I am reminded that I probably said something of this sort three months ago, but here it is again: Before Apple released its quarterly financials Wednesday afternoon, those Wall Street analysts were suggesting that Mac sales would be up, but that iPod sales would be stagnant or take a dive. Once again, their crystal ball or star gazing has, unfortunately, turned up empty.

Or they pretending to be psychics or analysts? Yes, these are the very people on whom you depend for accurate investment information, so you can get an idea of how a company is performing, or is likely to perform in the future. But when it comes to Apple, they are almost always wrong.

This time out, Apple reported total revenue of $4.84 billion for the quarter ending September 30th, with a net profit of $546 million, or 62 cents per diluted share. Those so-called analysts were talking in terms of $4.67 billion revenue, with earnings of 51 cents per diluted share.

As far as iPod sales are concerned, some 8.73 million were sold, an increase of 35 percent over last year. Not too shabby, and with new models on hand, except for the iPod shuffle that’s now due later this month, the Christmas quarter may deliver stellar sales, but I’ll get to that shortly.

If you want to explore all the financial information unvarnished, you’ll want to check out the data posted at Apple’s site. Unlike some commentators, I’m not going to simply regurgitate all the raw figures here. I have other things to say, but I will refer to some significant numbers here and there.

The first important piece of information is that Mac sales have reached record proportions, totaling 1.61 million units. Of that, some 624,000 desktops were sold, but notebooks had a breakout quarter, with 986,000 units sold, or 61 percent of the total. Despite some teething pains, it’s clear that the MacBook represented a large part of this figure. But to really appreciate how well Apple is doing, consider that notebook sales alone are larger than the total sales of new Macs in some quarters not so very long ago.

All this has apparently boosted Apple’s U.S. market share big time, and it’s now reported at 6.1 percent according to one survey. Back in the early 1990s, before Apple took its big fall versus Microsoft, the figures were in the 9 percent range, but they’re existing in a much bigger environment now.

The Apple Store now has 165 branches, and it’s reported that over 50 percent of the folks buying new Macs at these outlets are new to the platform. The retail chain is clearly one of the big factors in boosting Apple’s market share, and I have no doubt those always-amusing “Get a Mac” ads are contributing to the growing public interest in the platform.

But this doesn’t mean everything is coming up roses. Few are guessing just how Microsoft’s forthcoming Zune music player might affect Christmas sales of the iPod, or whether it will have any noticeable impact at all. But the best estimates, such as they are, have it that Microsoft’s partners in its “PlaysForSure” DRM program will suffer the most. However, with its player less than a month from its scheduled release date, Microsoft is still pretty much talking up other products at its site. Talk about building demand — or not!

In passing, I don’t really think that the problem with a Windows virus shipping on a small number of iPods will have much impact after a few days of negative publicity. It was caught early enough to keep it from hurting too many PC owners. Apple claims it got only 25 reports so far.

It does seem certain, though, that with Windows Vista shuttled off to a delivery date in early 2007, Apple has a pretty clear path to grow Mac sales even further this quarter. But when Vista nears delivery, Microsoft will be rolling out a huge marketing campaign. Will Apple decide to go toe-to-toe, or just let Microsoft do its thing? A big question, but with over $10 billion in the bank, Apple can certainly afford to open up the ad spigots big time and make sure its message is not drowned out.

While some are suggesting Apple is going to really boost the stakes by releasing Mac OS 10.5 Leopard at the January 2007 Macworld Expo in San Francisco, or shortly thereafter, there’s little indication it’ll be ready by then. Not that I always believe rumor sites, mind you, but that would seem quite premature. I personally think it might come out in late March, on the sixth anniversary of the original release of Mac OS X in 2001. That would be in keeping with the spring dateline.

For now, Apple’s stockholders have to be happy, even if things will have to be adjusted somewhat in light of that backdating stock options probe. As for those Wall Street analysts that got it wrong once again, they will, I suppose, just try, try again.

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It’s taken 22 years, but being a Mac user no longer carries the baggage it used to carry. Back in the old days, when I went into an electronics store and asked about a Mac product, I was told that nobody uses those things, there’s no software for it, and wouldn’t I prefer a “real” computer?

Understand that I didn’t argue with those people. It wasn’t worth it, so I just went elsewhere, or looked to a mail order source for the products I needed. But I silently smiled, because I knew I could do things other personal computer users couldn’t. Take the time I wanted to chat on a BBS with a colleague. I just launched my telecommunications software, and in those days I used an application called Microphone, for which I still have one of the developer’s T-shirts. My colleague, who bought a PC, said he had to create a “shell” to perform that function.

Well, I waited and waited and he never seemed to be able to get it to work. Not to embarrass him, I decided not to bring up the subject. No sense rubbing a sore wound.

This doesn’t mean I never used a PC. I had to remain conversant with that platform too, and I was able to navigate in DOS and later in the first primitive versions of Windows with reasonable flexibility. Sometimes it was fun to get involved in the down and dirty aspects of a computer’s operations, but I also had to get work done, so I returned to the Mac.

When Apple really hit the skids in the mid-1990s, I persevered. I remember buying the Power Mac 9500, a beast of a computer, and enduring endless crashes from day one. They were far worse than I ever encountered previously, but an operating system update cured some of the worst ills. I even had one or two of those infamous Mac OS clones, from a company known as Power Computing.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple and started to pull the plug on cloning, I remember visiting Power Computing’s booth at a Macworld Expo. The company’s executives and helpers were all decked out in military fatigues, ready to fight back to preserve their right to build their cheap clones. But you don’t fight Jobs when he’s hopping mad about something, so they caved pretty quickly, and Apple bought them out. Along the line, they acquired Power’s advanced online sales system, and I gather some of this technology formed the basis of the online Apple store.

Over the next few years, I felt that it was time to accept the fact that Apple’s products would be forever consigned to niche status, and I might as well not worry about it. So long as Macs remained productive tools for my work, I’d use them, and I’d move on to something better should it come along.

I suppose I saw the first changes with the arrival of the iPod, only I couldn’t imagine that a little music player heralded the beginnings of the end of the Mac user’s bunker mentality, and the start of a brave new world where almost everyone takes Apple seriously.

These days, the surveys show that Apple’s decision to move to Intel processors has had a far greater effect than making it possible to get faster, cooler-running processors in decent quantities. More and more people are seriously considering a Mac for their next computer purchase. I suppose those “Mac Versus PC” TV ads are helping to some degree. You even want to stop the TiVo as it fast forwards through a bunch of commercials to watch them a time or two. Amazing!

Yes, the vast majority of personal computer purchases are for Windows products. But when I suggest a Mac to somebody, I’m no longer looked upon as a beady-eyed fanatic, well, at least less than usual. They actually take me seriously, and I don’t have to sound defensive as I deliver the proper talking points to cement my case.

Some of these people even follow my suggestions and buy one, or two. Apple is claiming that some 50% of the people buying Macs at its retail outlets are switchers, and as those stores proliferate around the civilized world, it’s quite possible those numbers will grow.

I write this in advance of Apple’s latest quarterly results, and I’ll write about them in my next commentary. But nothing about Apple’s newfound popularity will surprise me.

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When I interviewed Symantec’s Mike Romo about its latest Mac security software, Norton Confidential, I had to wonder whether the product made any sense. The new application, which apparently shipped simultaneously on the Windows platform, offers four key features that are designed to protect you against phishing, loss or tampering of valuable files and information and invasions by network intruders.

The first is probably the most significant, as it impacts the next two. Here things get a little strange, for you see, the first version ships as essentially a plugin for Firefox; Safari compatibility will come later. As you might have heard, version 2.0 of Firefox, now available in final candidate form, already has phishing protection.

I suppose Symantec might argue that its protection algorithms are more powerful, and perhaps updated more regularly. On the other hand, if you are careful about responding to fake messages pretending to be from financial institutions that ask you to reenter your account information to preserve your account, you’ll probably be safe anyway. As to network intrusions, wouldn’t those regular security updates from Apple and using a firewall be sufficient? I’m wondering.

So I’m on the fence about Norton Confidential right now, though I suppose extra protection is never a bad thing. However, version 1.0 appears to have caused at least one kernel panic on my Power Mac G5 quad, and I also noticed a small loss in Internet bandwidth, which can grow more severe if you add every single protection option.

All this raises the larger question of whether you really need third party security protection on your Mac. With the recent growth of the platform, some tech writers, and certainly the makers of security software, are claiming that Mac OS X is apt to become a more compelling target for malware any minute now. So far, except for some proofs of concept, and perhaps one infection that impacted a very small number of users, there hasn’t been a real Mac virus in years, not since the Classic Mac OS was around.

Certainly, the Mac is not an invisible platform, despite a worldwide market share in the single digits. There are, for example, roughly twenty million Mac OS X users out there. A major virus infection can certainly cause plenty of havoc. Surely that’s a large enough market to attract some attention, and wouldn’t an Internet criminal want to be the first to create that virus and see it spread far and wide?

Or maybe they just like Apple and hate Microsoft, which is why the latter gets almost all the attention.

Although Consumer Reports magazine continues to gloss over the fact, every single penny of the billions of dollars lost from computer malware in recent years occurred on the Windows platform. In fact, there are already reports of intrusions on Windows Vista, which hasn’t even been released yet. Sure, there may be a few million beta testers, but that’s still far less than the Mac’s user base.

True, Mac OS X is built upon a tried and tested Unix core, so it’s fair to say that the system is locked down in a more robust fashion than Windows. In fact, Microsoft has claimed that it created Windows Vista with superior security in mind, and that may be true, although that isn’t stopping Microsoft from touting its own security software package to protect you from the slings and arrows of the Internet.

However, no computing platform is immune. While it’s hard to justify using Mac malware protection software right now, except to keep you from spreading Windows viruses by email to unwary friends and family members, bad things might indeed happen some day.

The other night, I talked about Mac security with long-time tech talk show host Craig Crossman, on his nationally-syndicated Computer America radio show. He said he didn’t use any virus protection. And the guest for the second hour of that broadcast, best-selling Mac author Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus, said the very same thing.

I take a somewhat more obsessive/compulsive approach. My Power Mac remains unprotected, except for Mac OS X’s built-in firewall, and the intrusion protection afforded by my wireless router. My MacBook Pro, however, indeed has a virus package installed, since it travels a lot. Perhaps that’s a bit of overkill, but I’m prepared to extend that protection to my desktop computer the moment the situation changes.

For now, I’m just watching and hoping things won’t get worse any time soon.

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