For several years, as most of us know, MTH sets have not come with a remote. They expect even the new consumer to operate their trains using a smartphone or tablet purchased separately. I thought that was an exceptionally bad idea. Cannot imagine that contributed to their set sales, but perhaps that's just me. Being charitable, they have done the math and they do not think they can recover the redesign and production costs of a remote with the likely size of the market. Being a little less kind, someone at MTH made this decision and stubbornly isn't going to be dissuaded by a bunch of amateurs 
. That said, it doesn't, to my mind, seem a favorable prognostic sign for the future of DCS production and PS3 equipped locomotives to limit consumers in this way. More like the road to ever smaller market share.
As a contrast, and I hope it continues, Lionel has actually shipped all of its previous LC and LC+ locos with an inexpensive but useful remote, and has made a $40 universal remote available that operates both Bluetooth and LC systems of all current Lionel locomotives. I hope they do this for the long haul, so that those of us who don't want to use a smart device do not have to do so. It adds complexity (you mean you still use a flip phone?) by requiring additional purchase or reuse of some other device you have and forces one approach on everyone.
I don't want to use my iPhone to operate my cable box or television either. I use it for voice (I'm on-call 24/7 for work) and personal/work email, texting, and some Internet browsing. Even reading newspapers and magazines while in line for this and that. I occasionally take photos or scan stuff. I don't want to use it to operate my toy trains, and it sounds like there are many who feel the same way, and we are not necessarily technophobes.
