The Version column specifies the version of Java that is installed. The Vendor column indicates whether the Java release is supplied by Apple or Oracle. Java applications and command line tools use the listed order to determine the first compatible version to use. The Java Preferences window contains a list of installed JREs. Under Apple's implementation of Java, it was possible to have multiple JREs installed, and the Java Preferences app was used to. Once Apple no longer distributes Java as part of their release, the Java Preferences application is retired.

The Applications -> Utilities -> Java Preferences application is part of Apple's implementation of Java. If you are running a release of Mac OS X that includes Apple Java 6, for example 10.7.3, 10.7.4, 10.8.0, there is an important difference about the installation of Oracle Java (both JRE and JDK) that you should be aware of. You can download the Mac OS X JDK and JRE from Java SE Downloads page. This release includes fully supported JRE for Mac OS X 10.7.3 (Lion) and above. Java SE Runtime Environment 7 enables support for running Java-powered applets and applications.

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