I wrote a review 2 years ago and expressed my praise and hopes that an iphone version of the iphone AJAX remote would come soon. The AJAX remote is a joke, and no one does any serious iphone app in AJAX. Why does the iPhone AJAX remote keep being advertised like it's the best thing since sliced bread? Anyway, the developer didn't make promises but he said an iphone native version was in the works. I've sent feedback several times on forums, and there seemed to be progress. But after 2 years, my question and frustration is: where is it?
I've also been very unhappy with some quirks in functionality that make it a pain to use. For example, when using Plex, or XBMC or Boxee, why can't Remote Buddy auto-detect them and automatically enable the right mapping? In other words, if I launch XBMC with my mouse, auto-detect it and enable the right mapping. At least make it an option.
Then, battery management of remotes like the PS3 remote is very poor. Originally the remote is reported to last 4-6 months when used with a Playstation 3. But with Remote Buddy batteries only last about 1-2 weeks. This is unacceptable. Even if justified by whatever technical limitation, it should stated on the website so users know what to expect.
Also, RB doesn't seem to remember the last used behavior, so I always need to reselect the behavior. No matter what I do, no matter which preferences I set, if I use mostly use XBMC, it doesn't seem to be remembered, and I always need to reset the right behavior.
There are also a few GUI quirks as well that hasn't been fixed even after feedback was sent. For example the Mapping edit window contains several hundred button mapping lists, but the window can't be resized. So the user has to do a lot of scrolling even if he has a 27-inch iMac that would allow a bigger window. Also it's not possible to edit Mappings if the remote isn't activated. This is inconvenient. Suppose that my remote isn't activated or that the batteries are dead but I wanna edit the mapping anyway, I can't do so with RB.
There are quirks with XBMC and possibly Plex. While I understand that this may be a XBMC limitation, Remote Buddy should not include something that doesn't work. For example in the PS3 remote, the button "Display OSD" will display the Music OSD instead of the Video OSD during video playback. Items that don't work should be excluded. And, a workaround should be used, for example include a keyboard shortcut instead. Also talking to the XBMC devs would be nice to arrive at a possible solution.
Bottom line: while Remote Buddy has some viable uses, usage in real life may be frustrating and inconvenient. With no iPhone native app after 2 years of wait and no feedback from the developer, Remote Buddy is no longer cutting edge as it once was. The lack of context-aware mapping switching is painful in real life. I keep resorting to using the true and tested Apple remote because of these issues.