Lot's of useful applications for that come to mind. Do I have to ship a spell checker with my app, or can all apps share a spell checker? And so on...

Of course, yes, it could result in utter chaos, with 100reds of apps to choose from for a particular search. That kind of problem is really overblown, though, just like the multitasking problem. If an app annoys me or sucks too much energy, I just uninstall it...

That goes for pretty much any kind of "developers are going to abuse feature X" argument - annoying apps just get uninstalled, end of story.

There is a problem of potential sneaky apps, I guess. That is also existent on the iPhone, I suppose (don't they do their own user tracking), but of course there is slightly more potential with background tasks. Some common sense can eliminate most of the problems, though (ie why does an ebook reader need my GPS coordinates? Skip it).

Clearly, Apple is not simply trying to block bad apps, they are trying to force apps to be better, through the platform. I too am skeptical of this approach, but I understand where they're coming from.

  > What I'm saying is when people use the phone search
  > they are trying to search the phone part of the
  > device (SMS, email, etc...).

  > That in mind I see Apple's point here as being
  > "we think developers will abuse search if they
  > are allowed in and we don't think users want that
  > so we're keeping them out"

On your point you're certainly right but I'd argue this is where we get into the realm of "pragmatist vs perfectinist". There is a UI hit to returning 1,000 results as opposed to 2 or 3. It's a small hit but it is there. Apple, as the creator of the device, has the right to choose to be perfectionist about things even if it makes developers unhappy

I'm in disagreement with the idea that developers will abuse something that Apple has ultimate control over.

I guess I should have been clearer. Apple can make it so that it's impossible for developers to abuse it.