In a world of Windows, JOHN HARRIS looks longingly across the fence into the Mac patch.

Repairs on the run are part and parcel of keeping a modern operating system on the road.

This week, Apple announced that its second update for Mac OS X 10.6 – aka Snow Leopard – was available for download.

What caught my eye is that this “patch” is 473 megabytes in size – that’s a breath-taking half gigabyte just to update the Mac’s operating software.

For anyone on an entry-level Telstra broadband plan, paying $29.95 for a monthly data quota of 200MB, downloading that software update would chew up your allowance until the end of January!

Released in August, Snow Leopard is the latest iteration of Apple's OS X software, which provides the mark on the wall against which many are measuring the efficacy of Microsoft’s just-released Windows 7.

Across the hall, my colleague Mike O’Reilly is a long-time Mac aficionado who never tires of marveling at his machine’s Mac-nificence.

“When I bought my new Mac, I just plugged it in to the old one and it automatically copied across all my personal settings – how good is that?” he extolled recently, after buying one of Apple’s 24-inch computer-in-a-screen beauties.

A notable improvement of Apple’s 10.6.2 patch for Snow Leopard is that it fixes a problem that could permanently delete data created using a guest account.

The rest of the changes involve a myriad of arcane tweaks that will only interest hardcore fans like my mate Mike.

However, of particular interest is the claim that the patch marks Apple’s attack on the so-called Hackintoshes.

Hackintosh is the nickname for netbook computers equipped with Intel’s Atom processor which have been hacked to illegally run the MacOS X.

According to the OSXDaily website at http://osxdaily.com, Mac OS X 10.6.2, does not support Intel Atom processor.

Although this is no biggie for folks with Apple hardware – because no Macs use an Atom chip – 10.6.2 may be the end of the road for OS X updates if you’re using a hacked netbook.

While I’m on the subject of hacking, an industrious 21-year-old TAFE student from Wollongong has laid claim to the title of creator of the first virus to infect Apple iPhones.

Capable of spreading from phone to phone, the virus reportedly changes the iPhone's wallpaper to show a photo of singer Rick Astley - who had a hit in the 80s called Never Gonna Give You Up – displaying the words "Ikee is never gonna give you up".

The good news is that this version of the virus does not affect carrier-issued phones that have not been tampered with.

It can only infect iPhones that have been ‘jail-broken” (allowing users to run applications not approved by Apple). Vulnerable phones also need to be running a Unix utility called SSH (Secure Shell) with the iPhone's default password, "alpine," still in use.

So while most iPhone users don’t need to panic, it is an annoying sign of worse to come.

John Harris is managing director of Impress Media Australia. Email jharris@impress.com.au.

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