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Net Applications' latest survey numbers are out and they show that Apple's market share has dipped slightly to 4.33 percent. The company's cumulative share—the number of PPC and Mactel users—hit a high last December when the faithful accounted for 4.35 percent of those measured.

While this slight dip may not seem to be a cause for concern to most observers, the fact that Mac usage was steadily growing until this year's stagnation may be indicative of larger Apple problems. iPod sales peaked at over 12 million units for the 4th quarter of 2005, but have stumbled to 8.5 million and 8.1 million units the most recent two quarters.

Net Applications numbers show that 0.62-percent of those measured are running Mactel hardware and that a further 3.71 percent use legacy PPC kit for a cumulative share of 4.33 percent.

Meanwhile, users of Apple's Safari account for 3.21 percent of those measured and non-Microsoft browsers are together reckoned to figure at nearly 17 percent of the market.

Editor's note: Why are people so keen to foretell Apple's doom? Honestly, they are talking FUD and I don't mean Elmer...