I get a lot of feature requests, complains and feedback regarding things that are outside of my control. There are even comments on iTunes giving a lower rating due to limitations with the SDK (Software Development Kit - its what allows 3rd party developers like me to create applications on the iPhone).

Here are some items outside of my control. I'll try to update this as I encounter them:

- SD will never be able to start in 2 seconds. 3rd party apps cannot be as fast as the native apps - Apple is doing something special there. Most apps I've encountered take 3-4 seconds. I timed my startup code - about 500-700ms (that's milliseconds, as in 1/2 to 3/4 of a second) is initialization code. Another ~1 second goes to the keyboard popping up. The rest is pure iPhone app loading. I'm still digging into this to determine if there are ways to speed up things, however, so maybe I can shave another second or two off at some point.

- SD can't send # and * symbols due to SDK limitations. They claim its security related, but I'm not sure... As of 2.5 I handle pauses. A comma, or the letters p and x will all translate to a pause.

- There is no access to the main phone app, including Recent Calls, Voicemail, calls made by the native Phone app, and incoming call and voicemail alerts (red badge with number)

- There is no access to Calendar or Email. Apple only opens up the Contacts - nothing else. I'd LOVE to enable email search, but alas Apple doesn't think email needs to be searched. At least not until they do it. Maybe its lined up behind Cut and Paste :)

- The splash screen is fixed and cannot change dynamically. I only get to include one image as the splash. It can't change based on the color scheme or look like the application looks when it last exited. Only Apple can do that, and they aren't sharing that ability with 3rd parties

- There is no ability to send text to SMS, or to receive SMS messages. They have that entirely locked down. There is a reason there aren't as many SMS apps as flashlights and todo lists :)

- I can't detect changes in the address book to sync automatically. At best, I can tell if the count is different, but that doesn't account for changed information within a contact.

- SearchDial keeps a local cache for flexibility. The reason SD does so much more than any of the competitors is that I can search any field in the contact list, any way I want to. The SDK only allows name search and that's what those apps are limited to. To do Notes, initials, phone number and other things requires some form of syncing solution; in-memory solutions aren't viable.