Apple has delayed the requirement for all apps in the Mac App Store to be sandboxed till March 01, 2012. The original date is November 1, apparently there are issues preventing the enforcement. This is a relief for developers with apps in the Mac App Store, most are rushing to change their apps in order to meet the sandbox requirement.

When an app is sandboxed, it is more secure to the users as the app is limited on what it can access on the Mac. This is similar to the sandboxed environment of iOS. By limiting access to system resources, app also is limited to what it can do. This is especially apparent for utilities apps which most often than not are manipulating system resources. Certain type of system access is forbidden under sandbox, thus we might see a number of existing Mac App Store apps drop out after March next year.

Sanbox requirement applies to apps on the Mac App Store. For apps that you downloaded or install via disc, it is still the same open world as before.

Mac Pro is the only Mac left that has not been upgraded this year. The last Mac Pro update is August 2010. One reason cited for the delay is the lack of a suitable Sandy Bridge Xeon Intel processor, which is said to debut only in earlier 2012. There is also wild speculation at the moment of Apple “rethinking” their Mac Pro line.

Desktop Mac currently consists of Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro. With desktop range of Mac declining in sales in favor of notebook Mac,  there is a possibility that Apple might cancel it’s Mac Pro line, in the footstep of Xserve server line which was canceled end January this year. The truth is, Mac Pro is a very niche workstation class of computer, its sales number might not justify its attention for resource inside Apple.

We are hoping Apple will keep the Mac Pro line, with a brand new case design. A case that is smaller than the current one, and is convertible to be rack-mountable. But we see Apple shifting to be more and more focus on the consumer market, and will not be surprised if the end of Mac Pro is announced.

New in OS X Lion’s Finder is the ability to quickly group items into a folder. You can select multiple items (file or folder) under a Finder window or on the Desktop, right click for the menu and select “New Folder with Selection”. This saves the one step of creating a folder first and dragging the items into it.

Apps that are installed into the system folder “Applications” will appear in Launchpad. This include apps from the Mac App Store.

To remove the apps from appearing in Launchpad, you have to remove the app. There is no way to hide an app installed into ”Applications” from appearing in Launchpad.

To remove the app, simply remove it from the “Applications” folder. To remove the app from within Launchpad, click and hold on the app icon until you see all icons jiggle. The click on the “x” button on the app icon to delete the app. Mac App Store apps that are deleted can be easily reinstall from Mac App Store under the “Purchases” tab.

If you have too many apps, one way to organize the Launchpad is to make use of folder. For example, create a folder to keep apps that you seldom use. To create a folder in Launchpad, simply drag an app icon into another app icon. A folder will then be created that houses the two apps.

With the introduction of iOS 5 and iCloud, it is possible to use your iPhone and iPad without owning a Mac or PC. In iOS 5, a number of features are introduced to fulfill the “Post PC” era of iDevices.

Activate from within device. Instead of having to plug your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad into an iTunes running Mac or PC to activate the device, iOS 5 allows you to activate directly from within the device.

OTA (Over-The-Air) Software Update. OTA Software Update will make it possible to update iOS system software wirelessly. When Apple release a new update let say iOS 5.1, just go to Settings > Software Update to upgrade. No iTunes and Mac/PC required. Apple implements delta update mechanism. Instead of the whole iOS, you only download what’s changed, which significantly reduced the size of the update.

Purchased apps, music and books in the cloud. Apps, music and books that you purchased from the iTunes store are now in iCloud. You can re-download them into your iDevice without relying on iTunes backup.

Backup to iCloud. When you enable backup to iCloud, it backs up daily over Wi-Fi your photos and video in the camera roll, device settings, app data, home screen and app organization, ringtones and text/MMS messages. This backup can be used to restore your phone data and settings such as when changing a new phone.

OS X Lion has absorbed some user interface idea from iOS. Disk storage info is one example. In OS X Lion, the system info for storage now lists usage grouped by Audio, Movies, Photos, Apps, Backups and Other. To access this info, from the  system menu, select “About This Mac”. Click on the button “More Info…” and select the tab “Storage”.

The four corners of screen in OS X can be setup to be active “Hot Corners”, which will carry out defined task when the cursor is moved into a corner. To configure Hot Corners, open System Preferences and look under Mission Control.

Click on the button “Hot Corners…” at left-bottom of window, which will bring up the setup pane for the four active screen corners.

Select the task you would like to be activated when the cursor is moved into a particular corner. Click “Ok” button to save the settings. As an example, in the above screenshot, the left-top corner is defined for “Mission Control”. When you move the cursor to the left-top corner of the screen, Mission Control will be run. Test it out. You might prefer this way of activating Mission Control or Launchpad instead of using keyboard shortcut or the trackpad.

Reminders is a useful new todo app in iOS 5 with its location aware alerts and iCloud support. You can view your reminders on all iOS devices and on Mac OS X Lion.

There is no Reminders app for OS X Lion. Instead Apple has taken the todo lists found inside the old iCal and change it to be Reminders. It is not so obvious at first as Reminders by default is not shown on iCal’s main window.

In order to view the same Reminders as in your iOS devices, you need to enable iCloud on OS X Lion. This feature is not available on OS X Snow Leopard as OS X Lion is the minimum OS X for iCloud.

Next, under System Preferences->iCloud, check the “Calendars” to enable iCloud sync. And wait for a moment for the sync to complete.

To view Reminders on iCal, select from menu View->View Reminders or toggle Reminders on/off using Option Command T. Reminders will appear as a right side pane on the main iCal window.

To create a reminder, right click on the Reminders pane for a popup menu and select “New Reminder”. Or press the Command-K key. Check off reminder by clicking on the checkbox. Command-Delete to remove reminder. And double click on a reminder to bring up the edit window.

With the launch of iCloud, many native apps in iOS and OS X are updated to support the latest cloud service from Apple. Apple iOS apps such as Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are updated as well. Notable missing is an update to Pages, Keynote and Numbers on the Mac to support iCloud.

It is inevitable that Pages, Keynote and Numbers on the Mac will eventually support iCloud. This is just a delay. And we suspect that brand new version of Pages, Keynote and Numbers for Mac is looming on the horizon.

Apple probably just had its greatest software updates in its history. For the past 2 days, Apple software relating to iOS 5 and iCloud are updated, together with few new apps. Here are the list:

• iOS 5
• OS X Lion 10.7.2
• OS X Lion Recovery Update
• iCloud & iCloud.com website (new)
• Safari 5.1.1
• iTunes 10.5
• Apple TV 4.4
• Updates to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS
• Updates to Remote, iMovie, Find My iPhone for iOS
• iPhoto 9.2
• Aperture 3.2
• iCloud Control Panel for Windows (new)
• Cards app for iOS (new)
• iTunes Movie Trailers app for iOS  (new, US only)
• Find my Friends app for iOS (new)
• AirPort Setup utility app for iOS (new)
• XCode 4.2