Great title, I’m sure after 5 minutes of thinking about it you know so much better than the people who built it that you can declare a fail.
It has been discussed and explained before. The network requirements with internet streaming are totally different and hence the network stack is. It was faster to bring to market without having to ensure not to cause problems in the regular remote. It’s a trade-off and there are pros and cons to each design choice, and that’s the one they made for now. Convergence in the future is not ruled out.
IMHO there is ample potential for confusion with one app because necessarily the UI would have to change depending on the network you are on, as ARC probably will never have all features of the remote, and has different requirements. So then whenever people don’t have wifi enabled on the phone the UI will differ.
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/arc-roon-will-they-converge-speculation-or-perhaps-feature-suggestion/206827 (closed area from early testing, may not be visible to you)
This post (also in closed area) explained it best:
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-mobile-cant-switch-zones/202409/5?u=suedkiez
I hope it’s OK to copy:
[actually I deleted that. I think it would be good to have this info available for everyone instead of having to paraphrase it, but not going to break any rules for this thread. Moderators can post a screenshot if they think it’s worth it]