Oh, that’s right, unless you believe what a very few might tell you, there is nothing to report about Mac malware. Despite some security leaks that Apple patched over the year, there were no official confirmations that any of those leaks were actually exploited. So we are left with a potential but not necessarily a reality.

And that’s how our story begins.

If you are an avid reader of Consumer Reports magazine, which has a penchant for both praising Macs and getting the facts absolutely wrong, you might believe there were malware threats. After all, the magazine ran a survey that 20% of Mac users had encountered viruses in recent years. But isn’t it also true that the only Mac OS X viruses were a handful of proofs of concept created in labs? While it shows the potential, that doesn’t make it a reality, although the companies who make Mac virus protection applications didn’t hesitate to make sure you are protected anyway. You never know if those things will somehow escape into the wild, thus creating genuine threats. Of course that doesn’t explain that crazy survey, and you have to wonder if the magazine’s other reader surveys are equally flawed.

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A year ago, there were great hopes and dreams about how Macs would improve this year. Perhaps we’d see the arrival of the long-awaited PowerBook G5, a Power Mac with a 3GHz processor, and lots of other great gear. You even heard speculation about a Video iPod, although you almost had to give up hope as the year progressed. When it did come to pass, it was still an iPod; the video was just an added feature, not the main focus.

In fact, the end results were something less than you might have expected in some areas, and a stunning development that promised to change your expectations of the direction of Apple Computer forever. No, I’m not going to focus on the sales picture, although it was great to see the Mac’s market share increase after years of decline. Whether due to the iPod halo effect, or growing disenchantment with the ongoing problems with the Windows platform doesn’t matter, so long as the trend continues. And industry analysts expect that it will, although you shouldn’t take such expectations as gospel.

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Whenever you read a report about someone cracking Mac OS X for Intel and making it run on a plain, vanilla PC box, you have to wonder whether it’s something you need to take seriously. Lest we forget, we’re still talking about a beta operating system. You don’t know what sort of software and hardware protections Apple will place on its new Macs to prevent such shenanigans.

In the end, even if it happens here and there, it doesn’t mean that Mac OS X will be freely available so it can be installed on a $399 Gateway. There are issues of performance and peripheral drivers and the strong possibility that, even though the operating system may work after a fashion, the applications themselves may present obstacles.

There is also a published report from a Mac rumor site that Apple is handing off development of the logic board for the next Power Mac to Intel. I suppose it’s understandable that this can lead to speculation that the next generation Macs will be no different from standard PCs except for the form factor and operating system, as if that was a significant development. Why Apple might do this, of course, doesn’t matter. It may be, as claimed in that report, to save money and speed product development, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

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I still remember the scene at the WWDC keynote where Steve Jobs and Intel CEO Paul Otellini embraced. It was all show business of course, a symbol to show the spirit of cooperation between the two companies. It doesn’t mean the two hang out Friday evenings at one of the local pubs in Cupertino or Mountain View to share a brew.

In any case, there’s been plenty of speculation, reasoned and otherwise, as to just how this relationship might continue over the long haul. Of course, nobody can really tell, other than to observe the histories of the two companies. Now Apple is infamous for being difficult with the companies with which it does business. The fact that they come back for more abuse clearly indicates that they still appreciate the payments Apple provides for their products and services.

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