Yeah, I've updated my comment above.
They should really list that it has an Intel GPU in the specs. That's a big selling point in my opinion.

Yep, since it means native Wayland, no libhybris and Android blobs.

Alright, I've gotta stick up for IR here. Even today, the vast majority of consumer devices that support remote controls only do so via infrared. It makes no sense to force a consumer purchasing a $40 DVD player to spend another $300 on a phone or tablet just in order to control it. But infrared controllers are so cheap to manufacture, they can just throw one in for free with your purchase.

I would also guess that your TV _does_ support infrared control, regardless of whether it supports wifi or bluetooth or ethernet or whatever else. IR control of consumer devices today is both well understood by the purchasing public and well supported by the industry. With a cheap little IR controller, you generally don't have to worry about downloading bug fixes and upgrades, rebooting it when it stops working, recharging it every eight hours, or wading through a half-dozen ads before you're allowed to change the channel. So I doubt the IR controller will disappear any time soon.

But really, the most important reason to support IR ports on modern devices is that there exists half a century's worth of devices that can be remotely controlled only by IR. TVs, DVDs, BDs, VCRs, receivers, amps, CDs, various other audio equipment of all sorts, projectors, cable boxes, satellite boxes, air conditioners, cameras, and on and on.

Long story short, you probably can use a wifi remote control app to control your TV (if you can find an app that supports it), but that's all you'll be able to control. On the other hand, you can use an IR app to control your TV, as well as every other remote-controllable device in your house, plus every other remote-controllable device anywhere else in your life (at work, at a relative's or friend's house, etc.). It's just a lot more convenient.

(And yeah, for those who don't already know, I'm the guy who wrote Pierogi, so I am biased. )

I've opened a couple questions about the Jolla tablet on Together and it looks like some of the questions asked in this thread might be covered. So there is the list of the links to those questions (hope this won't trigger any built-in antispam protections :P) :

Will the OS be fully open source (mentioned on the page)?
Open bootloader?
What GPU will be used ?/
Wacom digitizer ?
Jola smartphone & tablet pairing (like on webOS)?
Notification LED ?
Will a flashable recovery image be available ?
LPM/glance screen ?
FM transmitter ?
NFC ?
Pressure sensor & thermometer ?
Magnetometer ?

...or even native X11 for installing a full Linux distro.

It also means full OpenGL acceleration (not GL ES) via Mesa.

@Copernicus we're maybe off topic but I don't have a DVD player, my almost 4 year old Marantz hifi supports DLNA and AirPlay and has a multiple apps to choose from with playlists and album art (CuteRemote etc) and my Bravia TV has an app also.

They both have IR remotes too which are usually in the drawer under the TV but they work better than a phone for range. The last time I used IR on a phone was my N900 and I had to get up and walk about 6 feet closer to my TV before it was in range.

Desire for IR blaster type things in my phone/tablet = zero.

Actually I would kinda like to have a normal bidirectional infrared port, like in the old Palm OS days, maybe a bit faster if possible.

I had an opportunity to use it just a few days ago to copy contacts from on old mobile phone - it also had Bluetooth but for some reason no device I have tried was able to accept the address book over it. On the other when I've used my old Palm Tungsten T, I was able to receive the address book from the mobile phone over infrared just fine on the first try and the Bluetooth transfer from the Palm to the target device also worked.

Now thinking about it, that's what IMHO sets Infraport and Bluetooth apart - unlike Bluetooth, Infraport works every time.

I suspect most Linux distros are switching to Wayland in 2015 anyway, so I wouldn't worry about X.org that much, but Intel supports it too.

So, if I'm reading this right, you have only two devices total that you control remotely. For this situation, I would agree with you, the wifi app will give you much greater depth of control than a simple IR controller ever could. (Or should I say apps? It sounds like you've got a plethora of apps here, one for the TV and several others for the hifi.)

But I've gotta wonder if this will scale up well. In my house, I've got three different TVs, two DVD players, a VCR, and a couple of Mac Minis, all of which I'm controlling via Pierogi. (Granted, I haven't used the VCR in years...) I suspect that many households have even more devices, many of which are not wifi-controllable. And even if every device can be controlled by wifi, having to wade through a dozen different apps will probably get as frustrating as having to manage a dozen different IR remote controls...

Well, yeah, IR does have the limitation that it can't pass through walls. But I should note that the N900 has a fairly weak IR LED; I've recently been working on a port of Pierogi to the HTC One phone, and it gets at least 2-3 times the range of my N900s. So, the range of a phone or tablet IR isn't necessarily as limited as you might think.