Can my Mac get a virus from my iTouch?

So i just bought a Macbook pro 2 days ago, so im a total noob. My question is, since my itouch was last hooked up to my windows pc, which has a virus, if i were to now hook up that same itouch to my macbook, could my macbook get a virus?

Also
How do i put icons on the desktop (i cant just drag them from the bar to the desktop.)

To answer your first question, no it can not get a virus from a PC, as PC viruses don’t work on Macs, and I don’t think that iPod Touch’s can get viruses like that. There are not viruses that target Macs at all either, so no need to worry about viruses at all.

For your second question: What bar? What icons? Be a little more specific please.

What icons do you want to put on the Desktop, and for what purpose?

A virus that would actually infect a Windows PC will not infect your Mac. If it got on there, it's possible that you could pass it on however. But, are you also running Windows on your Mac? (I bet not, but thought I should ask.)

Printerman said:

There are not viruses that target Macs at all either, so no need to worry about viruses at all.

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That's not true, there is certainly malware that targets the Mac, but it's very rare and something you really don't need to worry about.

I said viruses, not malware. There is a difference, I will say that people these days do refer to malware as viruses, but I don’t.

Printerman said:

I said viruses, not malware. There is a difference, I will say that people these days do refer to malware as viruses, but I don’t.

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Your purposely being misleading and unhelpful. I'll ask you to stop, it's not at all a benefit to the people asking questions to give them obviously false answers simply because you want to try a prove an insignificant point.

I'm pretty sure the original post couldn't care less whether it's an actual virus, trojan, or other malware, his question is obviously generic.

schweb said:

Your purposely being misleading and unhelpful. I'll ask you to stop, it's not at all a benefit to the people asking questions to give them obviously false answers simply because you want to try a prove an insignificant point.

I'm pretty sure the original post couldn't care less whether it's an actual virus, trojan, or other malware, his question is obviously generic.

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Yea my question was generic. By virus i meant the broad category that usually comes to mind.

I wanted to just move some icons like firefox onto the desktop for easy access. Right now they are on the bar at the bottom (not sure what the technical name is)

Sorry schweb, but printerman is right.

A virus is a very specific thing. It has the ability to give itself admin privileges, and to replicate itself without the user's knowledge or permission.

Trojan horses and other non-virus malware cannot do this. Thus, they are different, less harmful and unable to replicate. The very definition of a virus is what makes the Mac immune from viruses, and extremely unlikely to ever get them.

This is why its IMPORTANT to distinguish viruses from other malware, *particularly* on the Mac.

It is "false and reckless" to imply that there are viruses on the Mac. There aren't.

It's quite right to be prudent against the risk (however small) of malware, but in not clarifying and educating switchers on the difference between viruses and malware, the "Macs get viruses" meme will grow and travel, potentially costing Apple billions of dollars in lost sales ... all because of some misinformation.

Ok Printerman and Chas...I've had this conversation with each of you before....

I know there is a technical difference between them.

But both of you continue to ignore the ultimate point every time I bring this up....do you honestly think that the original poster's intent was to basically say "can I get a virus and ONLY a virus because I used the term virus and that's ALL that I mean because I don't care about anything else?"

My point is that by ignoring the intent of the original poster's question simply so you can prove an elitist "I'm smarter about computers" type of point is what's wreckless and dangerous.

Printerman gave a blanket "no never" answer by only focusing on one small subset of what the poster was asking about. No further explanation like "No, viruses, but Macs do have very rare trojans, etc". If we left it at his answer alone, then that would have left the poster with a wreckless understanding of the truth.

So tell me chas...do you feel Printerman's original answer was the best one based on the intent of the post he was answering?

"Macs get viruses" meme will grow and travel, potentially costing Apple billions of dollars in lost sales ... all because of some misinformation.

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I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I'm not really worried about that. In all my time working with Macs and convincing countless people to switch and in the 7+ years I've been running this board, I have to say I can't even think of one time where someone switched only because Mac's didn't have viruses. I'm pretty sure Apple would be ok even if by answering the post based on the actual intent of the poster unleashed an endless meme of "Macs get viruses".

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer to actually be truly helpful to people who may not know the exact computer term to use when I can clearly understand the intent of what they're asking.

Yes sir, I honestly do. It is not my job to "interpret" a poster's "intent" or psychically "divine" their "personal definition" in a text-based medium. We have to go with what he actually wrote.

The question was "can my Mac get a virus from my PC via the iPod Touch?"

The answer is "no." Even if you expand the definition of "virus" to include non-viruses, the answer is still "no."

To go beyond that level of answer, in my very honest opinion (and after two decades of working with Mac clients including time at Apple itself), requires giving the WHOLE answer: a detailed, in-depth explanation. What's a virus, what is malware, how are they different, what EXACTLY is the risk and so forth.

Your own answer, with all due respect, was just as flippant as you perceive printerman's answer to be. Your post can easily be read as "printerman is wrong, you are at risk, but don't worry your pretty little head about it." Whereas printerman's answer is read as "no."

I know which one of those two answers I think is the better one. Unless you're prepared to go into the weeds with details, sometimes the concise reply is the "right" one.

(this is also known as the "Riker vs. Data" debate, btw)

Again I don't mean to be argumentative; but in a text-based medium, nuance and interpretation are very much in the eye of the beholder. I feel sincerely it is often best to answer the question literally and briefly. One can leave the door open for a follow-up if there is room for non-literal interpretation, of course, but on the whole the OP's first question was a yes-or-no question.

Chas, I was going ask if you worked professionally in the IT field, because your responses are what I would expect of someone who did. And that makes sense.

In this case we'll just need to agree to disagree.

I will continue to try and answer the intent of the common computer user's question, you can choose to answer to the literal word. The poster can decide which is actually more valuable to them.

I just know how frustrating it is to only get literal answers from IT when all you really want for them is to answer the question you're really trying to ask but don't know the exact right words to use.

But I do want to add, that i definitely am not trying to minimize your obviously robust knowledge of computing, or to minimize your contribution and your attempts to help people here...I think it's a very important thing you do and it's appreciated.

yadster101 said:

Yea my question was generic. By virus i meant the broad category that usually comes to mind.

I wanted to just move some icons like firefox onto the desktop for easy access. Right now they are on the bar at the bottom (not sure what the technical name is)

Click to expand...

The bar at the bottom is called the dock, that’s were all your applications go, you can not put an application icon on the desktop, Macs do not work like that.

The Desktop is for things like disks and files to go, much like a real desktop.

Printerman said:

The bar at the bottom is called the dock, that’s were all your applications go, you can not put an application icon on the desktop, Macs do not work like that.

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You are most definitely correct that the "dock" is a great place to launch applications from. As far as applications on the desktop...sure you can do this...I have lots of applications on my desktop and always have.

Maybe you meant that applications on the desktop are not the most organized or efficient way to do things...but having or placing applications on the desktop certainly can be done.

- Nick

I didn’t mean that, but have learned something today, thank you Nick!

You could also make an alias of your favorite applications and put those on the Desktop while leaving the actual applications in the, um, Applications Folder. I have a few app aliases on my Desktop, even a couple which I also have "docked".

pigoo3 said:

You are most definitely correct that the "dock" is a great place to launch applications from. As far as applications on the desktop...sure you can do this...I have lots of applications on my desktop and always have.

Maybe you meant that applications on the desktop are not the most organized or efficient way to do things...but having or placing applications on the desktop certainly can be done.

- Nick

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All true, but bear in mind that this is definitely NOT how Apple designed their system and some apps will not update or work properly if not located where they are supposed to be ... the Applications folder.

Also, putting gigs of data on your desktop slows down the machine.

I would suggest you replace all the actual Applications on your desktop with aliases of them, and put the real things back where they belong. You may notice (depending on how much stuff you have out on the desktop) a real pickup in launch times and general Finder performance.

schweb said:

In this case we'll just need to agree to disagree.

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No worries.

I will continue to try and answer the intent of the common computer user's question, you can choose to answer to the literal word.

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Believe me, I started out much more like you -- but found that I often MISinterpreted what they were looking for, so over time I've learned to keep the initial answer brief, but leave the door open for follow-ups in situations where more explanation might be helpful.

In part this is due to laziness -- why write a novel if a sentence will do the job? -- but in large part its been driven by actual feedback from posters.

But I do want to add, that i definitely am not trying to minimize your obviously robust knowledge of computing, or to minimize your contribution and your attempts to help people here...I think it's a very important thing you do and it's appreciated.

Click to expand...

Very much "right back at ya."