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Well because it only runs (legally, a generic PC version is available online) on Apple hardware.

Is that the only reason? People buy new computers all the time, and most computers sold cost (excluding the monitor) more than $600. So people could buy a Mac Mini and have OS X if they really wanted to. The fact that Apple's marketshare -- i.e. not the installed base, but their share of current sales -- has remained below 5% suggests that most people just don't want to switch.

Well they try, but it's difficult, if I was a hacker I would be glad to get a "name" for being the first one that did. Market share has something to do with not many people having access to Mac OS X to write viruses too. I'll admit that.

Most viruses in Windows are pretty trivial. Back in the day, they were Word macro viruses; now, they're either Outlook [Express] viruses, or just "human security holes". Most of Kevin Mitnick's "hacks" were just getting people to tell him his password. Similarly, the easiest way to write a "virus" on Windows is to include an attachment in an email; once someone's opened it, your program has free reign.

Here's one for you. What if I wrote a program that pretended to be a "fun arcade game", which came with an installer, and then the installer asked for your password on installation (like many programs do), except the password dialog was actually a trojan horse that recorded your password and used it to do malicious things to your computer?

There's nothing that an OS could possibly do about that. In this particular case, you could use the old NT strategy and require people to press Ctrl-Alt-Del or some other system-reserved key sequence, but the point is the same: if a user with local, privileged access isn't paying attention, no system can protect them.

Mac OS x is getting more popular and more exploits have been discovered and get patched quickly, but so far no viruses because the OS has certain compartmentialized (sic) security if you reseach more about it. Mac OS X is a new OS that addresses fundamental flaws that occurs in Windows that makes it so insecure. There are bugs, but there isn't any structural flaws that can't be fixed like Windows has.

Do you mean the fact that OS X users don't tend to login as root, and so have to authenticate themselves before doing anything that requires privileges? It's certainly true that programs have to request permission before they can do anything destructive (although they could wipe out your entire Documents folder without asking for your password -- which for most people would be a bigger loss than the OS), but that isn't compartmentalized so much as effective use of sudo.

As far as exploits go, any program written in assembler or a language that uses C strings and arrays (i.e. C, C++, and Obj-C not counting NSString) will always have the potential for exploits. Get rid of C-style (dumb) arrays, and you've gotten rid of buffer overflows.

Clearly, in this respect, Unix and its brethren (OS X included) can't do much better than Windows, although it can't do much worse either. You want a secure operating system? Write it in Cyclone: http://cyclone.thelanguage.org/ . That's security for you.

How many apps does one need? Really, think about it. Sure when it comes to games, Windows has the advantage. Because Apple never created a cheap gamers box.

Not many, but if again, if the one app you need is for Windows -- or, hell, if you just own a lot of Windows software that you don't want to repurchase -- then OS X won't do you an good.

Depends if it will run under Virtual PC or not, now with Apple's "BootCamp" if there is a piece of Windows software it can be run, in the malware Windows if necessary.

With either Virtual PC or BootCamp, you still have to buy a copy of Windows. We're talking serious money here, considering that a standalone version of Windows costs $200 for Home, and that's not even counting the possible Virtual PC price. My entire computer cost less than that...

I have fummed at Apple before because they haven't checked their code enough to make sure the bugs didn't make it into the world. But it's immensly more secure than Windows will ever be because Microsoft understands the world wants insecure computers.

Even if this statement made sense, which it doesn't, you haven't given any evidence. You haven't seen the source code for either OS X or Windows, and neither have I. Anything we say about it would just be an educated guess.

What I can say (and have said) is that buffer overflows are common in any OS/program written in a language with C arrays, and that any user who has privileged local access to a system can fall prey to a human-level virus. Both of those statements apply equally to Windows, OS X, Linux, and in fact almost any OS I can think of. (btw, if anyone knows an OS written in something besides machine/assembler/C/C++, can you let me know? no, NT doesn't count)

And my real point still remains, which is that even if OS X is better than Windows, it isn't so much better that people would pay a premium for a Mac -- and pay for Windows and/or new versions of programs they already own -- except that they are also buying into an image. There will always be a market for that, but for the same reason that BMW drivers use the same roads and gas tanks as everyone else, I have every reason to believe that, without Steve Jobs at the helm, Apple will finish standardizing its platform too.

Is that the only reason? People buy new computers all the time, and most computers sold cost (excluding the monitor) more than $600

You should get a job selling PC's for a month so you can see how completely wrong you are. I worked for Dell (worst job ever btw) at a inbound call center for home sales... Probably 9 out of every 10 callers wanted the $399 computer and if you pulled teeth you may be able to get them up to $500. Now the average price of a computer may be higher because when someone comes in not wanting $399 they generally drop a lot of money on a nice set up.