Here's my situation: I'm going to be installing all my A/V components in a central cabinet with a 4x4 HDMI switch and bunch of recievers for whole house audio.  All of my TV's and speakers will be wired to this cabinet.

My wife really wants to use a universal remote with buttons, I'd like to be able to use my iPhone and iPad to control the A/V System from any room.

So what I figure I need is some sort of system where the state of the A/V system is kept on a centralized device where both iPad/iPhone app or a universal remote with buttons can can control the A/V system via this centralized device.

I expect this will be expensive. That's okay. I have no idea what's out there though.