Essentially the Qualcomm and Mophie partnership means that — for a fee — your iPhone will double as a mobile television set. Silicon Alley Insider speculates that the FLO TV service will likely retail for $9 a month on the iPhone. As for the case itself, there's no word on price point yet, but we expect it to be similar in price to Mophie's popular Juice Pack Air, which retails for $79.95.
Mophie, once strictly a maker of accessories for the iPhone and iPod touch, has been expanding its product offering of late. Not only is it powering the case that will evolve the iPhone into something more than it is today on a television front, but its also doing the same in the mobile payment space as well.
On the flip side, Qualcomm has been actively trying to push FLO TV programming, especially with Verizon V Cast, and transition it from a niche pleasantry to a consumer-demanded mainstream necessity. The company has even gone so far as to release a single-purpose FLO TV device offering live and time-shifted TV content via a dedicated multicast network on a device that is slightly bigger than iPhone.
Qualcomm's foray into iPhone technology, however, could prove to be FLO TV's biggest catalyst yet. If the iPhone can't make FLO TV a hit with mobile consumers, then nothing can.
Update: Qualcomm has just released the first official photo of FLO TV for iPhone (which includes the Mophie case). See it below.
