Mac haters rejoice!

The stunning Apple Store Covent Garden. Photo / Supplied

What does an Apple geek do on arrival in London? Go to the nearest Apple Store, of course.

Actually, I did have other motives. My great grandfather, Castellano by surname, apparently had a grocer's stall here in the early part of last century. There were so many grocers, often Italian in origin (although we're not sure about ours), this is partly where the 'garden' appellation comes from; well, kind of - the market formed around the abundant gardens of the Abbey, aka the 'Convent' which became 'Covent' in that immutable British fashion where you see one thing and say another.

Whatever. Arthur Castellano apparently sold from a stall in the covered market in the main square, right opposite from where the Apple Store now is. The covering for the market was built in 1830, partly to reinvigorate the grocery sales in a bid to tone down the bawdy nature that had become of the area, by then full of notorious prostitutes. But last century, the vegetables moved out and the tourist stalls moved in - the area is quite different today, and considered pretty flash all round.

And right across from the ex-covered vegetable stand is the Covent Garden Apple Store, opened in 2010.

It's big, light, flash - and friendly. In fact, it seemed that about a third of the people there were employees, going by the amount of people in blue Apple shirts. I guess Apple can support this kind of retail staffing in the light of the margins they can make selling their own products. I went in and was immediately spotted by a blue-shirt who asked if I needed any assistance. I asked where I could get a micro-sim for my iPhone so I could go on a UK pricing plan instead of paying NZ data charges, and she directed me to Oxford St, an interesting 15 minute walk away.

Turns out she has 'in-laws' in Christchurch.

I went back into the Apple Store later in the day and they said they didn't have the new iMacs on display yet - but they did have them in stock already if I wanted to buy one. Now, this was on the day of the announcement.

Well, I did (they sound great) and I didn't. I'm travelling. And I don't need one ... And I don't have the money.

The shop was open, light, well laid out and very friendly. As one of the Apple employees said, "Do you have Apple Stores in New Zealand? No? It's gotta happen, right?"

Yeah, right.

But yes please, if they're all like this! I have to think, it wouldn't have been this slick in my great grandfather's grocer's stall that was around here in the early part of last century. And while he most likely sold Apples and even the occasional Blackberries, I'm sure he never sold Androids.

At the O2 shop, changing to a pre-pay (or 'pay as you go' as it's called here) took 2-4 minutes, once again with very friendly, helpful service. Although the guy ahead of me, an Australian, was annoyed his iPhone turned out to be locked against a sim change, even though he'd bought it, he said, as a unit and not with a plan. He was upset, but there were phone 'unlockers' advertised all over the place in the street outside.

Quite why mine, bought at a Vodafone NZ shop with a plan, wasn't locked I have no idea, but I'm pleased it was so easy.

The iPhone has been indispensable with the maps function. I've never been lost. Well, I have, but the iPhone hasn't. The Maps app is super useful when you touch the locator arrow to get the compass function so you can orient yourself in London's milling vastness. If you use the Directions function, it estimates the minutes to a destination - this is a good indicator of whether you should dive into the underground or not. Often the stops are really close to each other, as many who have been to London will know. Sometimes (especially in this ridiculous 23-24° heat! where am I, again?) it's better to leg it from one place to another than dive down into the muggy, crowded (at peak hours) underground to get from A to B.

Also, type in a word like 'tesco' or 'museum' and it does a frighteningly good job of finding things near you.

The free London Tube Map app has also been a godsend.

I'm sure this stuff is all available on Android and whatever; but boy, have I seen a lot of iPhones here! They don't work in the Tube once the train goes underground - no cell phones do - but load up some news like The Independent by Missing Ink Studios and read the loaded news at your leisure.

This app is free, too, and I was already reading it in New Zealand. It's good to know what the people around you know. I like the World section, and being able to 'tick' whole selections as 'read' by pressing the tick icon at lower right is handy, since the Sport section looks extremely similar to the Football section.

But now for the bad news. While in Ealing chasing family records, I spoke to Graham Cluley at Sophos by phone. Sophos is an English-based antivirus company, Mac and PC.

He's the Senior Technology Consultant. I pointed out that when Macs were at 12% of PCs in New Zealand in about 1990, there were loads of viruses. If they've reached over 11% again, in NZ, with similar changes elsewhere, it's kind of inevitable Macs have finally have reached the malware tipping point.

Yes, folks, it's true. Mac haters rejoice! As there's finally real Mac malware, and it's out in the wild. And people are really getting it.

Clever and devious (aren't they all?), this masquerades as free Mac antivirus software. So you hear there's a virus on blogs like this, and you go looking for Mac antivirus for free, and you download the actual virus instead, in the form of 'Mac Defender', or, more recently (just days after it was discovered), 'Mac Security'.

Graham said that he's really noticed the rise of Apple Macs in the UK, particularly amongst students (with MacBooks) and, curiously, among security professionals.

"About three years ago, at conferences, I realised that most of the laptops people were toting were Macs. That's a huge change! I myself converted the house computers to Macs at about that time." This was partly for security, natch.

He pointed out that the Mac Defender isn't so much a virus as a Trojan. "People go looking for it, and choose to install it under false pretences. This is the same phenomenon as in the PC world."

Anyway, you can deal with it. Here's the legit, free, real anti-virus that will deal with any inadvertent installs of Mac malware - it's by Sophos.

And I will talk a lot more about this, but next week, as I get a tour of the Sophos lab in Oxford. How timely is that?!

Right, off to the greasy spoon ...

- Mark Webster mac-nz.com