The first thing I noticed was that I’d lost some features I’d enabled on the standard gmail.

I’d been using:

Settings > General > Browser Connection > Always use https (for tighter security)
Settings > Labs > Signature tweaks

Experimenting with various others, including as announced in the last 24 hours:

Settings > Labs > Tasks (a new To Do list feature)

More than anything I wanted to see what I could see before. It’s frustrating not to have them available as standard in Google Apps.

The good news is that you can activate these “hidden” features in Google Apps if you know where to look. As it’s not in the most intuitive place, I thought I’d explain where to find it.

First go to manage your Manage this domain, select Domain Settings, then scroll down the General tab to the section called New Services and Features

Here you have two checkbox options for:

1. Turn on new features (like group chat or colored labels)
2. Turn on new features in this domain when they are launched to Google consumers (before Google supports them for organizations using Google Apps)

Switching these on should enable Labs in your apps settings.