Is that why virus writers wrote the Witty Worm to infect all 12,000 of the vulnerable Windows PCs that had not updated their Black Ice Firewall—closing the vulnerability Witty used—six months before? Every single vulnerable computer was infected less than 45 minutes after Witty was released into the wild.
I suppose that sheer numbers of available targets was the reason hackers wrote viruses that attacked and infected 30,000 cellular phones? Was it also the reason crackers wrote viruses to infect the 200 or so iPods that had been converted to run on Linux?
These are all considered sufficiently large enough target populations to attack by malware writers with their viruses and malware, but 35,000,000 OS X Macs, running completely naked to the world without anti-malware, are not? Get real.
The fact is that on the internet, every computer is virtually next door to every other computer.
Incidentally, have you watched the BBC documentary "Six Degrees of Separation"? It is all about the new science of networking... and mapping the internet shows that EVERY website on the Internet is only 4 to 6 links from any other... and ergo, every computer is that close as well. It is an extremely interesting documentary. You can watch it HERE.
I can’t speak to the motivations of virus programmers - I suspect they vary, but it probably has something to do with gaining notoriety. What I do know is the success rate relates directly to the prevalence of the target and of the level of difficulty in creating an attack. Likewise the more ubiquitous a technology, the greater the odds of users discovering exploits. A particular brand/model cell phone may not be as common as a Mac, but maybe it’s very easy to hack? The sheer number of PC users alone dwarfs that of Mac users, and it’s not as if Apple’s market share is that of the power user/hacker anyway.
If the Apple/MacOS is as impregnable as you might think, you wouldn’t be able to download a hacked PC-ready version right now, and you wouldn’t be able to hack your iPhone to work with GSM providers other than AT&T.
There’s no question Mac’s closed architecture does lend itself a greater level of protection than open environments like the PC world. Since I know what I’m doing and know how to avoid most threats, I’d rather branch out, have a computer with a greater software compatibility list and more change in my pocket.