I used to think that way too. I hated having all the apps on the main screen and the lack of widgets. Nowadays iOS is better and has lets you customize the main screen a lot more. Most iOS users still have all this apps on the main screen but it’s not a necessity like it used to be.
Look into flirc. It’s a usb device that can read ir signals. It has a companion program that lets you map any button on the remote to any keyboard or mouse buttons. I use it to map my tv remotes u,d,l,r to the keyboards udlr buttons.