It's all hype.

Switch to a Mac?

Don't do it. Really, don't do it. Windows is the best. Trust me, I'm a gaenecologist

Sent from a Mac praying that we can continue to pay a premium prices and stay below the e-vermins' radar.

cc Steve Jobs (Get well soon)

Good! And the, when we reach fifteen percent marketshare, we should stop. No more sales, no new buyers. Anyone who had previously bought a Mac will be allowed to replace it (for an additional fee), but there must be no new customers. In fact, beginning next year I'm told Macs will come equiped with DNA-scanneres which, they'll say, are for enhanced security, BUT DO NOT BELIEVE THEM! It's a ploy to keep you locked to your Mac. Oh, and you'll need to enter your DNA/license whenever Safare detects you might be browsing an Apple-centric website. Any false rumours about Dear Steve's health (praise be upon him, hosanna!) or smacking down any historic, present, or future iteration of the sainted Mac and your DNA will get scrambled. Think of it as reincarnation, only without the dying part. But oh how you wish you would have died, how you long for the sweet release of this hell wrought by your own idle fingers in an unguarded moment.

/Smug Mode

I am not really surprised.

The general public are tired of Windows machines that crash, freeze, come loaded full of crapware, and get slower and slower from the day you buy them until you feel the need for a new one. (A reinstall would fix things right up.)

Two coworkers. (Software developers) have just bought Macs. and my brother (A landscaper) have just bought Macs.

Mostly though I think it is just Vista. It has such a bad reputation that no one wants it on their new computer, and since they can't buy a laptop with XP, a large number of people are deciding to give this Apple thing a try.

Safari on a PC doesn't = a Mac user :p

Microsoft have had it their way for far too long. The world needs competition on the desktop and in browsers. Had it not been for Firefox et al slowly nibbling away at the Windows browser market, there would *never* had been IE8.

Same for the desktop. If it weren't for the competition, you could have it any colour you like as long as it's Vistarrgh. Microsoft would never have polished their turd called Vista and brought Vista SE/Windows 7 forwards.

There's a ceiling on the Mac. Most Mac people don't want the gormless Windows tribe to switch and turn the exclusive Mac into mainstream.

So, Windows users: Macs are horrible. Really difficult to use; ugly, insecure, unreliable, expensive. Windows is just soooo much better: easier to use, secure, fun, reliable, cheaper; Windows just works... Billy and Balmer are such visionaries and should be beatified...

1. Non technical people with PCs who have had Safari forced onto their pc by itunes

2. iDiots buying iphones and ipods even though there are much better, cheaper, more functional and better looking phones and mp3 players available, they just lack the brand name.

Personally, I am waiting for the huge increase in mac virii that will come soon so I can laugh at the iDiots and tell them to use Linux (or even Windows) instead.

Mac users will actually be a much easier target for spyware simply because they have no security software, a lot don't even have a firewall beyond their router.

I thought Amiga was part of the "real computer old timer" line of pub war stories.

I'm not really a fan of Apple (at least not their prices anyway), but I do appreciate them. Good looks and something else that is not M$FT

As far as I am concerened the more popular non M$FT, non-Windows PC platforms are, the more people will realise there is an alternative - whether its a PC substitute like a Mac or something else such as a linux netbook, PDA or iPhone

It's funny how people never ask why other tech stuff such as TV sets and mobile phones are not the all same - and yet some people seem to have this idea that all PC type machines run WinXP. Maybe their minds will be opened by increase in the numbers of *anything* else .................

Funny thing is you could maake the same arguement for Vista....................

I have no gripe either way with whichever operating system is cool at the moment. Ubuntu, XP and OS X are all great. Vista is shit of course.

However... I don't think the stats are right at all.

According to Google Analytics for some of my sites, the techy ones show good percentages for Macs and Linux - in the region of 9% and 3% respectively, but any non-nerdy sites, such as an accommodation directory of mine show in the region of 4% for Macs and 1.5% for Linux. A cricket site I made shows 97.71% Windows use.

Firstly I'd like to refute your claim of better looking (although aesthetics != better) and better featured phones and MP3 players out there. All the non-iPod players I've seen are pretty clutzy and cheap looking, badly designed with poor layout, UI and stupid features, like superfluous buttons etc.

That's a side issue though.

The real meat of my comment is taking you to task for being ignorant and stupid with regards the NetApplications data. The 9.93% stat refers to Mac OS X users. Not Safari users, not iPhone users, but OS X users.

Since in the same data the Safari count is only about 8%, and indeed the iPhone comes in at a heady 0.8%, clearly it's not the full story here. If you dig into the stats, you'd see that the 9.93% figure counts all Mac-based users, be they Opera, Safari, Firefox, Camino or any other browser.

Oh, and on another matter entirely, since there are currently no self-replicating malicious executables (or "viruses") for Mac OS X, it'll have to be a pretty dramatic rise before we're even close to the 150,000 estimated windows ones, won't it. Something tells me that's not market-share, it's just Windows is shit.

Since Linux is a unix-like system, and OS X *IS* unix, chances are any virus that comes about that can get into Mac OS X and get around privilege execution will also make it's way across to linux too. Strange, hasn't really happened yet.

There will always be trojan style malware that asks stupid users to give it control, there was one in an iLife dmg the other week. But viruses are a different matter, something fundamentally damn-near impossible on a unix OS (note I say "near"). Still, keep dreaming.

Oh, lastly, OS X ships with a good firewall. You need only turn it on (4 clicks from the desktop, IIRC). If a user is too stupid for that, hell mend 'em.

I've no doubt the Mac is gaining market share. However, raw percentages don't really mean much here. For the sake of simple number, if there are 100 PCs in the world and 90 of them use Windows and 10 use OS X, then fine. But if the following month the figures become 105 machines, 90 Windows and 15 OS X, then the percentage change doesn't mean what you think it means.

Sure it'd mean that new uptake is primarily Mac based, which is still bad for MS. But it doesn't mean people are leaving Windows.

Yes, this is overly simple, just demonstrating a point. I'd just like to know something more than the headline percentages.

Hmmm, so Apple not only tricked Windows users into installing Safari (because everyone knows on Windows you only need to Next>Next>Finish and there is no requirement to actually check what you are doing), but the also managed to set it as the default browser, and then miraculously force people into continuously using it since that time? Yeah, OK, I buy that...

And because there are "better, cheaper, more functional and better looking phones and mp3 players available", then those users don't deserve to have their statistics included? Well, on that basis, why not exclude every single I.E. user out there. Yay! Firefox wins the web!

"But some of those Safari hits come iPhone and iPod touch users, and others come from people fooled into installing Apple's browser on their Windows machines."

first off anything is better than IE, secondly I wouldnt be surprised if you were to see Safari for the Android or Blackberry OS

-----------

see apps in action - http://www.iPhoneAppDemo.com

Obviously our Coward is not only Anonymous, but extremely suggestible. Forced my eye! Only if by going near the apple site you're sucked over the event horizon of mind-bending control that is the Steve iAura.

May I suggest he/she looks into my eyes (not around the eyes, in the eyes) and succumbs to buying this here bridge. In cash, mind.

That's why MS is in such a hurry with the Windows 7 thing. They know Vista is hurting. Or at least its reputation is, which is exactly the same.

As I've said before somewhere, my (wrong?) ideal computing world would be one where no OS or app had more than 30% market share (figure scientifically pulled out of my rear end). That would force everyone to follow standards in both hardware and software, at least in the general consumer markets. You know, quite similar to <obligatory car metaphor> the car industry </obligatory car metaphor>. Who would want to create a website (or sell a printer, or write a text editor, a browser plugin, etc.) for only 30% or less of the market?

Thus say I: go Apple, and march, penguins! The little devil or the Sun gods are welcome to join in too, of course.

Otherwise, I don't really care what other people use, as long as it does not affect me.

I purchased a mac a few years ago and am still waiting for it to change my opinion. Over priced under supported and too much tie-in.

Last bit of Apple hardware I ever buy.

"Sent from a Mac praying that we can continue to ... stay below the e-vermins' radar."

Nightmare-inducing prediction: the e-vermin will look very closely at the standards for the Web (html, CSS, JS, etc) and figure out ways to screw the world over via obscure holes in the standard: browser- and platform-independent malware, iow.

Reading about some of the fancy new malware that's making the rounds, one almost wonders if the standards people shouldn't hire the Russians and Ukrainians and Rumanians and Chinese behind the tidal wave of malware, pay them extravagant salaries, and get them to design malware-proof replacements for all current online systems, from tcp/ip right through web browsers.

Yo, you ignorant lot who wouldn't know I User-Agent header if it hit them in the face:

You can not only tell the browser, but also the OS and even machine architecture from your access logs.

So Safari on Windows still registers as Windows and Firef***ed on Mac is still a Mac, m'OK?

Thats bad news for Apple, the higher their market share, the more likely it is for the EU to look at their behaviour and start to hit them with anti-trust regulations, the same as MS gets hit with.

The *only* reason they are currently not looking at Apple is because of Microsoft, but eventually their market share will be large enough that the EU will have no other option but to curtail their anti-competition behaviour.

I'd like to see three players in the OS market with none of them having more than 60% market share. Imagine what that would be like.

You'd probably have real write once and run anywhere languages/frameworks, real standards, real choices.

I think everyone's products would improve based on healthy competition.

I don't like Macs because I like to build my own systems and I don't like reduced software/hardware options, but I am really rooting for them to get some double digit gains in market share.

Ok I don't have a Mac and I can't see them becoming the business option of choice - I don't think Apple would even want that. Macs have a much higher upfront cost (though I suspect if you count software its evened up a lot), but more people are picking them over MS's product when they have a choice.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to see MS suffer on the home-user front because it introduces variety and debate into the question of choosing software. I really hate to see a product/company do well purely because it is the incumbent and I reckon more Mac's at home means more Linux at the office. And I spend a lot of time in offices.

What do you guys take people for?

The scenario of a Windows user being tricked into downloading and installing Safari is slim enough.

But actually then using it to surf the web? Are you syaing there are people out there using it thinking they're running some new version of IE or something???

"Something tells me that's not market-share, it's just Windows is shit."

+1

AC wrote: "Mac users will actually be a much easier target for spyware simply because they have no security software, a lot don't even have a firewall beyond their router."

That'll be because there's a firewall bundled with the OS. I might be wrong but I think it's turned ON by default.

So, no firewall beyond the router. I let the ISP handle traffic out there...

"Oh, and on another matter entirely, since there are currently no self-replicating malicious executables (or "viruses") for Mac OS X, it'll have to be a pretty dramatic rise before we're even close to the 150,000 estimated windows ones, won't it. Something tells me that's not market-share, it's just Windows is shit."

OK, so perhaps 150,000 viruses have been targetted at the Windows platform (past and present), but how many of those 150,000 would actually be able to execute on a properly patched modern machine ? I don't use any AV products on XP SP 3 and it's been ticking over just fine and dandy for the past 2 1/2 years. No P\/\/n1ng, no BSOD's, all my Windows programs run perfectly without having to fiddle about with WINE settings, and I've got drivers for every piece of hardware I can throw at it.

The secret ?

http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/pages/TOC.aspx

Tux, because I like using Ubuntu, as well. It's all good.

Come off it, it's the only mode Mac users have.

Well if it is anything like "iptables" then you are correct. It's on and in (pretty much) a total lock-down state. The biggest grief is figuring out what ports and what IPs are allowed (this is non-trivial for the home user and requires a high-level of technical expertise; one reason why Linux is still not ready for the big time). But it is much, much more secure than Windows for incoming, generally it is open for outbound on all ports for all applications. Major problem.

This false feeling of security leaves it wide-open to tricking the user into running something that is malicious and then there is no protection. At least on Windows the anti-virus will stomp on it or the firewall will ping up and ask "Do you really want to allow xyz.exe to access the net?" and as the AV/Firewall is heterogeneous it is very hard for malware writers to target, this is not the case on Linux at all. The GUI may change, but the firewall stays the same and there is *NO* AV protection.

There is none of the third-party checking that goes on in Windows and this complacency is (potentially) a serious threat to the *nix crowd. It is something they will need to address over the next 5 years if they want to be ready for the average user (I'll repeat, Linus is not there yet).

"But some of those Safari hits ... come from people fooled into installing Apple's browser on their Windows machines."

I don't really think that counts: no-one was forced to use the browser once installed, so any such users must be ones who actually found it to be better than what they were using before.

To take the reverse angle: almost all of the hits for IE were from people who had been fooled into installing Windows without adding a decent web browser. No doubt many would choose to use a different browser if given a totally free choice.

No doubt most of the users of FireFox were tricked into it by those malicious adverts on the Google home page?

Oh wow! Huge story. Front page news! Mac OS finally comes close to 10% market share. Give me a break. The Mac has been out for [what] 25 years now and only hit 10%. At this rate [with a 0.3% increase per month if they could keep it up] it would still take probably 10 years to come close to Windows' market share and that's unlikely.

Steve Jobs may be an innovator or good at marketing but he killed the OS by not allowing it to install the OS on any hardware. Why? So Apple could reap a 25-50% markup on the exact same hardware sold on a typical PC.

With the economy slipping, if someone had a choice between a $1000 Windows PC [even with Vista on it] or a $1400 Mac - with the same hardware specs, they'd still choose a PC. I would.

>> A cricket site I made shows 97.71% Windows use.

...Well, that pretty much says it all, doesn't it?