Other areas where we have seen sandboxing result in limited functionality is with scanning and monitoring tools such as Symantec's new free iAntivirus tool for OS X. Symantec's only option is to offer a notice of which files to choose in order to perform a full scan. iAntivirus' option to scan the entire system brings up a dialogue box requiring you to select the system root to scan. With sandboxing, this ability is restricted and users must first save the file and then open it directly from within the second program.

For example, image management programs often include features to open an image in an 'external editor' where the primary program passes the image information directly to the secondary one, creating a seamless workflow that is appealing to users. While compensating for the sandboxing requirement is ultimately up to the developer and in many cases there is a workaround or two that developers can implement, unfortunately in some prominent cases there are no workarounds available.

Recently MacWorld covered a number of these concerns, and in recent weeks similar frustrations and discussion have also surfaced among Apple's developer community as some developers are finding the sandbox breaks their current approaches to their programs. In the past few months and weeks following up to the June 1 deadline, the Apple developer community has been working to get its programs working with the App Store sandboxing mandate, and while many have worked seamlessly with it, others contain features that simply will not work. While sandboxing is a great option for protecting users' systems and should offer seamless functionality for most programs, Apple's implementation is too restrictive for some applications to function as intended by developers. The sandboxing and entitlements are generally voluntarily set up and elected by the developer, but in the case of the App Store, are both mandatory and also scrutinized and approved by Apple. Starting June 1, the Mac App Store will be adopting a new policy that requires applications distributed through it to be sandboxed - a feature that restricts default access to all system resources except those allowed by specific Apple-defined entitlements.

Apple sandbox system files