| Home > Of things Mac > Afraid of Mac "viruses"? Don't panic! Wear it as a Badge of Honour! Mac is back in town! |
| Afraid of Mac "viruses"? Don't panic! Wear it as a Badge of Honour! Mac is back in town! | | Date Created: 19 Feb, 2006, 10:16 PM |
 It's not just the Mac world that's abuzz with news of trojans, worms, viruses, witches and warlocks invading the chastity and purity of Club Mac, for which entry is a little extra money and a taste for aesthetics (OK, and PCs that just work too, OK?).
It seems others outside of the world of technology see such news, whatever its accuracy and implied threats, as meaningful. A sign of the times, perhaps? That no one is safe from the malicious threats of cowardly curs whose mission in life is to bring displeasure and disruption to anonymous strangers.
The conspiracy theorists amongsts us will no doubt sally forth and suggest those who have an investment in selling anti-virus software may know more about this current "outbreak" than they are saying, but from many accounts the oompah code is hardly going to shake the Apple world to its core.
But a couple of observations as a lazy Melbourne weekend comes to a close.
Notice the graphic top left (Click to enlarge). It's a screenshot from the Melbourne Age, one of our better broadsheet mainstream newspapers. And notice from the list of "Today's Top Ten articles" which assesses the most read articles, where news of a Mac-related security threat resides. At #2. Ahead of sports stories, news of a new Bond girl, and the continuing fallout over political cartoons.
By Australian cultural standards, we are talking serious news!
If you ever wanted evidence that 2006 is the year of the Switcher, this is it. That the Mac is on the radar of the digitally-aware, even if it's for all the at-first-glance, wrong reasons.
Sure, Windows users will issue Mac dwellers a "Welcome to my World" T-shirt, but it would be false entry as I see it. That there is so much discussion as to what kind of security threat the oompah-whatever clues us in a little. It's a struggle to know how to categorise it because there are no precedents, it seems.
The hope is that Windows users have now got the message loud and clear - the Mac has been free of viruses and similar nasties since OS X (2000), unlike their continuing blighted lives. Mac users might start to quiver and shake, but come on - wear it as a badge of honour! Macs are back in the mainstream, even if it may be under false pretences.
It's been heading that way on the back of the iPod, but now it gets a chance to step forward of its own recognizance to people who would ordinarily dismiss it as just another OS with a pretty interface and great industrial designed hardware in which to operate.
Because in considering that the Mac is under "attack" and other hyperbole, the average Windows user has two ways to absorb this information. He or she can continue to lump all PCs together as necessary evils just to get work done, then switched off once they've left the office for the commute home; or they become attuned to the existence of the Mac through so much mainstream news coverage and begin to apply some intellect to question why this is such a big deal.
He or she will not fail to notice that Mac users have been enjoying five years of calm, outcome-oriented work and pleasurable internet surfing, without the needless expense of extra software to offer protection, or eternal vigilance when opening email, even from friends. |
News of viralware must surely have them sitting up and asking the right questions, and no doubt they'll be reading all the right answers from a litany of Mac experts who will hose down the "sky is falling" Henny Pennies, and allow us to once more sleep easy in our beds.
Hopefully, these potential Switchers will avail themselves of OS X's true security advantages of Windows, and begin to do some due diligence when time comes for them to upgrade. For me Microsoft's Vista can't come fast enough in this regard, because it will get people thinking about upgrading and whether it's worth it. I understand Microsoft will offer no less than seven versions of Vista including two only available to the enterprise sector.
As usual, I follow the less is more philosophy Apple invokes, and I can't see any good coming from Joe Blow facing the choice of five versions of Vista. Of course, the idea is to offer a very cheap upgrade path, and when your friends show you their new Dells with a more advanced copy of Vista included in the final sale price, you'll get awfully jealous and plunk down the same again to match them having already spent a few hundred to upgrade from Xp/2000 or maybe even Windows 98 (I don't even know if that's possible or if PCs that came with W98 originally can run Vista).
This double-dipping, and playing off of one Microsoft user against another is a cruel marketing joke. How many OS Xs are there? Two - the second being a server edition.
That's all. So in effect there is no choice. You buy Hardware X (be it pro or consumer laptop or desktop) you get OS X. You buy a server - you get X-server.
Under the hood of course, you have enormous flexibility, but essentially OS X is WYSIWYG. There is of course the matter of Quicktime 7 needing a keycode purchased to unleash its Pro features, but that's a moderate whack and well worth it, if you need it.
I am firming up in my belief that once a Windows user overcomes their phobic avoidance and misundertanding of Apple by entering an Apple store and actually seeing a Mac and - dare, dare - actually using one, the cat will be out of the bag. They will have a tough time eliminating it from their conscious when considering their next upgrade or when their child says they need a PC for school (where choice is allowed).
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It's a bit like a Necker cube optical illusion. Once you have seen it both ways, it's hard to not keep seeing it flip and offer you alternative views.
In this way, Apple stores operate like Necker cubes - once inside, it's hard to ignore what you've seen and return to your previous state of naivete. |
| Mind you, if Apple starts offeriing a free version of Virex once more as part of its .Mac package, (it still offer its DAT files even if it doesn't offer the application itself), I'll retract everything I've written here. |
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