First of all, thanks a lot for the kind words! 😃
I'd definitely recommend to get familiar with Instruments; it will save you a lot of time! As soon as you know which objects are taking up memory, you have a great starting point to get rid of the problem — or, if it's a Sparrow problem, to tell me about it.
Simply start up the project via "Product - Analyze" and then choose the "Leaks" profile in instruments. That not only shows leaks, but also allocations. Now, navigate around in your app (either in the simulator or the device; preferably the latter) to collect data. You can pause or stop anytime.
For example, to see which objects are allocated, first click on "Allocations" in the top bar. Then, change the view in the bottom right area from "Statistics" to "Call Trees". On the very left, you can specify which "Call Tree" data you want to see; enable all the checkboxes except "Separate by Category".
This gives you a great overview about all the objects that have been created, and if something is continuously growing here, you've got a hot candidate for your problem. With a double-click, you can look at the exact line in the source code that created an object.
Just try it out and experiment with this tool, it's really powerful! Furthermore, always look for vertical bars in the "Leaks" diagram. Those are definitely memory leaks, and you can analyze them in the same way as the other allocations.
Good luck! 🙂