Apple fans everywhere must be cringing at the thought, but numbers compiled by Net Applications (the net statistics people) show that the Mac OS market share has fallen to 3.71% as of August, from a high of 4.55% last December. While the numbers were miniscule to begin with - as is the dip - the worry is that it's reversing the earlier trend that saw a growing interest in the Mac Operating System as an alternative to Windows.

The dominant OS in PCs today just so happens to be Windows XP, and it may stay that way for a while. However, the numbers may be rendered moot with both Apple and Microsoft launching the latest versions of their respective operating systems, OS X (a.k.a. Leopard) and Windows Vista, but the numbers do send a clear signal to Apple's accounting and advertising arms: hope that their MacAd campaign pays off big-time.