The winds of change can certainly be cruel at times.  Just yesterday Apple was the market darling, posting record-breaking quarters every three months and staging a comeback that many speculated could put it on level ground with Windows based PCs.  However, those times have changed and Mac sales have been slipping, as the same high prices that made Apple such huge profits have come back to bite the company.  With consumer budgets tighter than ever, fewer are able to afford luxury items like Apple computers.

The latest sign of Apple's fall from consumer grace comes in Net Applications' latest internet survey.  After a couple years of relatively steady growth Net Applications found that Apple's web marketshare actually fell in February.

February saw Apple's marketshare dip from 9.93 percent in January to 9.61 percent, a 3.2 percent fall.  A second set of data places Apple's share down to 9.71 percent, again showing a dip.  While these dips are certainly not bad enough to be considered a sign that customers are entirely forsaking Apple, they continue a disturbing trend for the company. 

For the month Windows climbed slightly to 88.42 percent of the browsing market.  Linux, though, posted the biggest growth, climbing nearly 6 percent to 0.88 percent.  While still a bit player, customers may be turning to Linux due to its lower pricing compared to Windows and OS X, and the fact that it comes packaged in some netbooks.

Apple does have one ace up its sleeve -- the iPhone.  The iPhone has continued to sell well despite the recession.  In the recent net survey, 66.61 percent of mobile searches were made on an iPhone.

The Net Applications survey collected data from 160 million visits to websites which it works with to collect data.  The research firm traditionally calls the percentage of these visits from a particular OS, that OS's "net marketshare".  While it’s important to remember that this is different from revenue or unit sales-based marketshare, it does provide a useful thermometer to gauge market trends.

Apple recently announced a new lineup of desktops, including some lower price models which it hopes will reinvigorate sales.  However some have complained that it has also raised the price on some of its high end models and still lags behind the competition in terms of hardware at a given price point.