Apple now requiring Mac App Store applications to be sandboxed by March 2012

Apple’s already made OS X more like iOS in more ways than one , and it seems like it’s going to soon be taking another step in that direction. As of March 1st, 2012, Apple would require all apps available within the Mac App Store to be “sandboxed,” which Apple says is “an ideal way to offer protection to systems and users by limiting the resources apps can access and making it tougher for malicious software to compromise users’ systems.” The alternative side of that coin is that by limiting access to said system resources, applications also are more limited in what they are able to do, which has left some developers facing a difficult decision: either comply and get within the App Store, or go it alone. They are going to be ready to request access to a few resources, but they’ll provide a justification for it to Apple as section of the submission process. As TUAW notes, however, this is not an absolutely new development — Apple had actually intended to implement the requirement this month, but it’s apparently decided to provide devs a chunk more time to get used to it.