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Mac Users Miss All the Security Fun Opinion: There is some question about whether the switch to Intel hardware will put Macs in harm's way, but in the meantime users can leave the headaches to the Windows crowd.
It's that time of year when the smell of cooking turkey and mince pie is once again wafting through the house as the family gathers round the hearth. This can only mean one thing to a Machead: it's time to start speculating about Macworld SF in January.This is not just speculation for speculation's sake; there are important buying decisions to be made in the upcoming OfficialCommercialOverspendingSeason. Buy now or buy after the Expo is the most pressing of these, and probably the most far-reaching in scope.Sure, everyone knows that new Macs are going to be on Intel hardware, but what does that change mean to an average Mac user? Burton Cohen of TBI Computer (an Apple reseller in Westport, Conn.) thinks it may not mean that much. "Most people don't realize how much was changed in the upgrade from OS X 10.3 to 10.4," Cohen says. "There was a complete rewrite of the underlying code such that Apple now does all the heavy lifting to make the program run on whatever chip is inside the Mac. If you are using XCode (Apple's development system), you can change your program to run on Intel hardware with very little fuss. Users don't care about whatever the underlying hardware is; all they know is that they will be running OS X just like they have been doing."This, then, is the underappreciated success of OS X: It has made security a non-issue for users. In all the discussions and rumor mongering that is going on about the upcoming hardware changes, there has been absolutely no concern voiced by anyone I've encountered about the security implications of such a migration. Users seemingly have a complete faith that Apple and OS X will just take care of it for them.So far, it must be admitted that Apple has a pretty good track record in this regard. While there have been problems recently discovered in some of Apple's flagship applications (like iTunes and QuickTime), Apple's response has been quick and pervasive. Sony's DRM rootkit comes in Mac flavor, too. Click here to read more. The Software Update mechanism for getting patches to the user has performed as it was designed to, delivering the software as it was needed. There hasn't been a big security problem that was allowed to fester unaddressed within the user community (a la Oracle.)And, of course, Mac users have not had to deal with the myriad of vulnerabilities that afflict the Windows user daily (although that could change if the new hardware is able to run Windows natively and thereby encourages the increased use of that OS.)This is a case, as Sherlock Holmes would put it, of the dog that did not bark. Security concerns are somewhat muted for OS X users because there has not up to this point been a catalyst to cause these kinds of concerns to come to the forefront. Things have been working. And when the hardware changes in the future, Mac users will no doubt expect that things will continue to be as boring security-wise as they have been in the past.
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