more Macs in 2011 than it did in 2012. Why the drop? Apple CEO Tim Cook's explanation pointed to the new iMacs' arrival at the end of the December quarter, the 'extra week' in the December 2011 quarter (think of it as a 'leap week' to keep the company's fiscal quarters reasonably aligned with the calendar), and lower inventory levels (though that sounds like a restatement of the first reason to me).

Frommer concludes that "it seems more likely that Mac sales will either stay flat or have started their long-term decline than they’ll ever reach, say, 10 million in a quarter. But, as Apple has proven many times now, anything is possible."

It seems to me that a lot of people chose to use a Mac because it was simply less trouble than using a Windows-based PC. Using an iPad is even less trouble than using a Mac, so it shouldn't be surprising that a lot more people are buying iPads than Macs, especially as they are cheaper.

And as iPads get more powerful, they can replace Macs for a growing range of tasks. In this week's announcement of the 128GB iPad, Apple made a big deal of the way AutoCAD and Auria allow content creation - or at least content editing - on an iPad (technical drawings and multitrack audio, respectively).

I'm not suggesting that an iPad is a complete replacement for a Mac. But as iPads become more capable, surely increasing numbers of people will turn away from OS X to iOS. And at some point, Apple will have to ask whether it really wants to be in the traditional PC business any longer. What will then happen to those of us who still spend most of our working hours at a desk and are used to being able to sprawl our work across large and/or multiple screens?

The dichotomy isn't really content creation vs content consumption - that's too simplistic, and I'm not sure if it was ever true as I saw colleagues taking notes and writing articles on their iPads soon after the original model appeared. It's more about whether you want to touch a device (I can put up with streaks on my smartphone's screen, but not on my iMac or the TV in the loungeroom) and whether the industry can come up with touch interfaces that work well for specific tasks. For example, I use a mouse and a trackpad in parallel with my iMac, as I prefer to use one or the other for particular functions. Scrolling through a long document? Trackpad. Selecting a portion of a graphic with one-pixel accuracy? Mouse.

Those Windows 8 convertibles are starting to look attractive. Pull the top off when you need a tablet, plug it back in when you want the full set of peripherals and ports. Touch the screen when you want to, use a mouse or more likely a trackpad when you don't. Plug in a second screen when you need more real estate.

And as much as I like the way iTunes and iPhoto save me from having to worry exactly where a particular song or photo are stored, it's still easy for me to use other applications with a file if I need to - and that's something Apple seems to be trying to take away in iOS and iCloud.

So I think Frommer is probably right - the current quarter may see a lift in Mac sales, but we may well have seen 'peak Mac'. Around this time last year, Daniel Eran Dilger recalled Steve Jobs describing Mac OS X "as a platform Apple would use over the next fifteen years". We're now 12 years into that period. Apple has a better business than ever, but we 'traditional Mac users' are a shrinking proportion of that success.

I'm not one of those people who thought Steve Jobs could do no wrong, but one of the things he did that made a big difference to Apple on his return was simplifying the product line.

At the time there were a large number of Mac models, and the differences between some of them were very minor. Jobs pared things back to a two-by-two matrix: desktop or portable, and consumer or professional.

That gave us the iMac and the Power Mac (later Mac Pro), and the iBook and the PowerBook - and a nice, simple message. If you were a consumer and you wanted a desktop Mac, you bought an iMac, and so on.

But in more recent years the range has sprawled again, and the consumer/pro distinction has practically disappeared, reflecting the way computers and mobile devices have become so central to our lives.

On the portable side, there's the 11in MacBook Air, 13in MacBook Air (which also has a faster CPU), 13in MacBook Pro, 15in MacBook Pro (again with a faster CPU), 13in MacBook Pro with Retina (and the difference isn't just in the display) and 15in MacBook Pro with Retina.

On the desktop there's the Mac mini (in three configurations), 21.5in and 27in iMac (as with the MacBooks, the larger model comes with a faster processor) and the Mac Pro (again in three configurations).

Where there was once an iPad there's now the iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPad with Retina, each in a choice of colours and configurations. Similarly, buyers must choose between the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, all in a choice of colours. At least only the iPhone 5 comes in multiple configurations. With the iOS family, the strategy seems to be about selling "last year's model" at a lower price to those that can't afford or aren't prepared to pay for the latest and greatest. Or perhaps the lower prices help to get more people to look at iPhones and iPads, and then Apple or its partners get an opportunity to upsell them.

Apple's impressive sales volume does support a wider range than was the case back in the Nineties, and I'm not against the idea of offering more than one standard configuration of a product. Furthermore, a 'good, better, best' offer seems to be a widely used and therefore presumably successful marketing tool.

But the partial use of high-DPI displays clouds the picture, as it were. So during 2013 I wouldn't be surprised if the MacBook range isn't simplified to four models during 2013. After all, the MacBook Pro with Retina closed the gap between the Air and Pro models in terms of thickness and weight (the 13in Pro is slightly narrower than the 13in Air), and Apple has a continuing propensity to eliminate DVD drives - that alone suggests to me that the days of the non-Retina Pro are numbered. And surely a new Mac Pro is on the cards?