The iPhone and iPad are totally changing the TV experience.  I have integrated 4 applications into my life and I love all of them.

The first is call the Unity Remote from Gear4.  This has replaced my Logitech Harmony 100 (good riddance to that one it never worked right).  This is the best remote system I have seen and I have seen a lot of them.  All the programming happens on the iPhone and you simple tell it what devices (by model) you have and it automatically sets everything up.  Once it is complete, you can then set up specific scenes (I set up Morning Reading, Movie Time, and Game Play). 

The iPhone connects to the device via bluetooth. This works well and allows you to put the device anywhere in the room.  One thing I was a little disappointed in is that it does not work well if you have multiple iPhones or iPad’s that want to control it.  They have tried to make this work by allowing a second device to share the settings of a master.  But as soon as the master leaves, everything else fails.  As a family where everyone in the house has an iPhone and iPad, this breaks often.

I will go over the other three applications in future post