Now Logitech is readying a stand-alone Harmony Link that lets you use an iPad, an iPhone, or an Android phone as a Harmony remote. The setup includes a flying saucer-shaped gizmo that talks to entertainment devices via infrared and iPads and phones via Wi-Fi, plus iOS and Android apps. And it uses the same online configuration and database of 225,000 devices as traditional Harmony remotes to let you configure it for your entertainment setup with a minimum of fuss.

Unlike similar newfangled universal-remote systems such as Peel and Griffin’s Beacon, Harmony Link emphasizes the iPad over smartphones: Its iPad app is fuller-featured, with searchable, browsable TV listings integrated into the user interface so you can abandon your cable company’s endless grid of listings altogether. (For now, the iPhone and Android apps let you control devices, but don’t have the listings.)

I haven’t tried Harmony Link for myself yet, but it looked slick when Logitech gave me a sneak peek recently. It’ll be $99 and Logitech says it’ll be available next month. Here’s the company’s own video demo.

What do an iPad 2 and an IBM ThinkPad from 1995 have in common? Not a whole lot–unless the iPad is equipped with Logitech’s new Fold-Up Keyboard and the ThinkPad is the famous 701 “Butterfly” model. Like the Butterfly ThinkPad, Logitech’s new gadget, which snaps onto the bottom of the iPad, packs a keyboard that’s wider than the case. As you lift up the iPad, the keyboard swivels out in two pieces–as shown in the first image above–and then pieces together. It’s also reminiscent of the Stowaway folding keyboard, a gadget which would be a wonderful iPhone accessory but which appears to no longer be available.

I haven’t used Logitech’s keyboard, but the company showed it to me recently, and it looks pretty darn clever. It’s a Bluetooth model, so it needs to be charged occasionally over USB but it wireless. It makes the iPad substantially thicker, but is by far the roomiest portable keyboard you’ll find for Apple’s gadget. It adds protection to the tablet’s underside, and you can install it and continue to use Apple’s own Smart Cover simultaneously. It’s $129.95–pricey, but worth considering if you want to use an iPad like a laptop–and will be available in September.

There are now a bunch of iPad 2 keyboard/case combos, and it doesn’t make sense to declare one as the right choice for everybody. They all make different tradeoffs when it comes to bulk, keyboard feel and size, and the viewing angle of the screen. The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg reviewed four of them, including the new Logitech, in his column last week. Of the ones I’ve seen in person, I also like Zagg’s $99.99 ZaggFolio, a case with a removable keyboard of impressively notebook-like feel and a clever design which lets you angle the iPad into a notch on the keyboard, either in the case or out of it. The ZaggFolio I bought, like other early units, has a design defect which prevents the clasp from working properly; Zagg says that it’s fixed this issue and will replace the ZaggFolios that have it.

Logitech has issued a press alert with a few notes:

• The Revue price reduction to $99–it was originally $249–goes into effect today.
• “Google TV 2″ is “expected” to come out this Summer. (Google hasn’t said much at all about it so far–the platform was barely mentioned in the keynotes at May’s Google IO conference.)
• Logitech wants to be sure that people understand that the Revue’s “negative sales” didn’t mean that more consumers were returning the boxes that buying them. Consumer returns, the company says, were comparable to those of other products. “Negative sales” means that more distributors and retailers were returning unsold units than buying additional ones. (In other words, it wasn’t that people have been trying and disliking Google TV–they haven’t been interested enough in the idea to buy it, period.)

I still think that the concept of Google TV has promise. But at this point, its future is entirely dependent on version 2 being more usable and less buggy than the original, with more big-name content that doesn’t get blocked by the big media companies that own it.  And if version 2 turns out to be a disappointment, I suspect that Google TV will end up not being one of the arrows that Google chooses to put wood behind.

As Daring Fireball’s John Gruber points out, the Revue is an example of a trend I cover in my new TIME.com Technologizer column: products which ship even though they’re clearly not ready to ship. I don’t know the Revue’s backstory–and tend to think that Logitech may have been as surprised by anyone at how iffy the Google TV software is. But reviewers like me and early adopters who bought the Revue found it lacking, and told other people. Is there any way that Google TV’s chances at success wouldn’t have been a lot higher if Google had finished it six months or a year later and invested the extra time in creating something that pundits and real people would have loved?

Of course, this whole Internet-television convergence thing is still in its infancy, and there’s a lot of work to be done before somebody gets it right. New apps are on the way, as well as more powerful hardware — with a focus on what TV won’t or can’t provide.

Google’s new software is expected in time for the holiday season, Fried reports, and older Logitech boxes and Sony TV sets would likely be able to upgrade to the new software.

Content providers were obviously not ready to provide Google with access to their content, so maybe we should blame the Mountain View, Calif. company for being somewhat lazy in not doing the necessary groundwork in order to ensure its product is successful.

With Google obviously looking to fix the chief criticisms that reviewers like Harry had of the first version of the platform, it may be just a bit early to pronounce it dead. We’ll have to wait a bit to see where it goes — although we may see some previews of the new direction at the Google I/O developer conference next week if Ina is right.

I found Google TV so disappointing in its initial incarnation that I’m not the least bit surprised that consumers are staying away in droves. And I’m curious how a smart company liked Logitech, which usually makes very good products, misjudged it so badly—maybe the platform that Google described to it in the planning stages was better than the one that shipped.

At this point, we know that Google TV is a major disappointment. But I still think there’s a good idea in there, somewhere. I hope that Google TV turns out to be something that Google continues to plug away at, rather than a Wave-like brief misadventure. And it seems to me that it’s pretty obvious what the company needs to do to get it right:

Polish it up. The first version of Google TV I tried just don’t function very well–the quality of its data about TV programs was uneven and I kept running into problems so strange that I couldn’t tell whether they were usability gaffes or outright bugs. Google TV just needs to be better at doing what it’s trying to do.

Placate content owners. A major chunk of the appeal of Google TV was supposed to be watching Web-based content from big companies–which sounded like a swell idea until the major networks and others began blocking Logitech and Sony’s Google TV devices from streaming their shows. Unless Google can convince at least a few of these outfits to unblock their stuff, Google TV will feel crippled. (Apple TV and Roku get around this issue by not attempting to provide unfettered access to the Web in the first place.)

Rethink the input. Me, I like the fact that the Revue comes with a full-blown, no-compromises wireless QWERTY keyboard. It’s way better than trying to tap, tap, tap out alphanumeric information on a traditional remote. But I worry that it’s too intimidatingly geeky a means of input for a mass audience. Maybe Google TV needs something like TiVo’s remote with a slide-out keyboard.

Up the hardware requirements. The Intel Atom processor inside the Revue struggles at times to keep up with the demands of video playback and the Google TV interface, like an underpowered netbook. Devices based on this platform need enough muscle to ensure that they feel like…well, like TV.

In a couple of weeks, Google is holding its IO developer conference. It’ll mark Google TV’s first anniversary, since the software was announced at last year’s show. It would be a good occasion for Google to update us on its plans for the platform–and if IO comes and goes without Google saying anything about Google TV, it’s time to worry whether it has a future.

What happens when you install the new Logitech Squeezebox Remote app from the Android Marketplace and proceed to play around with the interface from a remote location? You scare the pants off anybody who’s still at home and wondering why the little radio box is suddenly playing music all by itself*. That’s what happened this afternoon when I decided to test out the new Android app despite not being anywhere near my Squeezebox. The app loaded beautifully, and apparently it had no trouble communicating with my player. Here’s the text message I received from home shortly afterward: “Your squeezebox just came on by itself. #afraidtogodownstairs”

I can’t speak to the in-home experience yet, as I’m still on the road, but the Squeezebox Remote interface on my phone is a joy. The Home screen gives me access to a full menu of Internet radio stations, apps, my music library, search, and Squeezebox settings. Through my apps I can get directly to Slacker (my preferred Internet radio service), and instantly into my saved stations and songs. The songs don’t play on my phone – the app’s not designed for that – but they do apparently play without problem from the Squeezebox.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t see the purpose of using a secondary phone remote to control one of my devices, but this one has an interface that not only beats my existing remote, but beats the interface on the Squeezebox display itself. After all, my beloved Squeezebox Classic is from 2006, which means it doesn’t have the visual bells and whistles present on some of the newer products in the Squeezebox line. And that brings me to another point. The new Logitech app works on a piece of hardware I’ve had for more than four years. Given how rapidly smartphone companies give up on supporting their handsets with new upgrades, I find myself continually amazed to see this little Internet-radio-streamer-that-could still getting feature updates. Kudos to the product team for that one.

The Logitech Squeezebox Remote app runs on Android 2.1 and higher, and supports:

• Squeezebox Radio
• Squeezebox Boom
• Squeezebox Touch
• Squeezebox Duet
• Squeezebox Classic
• Squeezebox Transporter

*Note: Oddly enough, my Squeezebox does occasionally turn on at home without any human intervention, but it usually doesn’t skip around through different stations and playlists.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

Enter Logitech’s M515, which in a world of better tech product names might simply be called the Couch Mouse. The M515 has a sealed bottom case that keeps lint out while helping the mouse glide across cushions, blankets and carpets with minimal fuss.

But I don’t think the couch mouse is meant for gamers like me. With Web video growing in popularity, it’s probably intended for folks who want to lean back on the sofa while watching Hulu or Netflix on their laptops and home theater PCs. To that end, the mouse also has a hand sensor, so the cursor won’t slide around as you shift your weight.

It sounds like a neat idea, but I haven’t tried the M515; it’s scheduled for a Europe-first launch in April for 50 pounds, and U.S. launch plans are unclear. Hopefully the mouse’s fabric-friendly features don’t negatively affect performance on other surfaces.

(Semi-related: I’m glad to see Logitech fitting another product with its Unifying receiver, a tiny USB dongle that can read multiple Logitech devices at a time. I use one for my keyboard and mouse at home, and there’s just no going back.)

Cisco’s product, like Apple TV and Roku, is about doing one thing.  All there devices compete with Revue, because it does many things:

• Like Roku and Apple TV, it’s a way to watch movies and listen to music;
• It supports not only services Google has partnered with, such as Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand, but just about any video on the Web;
• It attempts to meld Internet video, live broadcast video, and DVR video into one seamless entertainment extravaganza;
• It integrates with Dish Network boxes at a deeper level–it can control them and search recorded videos;
• It lets you browse Web sorts of all sorts using the built-in Chrome browser;
• It uses Logitech’s Harmony technology to let you control all your living-room gizmos;
• It offers iOS and Android apps that let you use your smartphone as a remote control;
• If you spend $150 for an optional Webcam, it provides ūmi-like HD videoconferencing (although at 720p rather than Cisco’s 1080p);
• It’ll let you download and install Android apps (but not until early 2011, when Google makes its TV Android Market available).

Whew. (I’m probably forgetting a capability or two.) Revue costs $299.99, which is 3X the price of Apple TV and 5X the cost of the cheapest Roku, but it does so many things that I think the price isn’t nutty–if it turns out that the many things it does are things people want to do on their TVs. (That’s not a given: In many ways, Revue is a modern take on the idea Microsoft tried to popularize as WebTV a decade and a half ago, and which has fizzled in one form or another ever since. I’m still unclear whether there’s a critical mass of real consumers who want to use the Web on their TVs.)

Revue’s pricetag is also explained in part by its remote control–which, from what I’ve seen so far, is one of my favorite things about the box so far. It’s a wireless, notebook-like keyboard with no-compromises QWERTY. After having experienced a couple of gazillion TV devices that force you to enter text using painful on-screen keyboards, I’m really happy to see Logitech give you the input device you really want as part of the package. (It’s also selling an optional mini-QWERTY keyboard.)

Logitech is releasing a Swiss Army Knife of a product into a market otherwise mostly populated by less versatile kitchen knives. (In the case of Apple TV, which doesn’t yet have a full slate of TV episodes and movies, its sort of a kitchen knife which can only slice cetain kinds of vegetables.) I’m reserving judgment until I get hands-on time with with one, but I like the fact that Revue is so very far from being an Apple TV wannabee–it’s a choice, not an echo, and it’s going to be fun to see which type of Internet TV box consumers gravitate towards. (And of course it’s still not clear whether teeming masses of them will gravitate towards any TV box at all.)

Logitech and Amazon are taking orders for Revue starting today; it’ll show up in stores in two or three weeks. Check out more details on Google TV, including a peek at the interface, at Google’s site.

More details here:

We still don’t know exactly when Logitech plans to ship its Revue, the first stand-alone Google TV box, or how much it’ll charge for it. That information will presumably be announced at an event Logitech is holding on Wednesday of this week–I’ll be there, and will report back with that news and more thoughts on Google TV then.