@ Iang,

"but what is the point, exactly?"

Is a very reasonable question to ask, but not so easy to answer :-)

The issue of Apple and securit can be viewed from many angles, your "shareholder value" is very valid short term, but what about market perspective in the long term?

You could view Microsoft as "first to market" and thus you would expect them to fall foul of the "leading edge is the bleeding edge" issue thus some of their sins are forgivable as (supposadly) nobody knew any better...

But Apple is not actually a market inovator in OS design nor is it particularly pushing any bounderies or steping on virgin soil in the field of development, thus to repeat the sins of Microsoft and others is not realy forgivable in the same way (ie they should have known better).

Apple's focus has been on "user experiance" and they have done remarkably well. Their market share may not have changed much over the past few years but the market size has grown so they are atleast doing as well as everybody else. They have also survived ditching their entrenched hardware platform (power PC) and jumping on the Intel platform. Which a number of people predicted (incorectly) would be Apple's demise (although if you think back Apple has changed architecture before it was once 6502 and went to 68K then to Power PC so they had some experiance in this ;)

Many people believe (I think incorrectly) that malware writers are more or less ignoring the Apple OS as long as it stays below some magic market share. Personaly I think the pundits are using the wrong indicator and actuall market size not share will define the tipping point.

That is as long as Apple's "bums on seats" numbers rise they will become of interest to Malware wrighters.

I further belive that Apple's market size is getting close to a tipping point where Malware writers will find it easier to change platform rather than to
stretch their necks steadily higher trying to find the next level of low hanging fruit.

So my point is if Apple really are about "user expeiance" they cannot afford to seriously blot their copybook over Maleware, and they need to address the issue now not Ignore it.

As you note Apple are not known for "talking up future product" whilst current inventory is still gracing their shelves. So we will have to observe carefully to see what trends they react to.

However Malware is also moving away from direct OS vectors to application software which is just sitting a users finger skin under the "user experiance'. So this is an area Apple must also realy get a grip on soon otherwise their loyal fanbase will be sorely tempted to up sticks on. Apple.