Just tell him that your iPhone case doubles as a  battery charger and universal remote.

Coming spring of 2010 is the Umee iV Plus.  Not only is it a 1350 mAh battery but it will act as an LED flash for the camera on your phone AND it can function as a remote for your home entertainment system.

The case when combined with a free iPhone app lets you browse a large of AV products: receivers, CD players, Blu-Ray players, DVD players, TiVos, cable boxes, the Apple TV, etc.  Once programmed, each device will have it’s own screen on the application. You can customize the screens so that only the features you regularly use, appear.  Examples might include only the  power, select, guide, page-up and page-down buttons.

You can also program tasks so that if you want to watch a dvd it will know to turn on TV, DVD player, and home theater system, and then switch the TV and receiver to the DVD input. How great is that?

The cost for this very promising case that debuted at the MacWorld show is estimated to be about $1oo, which isn’t that bad considering how much it does. 

I’ll keep you updated on this case in the future.