Huh.

I've been a user of Macintosh PCs since 1986.  Nonstop.  I knew early on that they had something special going on and that they would one day go head-to-head with Windows PCs for control of the world (or something like that).

I was wrong, though.  It is highly unlikely Apple will ever unseat Microsoft as the OS manufacturer for business.  They shouldn't.  They don't make products designed for most corporations.

I can live with that.

However, Apple just unseated Google as the most valuable brand on the face of the planet!  What I was unaware of is that they bypassed Microsoft LAST YEAR!

Unless you think about iPhones, iPods, iTunes, and iPads, it doesn't seem that this could be so, but when you factor in those four product lines, and when you look around you anywhere you happen to be around other people and see that those people have at least one of those products, AT LEAST ONE, you get it!

I don't have an iPhone.  I don't plan to leave Sprint anytime soon unless they do something really dumb to me directly or go out of business (heaven forbid)!  So I use an Evo from htc - a 'droid - and I love it.  Here's the upshot, though:

I have two Macs and two iPods (one for the car and one for my clock/mp3 player).  My wife has a Mac and two iPods.  My daughter has a Mac, an iPod, and will be buying a Verizon iPhone this week or next.  Her husband has a Mac and an iPod.  The four of us make up for eight other people in the US who don't have ANY Apple products.

Let's face it, Apple has had more of an impact on how we as individuals do business, spend entertainment time, and are productive in other ways than maybe any other corporation ever.  Whoduthunkit?

Now, in the last month or two, Apple has upgraded the technology in its laptops and iMacs so that they, once again, surpass any other comparable products on the market for capability and speed.

Sure, we are now seeing the nasties out there really begin to attack the Mac OS and iPhones, but that's because Apple has penetrated Apple's markets so well that the bad guys can now get their 15 minutes of fame going after Apple.  We will see how well Apple does in staying ahead of the security issues, but for now, that's up to us.  Read the other posts in my blog on security (here, here, here, here, here , and here) to bone up on how to be careful if you are a Mac owner. Some of those posts appear to be directed at Windows users, but you are now looking at the same issues, so you need to know how to act and what to look for.