I sent the following email to Madrigal and here is the response:

Original Email:
I saw an ad for the pronto and owners are now able to download bitmaps into the remote for channel buttons. Do you have anything planned like this for future software upgrades. Also, when is the next software upgrade coming out? I have filled up all the macros on my remote and wanted to know if there was an upgrade scheduled that increased the memory/capacity of the remote. Thanks.

Response:
Each of the remotes has their specific strengths and weaknesses. This feature is a very nice one for the Pronto and one we aren't planning for IRIQ. We don't have any immediate plans for software updates for IRIQ,
although the amount of memory for things like the macros is determined by the hardware in IRIQ, which isn't going to be changed; sorry.

____
Todd Sutherland
Madrigal Audio

I would think that there has to be someone at Microsoft we can send complaints to because this is a complete embarrassment!!!

You can send me your complaints and I can forward them to my contacts at Microsoft. I recently spoke to one of the product managers there who told me that Astro (code-name for the Madrigal) had been killed early in 2000 and members of that team were re-org'd and working on other projects. I wouldn't expect any detailed responses from Microsoft on this item.

Something else interesting that he told me, but I do not have the electronics background to know if it is true or not. According to him, the IRIQ's had the hardware for RF, but it was disabled in the units and that at some point in the future they were planning an RF station and software update to activate the RF inside of the unit, but since the project was killed that this would never see the light of day.

If that hardware really is in there, any idea if it can be activated and if it might work with something like a Home Producer RF base station?

I was thinking that the hidden connector at the back would be where RF would attach. I think the capability COULD be added, but I don't think it's there now (it might have been in the original design).