They've gotten much better than they used to be, definitely! Of course, you get what you pay for. If you want a good experience you might need to look at paid options, as the free ones do sometimes rely on ads to stay afloat. You could always start with a free app and then upgrade if you like it. You can checkout this iPhone TV Remote App that claims to reliably connect to almost all TVs. I've heard good things about it, but everyone's experience is different.