The delay itself has been greeted with mostly positive reactions from developers, who are thankful for the additional time to adapt to this new approach even if they are still anxious about the long-term implications. Chris Foresman wrote a great summary of sandboxing, Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software covered some of the issues that face developers of Mac software, and Manton Reece, developer of Clipstart, explained why he is dropping out of the Mac App Store to avoid sandboxing entirely. Most discussion of sandboxing has focused on the security implications of the new approach. However, I think that Apple may be playing a long game here that goes far beyond incremental improvements to the security of OS X.

Sandboxing: Security is not the end game

I don’t mean to imply that security is not an important consideration. It is. The problem is that sandboxing is only partially effective as a technique to improve security simply because outright malicious software won’t use it anyway. Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster wrote an excellent essay on the limitations of sandboxing as a security measure. Gatekeeper is likely to be s more effective security measure. So if sandboxing is not the last word on the future security of the Mac platform, what else might be going on?

What use could there be for a shift in programming conventions that requires apps to assume that all their files and settings are held in their own isolated container? That requires developers to carefully document when, where and why they need to reach out of their sandbox. That puts the OS in charge of allowing apps to access shared resources instead of unfettered access to the whole filesystem. What use is there in breaking long-held traditions of using arbitrary file access to enable shared settings? Why remove the ability to talk to other apps through Apple events?

It is not a far stretch to consider that this shift in approach might have a connection to Apple’s long-term plans to make iCloud the center of their strategy for the next decade. Apple intends for developers to move away from reliance on direct access to all of the nooks and crannies of the local filesystem on the computer and instead package up their files using the container approach. Self-contained sandboxes are more easily copied and moved between machines and are easier to back up. More and more, applications interact with online services across multiple devices. If your digital “stuff” is strewn about the cloud and across a couple of Macs (work, home, desktop, laptop) as well as multiple mobile devices like your iPhone and iPad, a dotfile on your computer might not be the best place to store settings anyway. Sandboxing could be a step towards abstracting away the local filesystem in favor of cloud-based storage.

The long game of sandboxing

While we don’t have answers now, there are a few areas to pay close attention to over the coming months as Mountain Lion moves closer to release and iOS is updated as expected later this year. (WWDC this summer will be interesting.)

The first feature to watch is entitlements, which are the list of permitted actions apps are allowed to perform from within the sandbox. Apple has expanded them a bit in Lion 10.7.3, but developers would like more. Daniel Jalkut thinks it is urgent that Apple address the current scope of entitlements. “The number one broken thing about sandboxing as it stands today, is the list of entitlements is simply too limited.” Further refinement of the available entitlements is likely, but it will be more interesting to watch where Apple expands the access granted to sandboxed apps. Will there be more direct access to places in the filesystem? More access to hardware features like serial ports? Or just more refinement to the iCloud APIs? Entitlements will be a clear indication of Apple loosening up on app restrictions or sticking to their guns.

The second area to watch is to see what Apple will do to explain sandboxing to users. If this is truly a security-focused measure, I would expect to see more prompts in OS X about what applications are asking to do (or which entitlements they have requested). If sandboxing isn’t meant to keep users better informed on what apps can and can’t do, then I would suspect that sandboxing is more about corralling developers to interact with the system in ways that can be abstracted or redirected to iCloud.

The big question in my mind, is what will be done with inter-process communication? URL schemes, as we have in iOS, are certainly much more limited than Apple events, even with call-backs. However, URL schemes also provide an abstraction where they could be made to work in different contexts, such as on a computer, on an iPhone or in a web app. Surely, something else is coming to meet the need for automation, workflow scripting and sharing between apps if the Apple events system is being phased out. This will be a key area to watch over the next few months to see where the wind blows out of Cupertino.

I can’t shake the feeling that sandboxing is part of a much bigger play by Apple and that it connects to their strategy for iCloud. While all we can do at the moment is speculate, I feel certain that developers that can suss out the larger meaning here and see a few steps ahead of the rest of us have a real opportunity. We saw companies that pulled ahead of the pack with the first generation of mobile, connected, and social apps for the App Store. There is a similar opportunity here with sandboxing and iCloud to try and skate to where Apple is looking to send the puck, to borrow a phrase from Wayne Gretzky, instead of simply complaining that the puck is not where it’s been.

Tea leaves thumbnail used courtesy of Flickr user xJason.Rogersx

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According to the story, when a user grants permission to a downloaded app to use the device’s current location, that doesn’t give them permission to access just location, but also the photo library. The Times had a developer create an app called PhotoSpy to test this theory, and it reportedly worked: the app could upload user’s photos, which had been geotagged, giving information to the app about where the photos were taken and when:

When the “PhotoSpy” app was started up, it asked for access to location data. Once this was granted, it began siphoning photos and their location data to a remote server. (The app was not submitted to the App Store.)

Sound familiar? Apple came under fire earlier this month when it was revealed that apps like Path, Instagram, WhatsApp and others were uploading users’ address books to their companies’ servers, and that Apple had never placed a formal restriction or set a required permission for this.

The big difference here, however, is that while apps were actually caught uploading users’ address books to remote servers without users’ knowledge, there have been no confirmed cases of apps that are currently for sale in the App Store uploading users’ photo libraries.

The blog 9to5Mac noted earlier that it’s not just photos and addresses, but movies, calendars and music data too that apps approved to sell in the App Store could gain access to without explicit permission granted by the app downloader.

Many people would probably be uncomfortable knowing that their photos could be sucked up to an app developer’s server without granting specific permission. Apple acts as a watchdog to keep untrustworthy or insecure apps out of its store, but it hasn’t demonstrated the ability to do this with 100 percent accuracy — and it would be unrealistic to expect as much, considering the sheer volume of apps that go through the approval process. So why not spell out these things directly and let users be aware of what is happening on their device, or at least what could potentially happen?

Apple has repeatedly espoused that user privacy is of the utmost importance to the company. At the same time, it likes to balance that with not peppering a user with zillions of pop-up permissions. In cases like this, though, laying out specifically what exactly an app has access to seems like a no-brainer, and entirely welcome.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The picture included in the invitation shows what appears to be the bottom dock of an iPad. And as many have observed, the screen resolution looks a good bit sharper than the display of the iPad 2. A hint at the long-expected (and long-wished for) Retina Display?

What else can we expect of the next-generation iPad? Upgraded chips, better cameras, slightly thicker body and perhaps 4G connectivity.

We’ll find out the whole story at the event, which will be held at Apple favorite The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, as reported earlier by AllThingsD.

It starts at 10 a.m. GigaOM, as always, will be there to cover the event live.

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TechCrunch first noted on Sunday that Evi had been flagged by Apple’s reviewers as “confusingly similar” to Siri, with True Knowledge, the company behind the app, having received notice late Friday that their app would be pulled from the App Store. True Knowledge had submitted a minor update to Evi that had languished in App Store review purgatory with no explanation for some time until Apple finally contacted the company about the update on Friday.

William Tunstall-Pedoe, CEO of True Knowledge, told TechCrunch that “I don’t think it takes too much of a leap of the imagination to realize that ‘confusingly similar’ is code for ‘competitive with’.” He went onto imply that Apple was worried about reviews of Evi–a natural language search engine that is a bit more sophisticated than Siri on certain queries–making the $199 iPhone 4S less compelling than the $99 iPhone 4, on which Siri is no longer allowed to run.

But after popular sentiment turned against Apple over the weekend, True Knowledge received a call from Apple reversing that ruling in the wee hours of Monday morning in Barcelona, where they were preparing for Mobile World Congress, sources familiar with the saga told GigaOM. Evi remains in the App Store, as noted earlier by The Verge, and Apple now plans to work with True Knowledge on creating a version of Evi that satisfies Apple’s concerns.

Sources familiar with the back-and-forth said that at this point Apple told True Knowledge it just wants the company to change the user interface of the app, rather than its basic functionality. And Apple also confirmed to the company that voice-driven search and voice-driven personal assistant features (setting up appointments and the like, planned for a future release of Evi) are fair game for outside developers within the iOS developer rules.

It’s unclear whether Apple really does mean that only cosmetic changes are necessary, or whether it’s just setting True Knowledge up with another series of hoops. Evi is similar to Siri in that it takes voice commands and returns search results, but Evi is actually the result of a True Knowledge “pivot” (read: now what are we going to do?) from a Web search company to a mobile-focused company. True Knowledge has curated hundreds of millions of facts and serves those up in response to queries, using (like Siri) Nuance’s technology to translate speech into machine-understandable queries.

Once you enter the mobile world, you find yourself having to play by Apple’s rules. Perhaps the most famous example was the showdown between Apple and Google over Google Voice, which Apple believed was confusingly similar enough to the main iPhone dialer as to restrict it from the App Store. A federal investigation led to its eventual approval and an acknowledgement from Apple that it needed to be more permissive when it came to potentially competitive apps.

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According to Bloomberg, Apple will still be allowed to sell iPhones and iPads in Germany while the court hears its appeal of an injunction involving what’s known as a standards-essential patent, which are treated differently than other patents because of their proximity to technical standards. In December Motorola won an injunction against Apple involving one of these patents, but has since been criticized for seeking what many believe to be an exorbitant rate for a license to that patent.

After Apple made a counteroffer for a licensing deal, the court ruled that Motorola “would violate its duties under antitrust rules” if it rejected the offer and enforced the injunction, according to Bloomberg’s translation of German court documents. U.S. and European regulators have had a careful eye on Motorola over this issue of “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” licensing policies for standards-essential patents, clearing Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola but warning the two companies to play fair with these patents or face increased scrutiny.

So, in short, Apple can still sell its iOS devices in Germany but still has to convince the court to overturn the initial ruling. While it may have a strong argument in this case given the standards-essential label attached to that particular patent, it faces a separate problem unaffected by this ruling: the ban on iCloud push e-mail related to a different Motorola patent that is not subject to the standards-essential rules.

The “patent peace” that Google’s Andy Rubin hoped for last year clearly won’t arrive any time soon. In most cases, the lawyers are the only winners in patent disputes.

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iMore.com reported Friday that Apple will likely get rid of the 30-pin connector in the next version of the iPhone in favor of something smaller that could help it accommodate 4G LTE radios, and it’s about time. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t think Apple will follow the lead of the rest of the smartphone market and embrace the micro USB standard for phone chargers, but it’s still a notable development.

The 30-pin dock connector has been the primary doorway into the iPod for years. It was the only way to install software updates on an iPhone or iPad until iOS 5 introduced over-the-air updates, and an easy target for those who believed Apple wasn’t living up to its “post-PC” words by requiring a physical connection to a computer for such an important task.

Eliminating the (relatively) bulky connector could make it easier for Apple to include 4G wireless connections in the next iPhone without having to make an iPhone as big as some of the Android models (like the Galaxy Nexus) that connect to 4G networks. It also means a legion of accessory makers will have to get on board with a new standard on which Apple will probably continue to charge royalties to use in their products. The success of an iPhone accessory maker like Square that bypassed the 30-pin connector altogether with its credit-card reader may have also prompted Apple to come up with a new connector that offers unique advantages.

But to take things a step further, is Apple also willing to embrace wireless charging with the next iPhone, along the lines of what Palm introduced for certain models of the Pre? That might force the company to make some tough decisions about the materials it uses in the iPhone, a notoriously sensitive subject. But wireless charging is a great idea for users, and it would also allow Apple to sell some sleek wireless charging stations at a tidy profit.

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Earlier this week Nielsen released a study that found just about a third of smartphone users turn to their device for shopping-related activities. The study, conducted during the third quarter of 2011, gives a good picture of how we’re using smartphones in stores. One thing the study highlights is that while not everyone is using their phone in this way, many more would like to.

Below I’ve combined Nielsen’s results with a primer on how you can get in on the trend of being a savvy shopper with your iPhone specifically using apps that are available in Apple’s Apple Store.

38 percent are comparison pricing aka “showrooming”

Nielsen found that 38 percent of survey respondents use their smartphone for comparison shopping while in a physical store. This is encouraged by online retailers, and last holiday season Amazon gave a 5 percent discount on certain products to users who scanned retail items using the Amazon app. Big box stores like Target are annoyed by this new trend, however — so much so that they are asking manufacturers to modify their product offerings to prevent comparison shopping.

As a consumer, I love the ability to find the best price for an item so long as I am willing to wait for it to ship. As a small business owner who works with other small businesses, I see this as driving revenue away from our local communities and hurting the local tax base. I try to shop local when possible, but to me, I see a big box “brick and mortar” and an online retailer as synonymous. When the bargain is good enough, it’s hard to resist.
If you want to get in the middle of this war between physical and online retailers, some of the top apps for comparison shopping are RedLaser, ShopSavvy, Google Shopper and Amazon’s Price Check. Both Red Laser and ShopSavvy also allow you to find an item locally, but ShopSavvy and Google Shopper provide reviews — which are the next most popular shopping-related activity we do with our phones. If you search online, you might want to stay away from the in-store Wi-Fi as it can show different prices since you could be redirected to an “internal” version of the website with slightly different pricing or be blocked entirely from a competitor. Use your 3G signal to play it safe and make sure your surfing isn’t being intercepted.

32 percent are reading online reviews of products

For more in-depth research, I found the Consumer Reports App lacking, and I prefer to access their website, which requires a separate paid subscription from the magazine (a discount is given to current print subscribers). Many of us like to know what the crowd thinks of a product rather than trusting a salesperson (after all, it’s in the job title to sell us something). Mobile phones are ideal for this, and 32 percent of us use our phones for product review research. Google Shopper and Amazon’s Mobile App make it easy to find what others have to say about millions of products. Amazon carries practically everything, so it’s the place I start for online reviews.

24 percent are searching for and using online coupons

We all want to save money, so why not use your iPhone? The king of coupons is Grocery iQ, owned by Coupons.com. If you regularly shop at a grocery store or other retailer, be sure to install their app as they often offer coupons or special sales directly via their app. Don’t assume coupons are just for the big retailers. Individual stores often have their own apps featuring coupons. Even groups like AAA offer discounts.

A hidden place for coupons and direct savings is check-ins via foursquare or Facebook. In particular, American Express has a program in which you check in via FourSquare to both small businesses and national chains to receive a discount. I use this quite often and can tell you it works. I get free cupcakes at my locally owned Cupcake Construction Company as well as national retailers like Whole Foods. If available in your area and where you shop, Shopkick is a great way to earn rewards and discounts.

22 percent are purchasing products

Whether it’s because the store is out of stock or the pricing is better online, shopping on your phone is fun and easy. It gives you instant gratification. A friend suggests a book to you at the coffee shop, you buy it right then and there. Your spouse tells you that the water filter needs replacing while you are waiting for a table at the restaurant. Bam. Problem solved. But considering this usefulness, this number is still rather low — 0nly 22 percent of the people who are using phones for shopping are actually making purchases.

What’s interesting to note is how this behavior changes when we’re talking about shopping on a tablet. Tablet shoppers are three times more likely to purchase an item compared to smartphone users, and they spend more, according to a recent study by Adobe.

A caution while shopping via a mobile device: because public Wi-Fi is unprotected, I use 3G while making purchases so nothing is intercepted. I’m also careful of prying eyes when pulling out my credit card. Read my article about how to keep your credit card number hidden in plain sight in your address book so you can cut and paste, keeping your card in the wallet.

To get an additional savings boost, use sites like dealnews.com and FatWallet to find discount codes and earn cash back for your online purchases.

18 percent are using location-based services to find a retail location

“Yes, we have no bananas” is a fun song, but a lousy thing for a clerk to say when you need bananas. Instead, by using Google Shopper or one of the other purchasing apps mentioned at the beginning of the article, you might be able to find the product locally or find other retailers that have it.

9 percent are paying via smartphone — but 71 percent are interested in paying via smartphone

Talk about a missed opportunity, in particular for the brick-and-mortars losing out to online retailers. NFC (near-field communications) has been discussed for a while for the iPhone, and Ryan Kim believes Apple could take the lead on this in the U.S. Meanwhile, Kevin Tofel is already using his Google Wallet and his Galaxy Nexus.

The closest thing we have currently to NFC on the iPhone is the Square Card Case, which merchants can use for seamless transactions via an app. I tried it out this weekend in St. Louis, and it really was a blast to say “put it on my tab!” The app uses your GPS location and the location of the merchant, and when you are close enough, it notifies the merchant of your presence. The only caveat is that the merchant must use Square’s popular credit card processing system.

So while we’re making progress in what kinds of activities we’ll do with our phones, we’re still a ways off from mainstream acceptance of the phone as a shopping tool and a payment tool. When you think about it, it’s odd that we fancy up our phones with fun cases and apps, but then we use our credit card the same way we always have since the 1950s. The Square experience comes close to modernizing this process — every merchant I know who uses Square, including myself, sees the giggles of glee and fascination when customers sign with their finger and have a receipt texted to them.

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It’s this last phrase, that something is coming in the next few weeks, that has set off a new round of speculation that perhaps Microsoft intends to reveal Office for iPad on stage at Apple’s iPad 3 event, which is rumored to be taking place in early March. But would Microsoft use an Apple keynote to demo Office for iPad?

Dan Frommer from SplatF comes out heavily in favor of Microsoft being involved in the iPad event, with Apple using Office for iPad to showcase the capabilities of the iPad 3, which would further lock up Apple’s lead against competing tablets in the workplace. John Gruber doesn’t quite agree, mostly because he feels that Apple doesn’t need to share the spotlight.

Frankly, I’d love to see this happen if only to see Steve Ballmer appearing by satellite (or Skype, now that Microsoft owns them?) to announce Office for iPad, much as Bill Gates did in 1997 to announce a new version of Microsoft Office for Mac. [In the video below, skip to 4:47 to see Bill.]

Back then, Apple desperately needed Microsoft to infuse some cash into the organization and some confidence into its customers at a time when it was nearly bankrupt. Nearly 15 years later, the roles are neatly reversed, and Apple is in the driver’s seat for both the phone and tablet markets, while Microsoft is looking to stay relevant with its still-important Office business. In 1997, Apple was eager to cement their relationship with “meaningful partners” like Microsoft, to borrow a phrase from Steve Jobs’ presentation video, embedded above. In 2012, even though Microsoft is nowhere near bankruptcy, that relationship might well look quite different.

If these two things end up being true — that Office for iPad is real and that Microsoft will announce it at the iPad 3 event — here is how to tell exactly where everyone stands:

Where will Office for iPad save its documents?

Would Office for iPad save documents to Apple’s iCloud? Or will it use some Microsoft technology like SkyDrive, Office365 or Sharepoint servers? Or will it be some combination of all of the above?

Office is critically important to Microsoft. It still generates enormous revenues and, more importantly, huge profits for the Redmond, Wash., company. For Office to stay relevant in today’s always-connected workplace, a successful mobile strategy for shared documents is critical. ICloud is great for the independent user that wants to keep their own documents in sync, but it does not provide a complete solution for team collaboration in an enterprise environment. Sharepoint is central to internal collaboration tools in the enterprise market, and SkyDrive and Office365 are part of Microsoft’s hosted collaboration solutions.

If Microsoft were to adopt iCloud for users to save personal documents and Sharepoint integration for team collaboration, that would signal that Microsoft is willing to concede the personal market to get Office on the iPad in order to keep iOS devices plugged into the workgroup and enterprise solutions from Microsoft.

As Gruber put it, “if Microsoft does get a demo slot on stage during the iPad 3 keynote, Microsoft would be getting much more out of it than Apple.”

If Office for iPad only saves documents to iCloud, then Microsoft plainly agrees.

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The acquisition, first reported by TechCrunch and confirmed by Apple, gives Apple a pretty robust tool to improve its App Store. Chomp lets users find apps by searching without knowing the name of a particular app. Users can search by what an app does and then find relevant results, which start appearing right as a user begins typing. Chomp looks at all the data associated with an app to bring up results and also gathers information from blogs, social networking sites and other app stores to find what’s trending. The company also launched “Chomp Search Ads” last fall, a sort of AdWords program allowing developers to bid on certain keywords in app searches.

Verizon actually rebuilt its VCast App Store in September using Chomp to power discovery, even though it only had a few thousand apps in its store. It showed that even a big company like Verizon saw value in applying more smarts to app discovery, something the Android Market has been criticized for not improving upon. Chomp will reportedly continue to power VCast App Store for now, but that arrangement will eventually end as it gets integrated into the App Store experience, TechCrunch said.

The price of the deal was not announced though Bloomberg said it was worth $50 million. This is Apple’s second acquisition this year following its purchase of Anobit, an Israeli company that makes digital signal processing tech to improve the performance of NAND flash. It’s unclear if Apple under Tim Cook is going to be more acquisitive but Apple historically has not been a big buyer of companies like Google, Oracle and others. But with about $100 billion in cash and investments, it makes sense to look at absorbing more companies, as long as it can find a team that fits with its culture.

The purchase of Chomp, which has raised about $2.5 million, comes as Apple is closing in on 25 billion app downloads. It continues to be well ahead of Android Market but Google’s app store has been working to close the distance in the number of apps and downloads. I think this shows that Apple knows that it needs to continue to provide the best app store experience, which has been pretty good but needs to get better.

Even though it’s the only place to buy iOS apps, there are other services like AppsFire, Zwapp, Quixey and others that are showing how to make app discovery even smarter. The App Store is a big advantage for Apple and one that helps it compete well with Android and keep consumers and developers dedicated to iOS. If it can improve upon how many apps users download and discover, it can mean more utility for consumers and a bigger payout to developers, who have already gotten $4 billion in payouts from the App Store.

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Here are a few other notable bits that came out of the meeting:

• Apple doesn’t hate Facebook. Cook reportedly called the social networking giant (with whom it has had previous disagreements) “a friend.” He also expressed that he “always thought that the two can do more together,” reports Forbes. Still, Apple has no plans to incorporate Facebook into any of its operatings systems the way it has with Twitter.
• Cook has near-unanimous support from shareholders. He got 98 percent “yes” votes in his nomination to Apple’s board of directors, according to AppleInsider. While he got the highest percentage of yes votes, all board members were re-elected.
• Even though there was no dividend announcement Thursday, Cook didn’t rule it out. According to AllThingsD, he said, “My message there is that the board and the management team are thinking about this very deeply … and we will do what we think is in the best interest of shareholders.”
• Despite repeated jokes about it on Twitter, Apple has not looked into buying Greece with its $98 billion in cash and liquid assets.

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