Well, it's clear that he's interested in iPhone-level interactivity and animation. That's a tall order on the MX-3000. After all, the hardware design is over three years old.

Granted, it's suprising just how acheivable it actually is if you're willing to spend the time to program it. You're never going to get Google Maps on the MX-3000, of course, but if you want those neat sliding page transitions and zooming fades, just take a look at André du Fresne's "Jade" template, or Dave Beck's "Metal MX-3000" template. Both of them have terriffic transition animations. Of course, that comes at the cost of configurability. But then, you can't configure the apps on an iPhone to do exactly what you want, either.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying, "the MX-3000 can do anything an iPhone can do." But it can do a surprising amount if you're willing to spend the time to program, design, and configure it.

But then, you'd spend at least that much writing an equally interactive program for an iPhone, wouldn't you? It's all a question of how much time you're willing to invest. For most installers, that question is answered by how much their client wants to spend. And that's why we work hard to make sure that making things cool is always the second consideration behind getting the job done. (Not that "easy to configure" means "boring"... after all, the templates for the MX-980 are a lot more advanced graphically than the original MX-3000 templates, which were really pretty basic (I can say that—I designed both sets of templates).

So I think he's got a point, but we also have to keep in mind that it's not a computer, a PDA, or a phone. It's a remote, and 99.5% of everyone who ever owns it wants one thing out of it: for it to control their home theater reliably, with no learning curve. That leaves people like Andre, Lee, Bracken, and others to sit down and figure out, "Okay... I know what they SAY it can do... but what can this thing REALLY do!?"

Is there a show on MTV called "Pimp My Remote?" I wanna be the first guest on THAT show!

Best regards,
Dale