Japanese iPhone gets official 1-Seg WiFi tuner and battery extender from SoftBank

Japan does love 'em some mobile TV. Now that 1-Seg digital goodness has been announced for iPhone users. The 80-gram tuner provides a TV fix over WiFi and doubles as a battery extender when plugged into the iPhone 3G's dock connector. Trendy sidewalk zombies, the streets are yours. We'll update you with prices and dates when known. One more pic for size comparison after the break.

Update: Official PR with specs (no price) is now out: 3 hours continuous 1-Seg viewing, 2-/4-hours charge via AC/USB, and available mid December along side a free 1-Seg application from the AppStore.

[Via Ringo-Sanco, thanks RS]

[Alex @ Oct 30th 2008 2:20AM]

Ballin'

I'm very curious on how this works... Like does it create a Wifi network which you then launch an App to use?

[rock99rock @ Oct 30th 2008 10:37AM]

This freaking pisses me off. Apple better get off their ass and figure out when the heck they are gonna approve ORB for the iphone or im dropping bombs on Steve. And ATT.

http://forums.orb.com/viewtopic.php?t=10997&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=585

[Kspraydad @ Oct 30th 2008 2:26AM]

Competing more and more with the PSP and DS space.

[Kspraydad @ Oct 30th 2008 9:31AM]

Low ranked? ... Um...1Seg has been driving sales of PSP and DS hardware....iPhone 'fanboys' have been giddy over the gaming potential (ie PSP and DS space)...what's the issue?

[webon @ Oct 30th 2008 2:29AM]

I miss all the generic Japanese manga included in every single item of advertisement just like the one here

sohuto banku is a good company, but there are better

[iEye @ Oct 30th 2008 6:06AM]

Mr. Sparkle

[Draconis @ Oct 30th 2008 2:31AM]

Isn't the 1-Seg part in violation of Apple's SDK? AFAIK it prohibited applications from accessing third party hardware devices via either Bluetooth or the dock connector. I wonder if this means Apple is going to life that rule....

[Draconis @ Oct 30th 2008 2:33AM]

Scratch that. It's late and I didn't read the WiFi connection part.

[Stefan @ Oct 30th 2008 2:38AM]

But its probably not actually doing anything other than recharging the battery through the dock connector. So its not actually communicating with the iPhone. When you stream the TV through WiFi you don't need to have it hooked up to the dock connector (see first pic, where its in the bag with no cable hooked up).

I dont know about the TV feature, but just being able to recharge the iPhone on the go without having to carry a laptop around is good enough for me! Boo for non-user-replaceable batteries.

[)law( @ Oct 30th 2008 2:36AM]

well this is odd the Chinese iPhone gets it's wifi stripped and the Japanese iPhone gets it's iPhone finely tuned, while America gets a plain iPhone. I wish we got cool stuff with our wifi other than the slightly lame starbucks deal

[thethirdmoose @ Oct 30th 2008 9:52AM]

Selling phones with wifi in china is illegal, afaik.

[Jakob @ Oct 30th 2008 2:50AM]

Very nice! Would be nice with a DVB-T and/or DVB-H for Europe, instead of paying insanely prices for TV over 3G. Here in Denmark it costs about 80 kr. (£7) for 24 channels (at 3/Three), would be much nicer with free channels.

[Anticrawl @ Oct 30th 2008 2:50AM]

Wish we could get some Blackberry Storm coverage, I can't find a whole lot of info I want on it. Anyone know of a video or hands-on with the web browser other than that 2 second clip of someone scrolling down a preloaded page on the Storm?

Yeah Verizon sucks but there isn't much of a choice in decent service in the states. It is either AT&T or Verizon, both rape you with prices but the alternative is shitty reception and customer service on the cheap.

[umijin @ Oct 30th 2008 2:55AM]

Unfortunately, all the 1 seg content is crap.

[Vagrant @ Oct 30th 2008 3:31AM]

Indeed, but I do tune in during the Sumo tournaments, via the PSP, when I'm away from home.

Still, this is cool though. I'm presuming it will work with the Touch as well, but will the cost compete with PSP & DS Lite solutions, as previous noted?

Side note:
I just took a look at the article and it notes that Softbank is allowing iPhone users free WiFi access via 3500 AP's throughout the country. (Which makes me wonder if they're doing the same thing as AT&T/Starbucks previously did and allowing access based on the header?) Of course I'm not a native and could be entirely wrong in my understanding. Time to take a spin to McD's and see what's what and if my 1st Gen iPhone can get in on the lovin.

[fh @ Oct 30th 2008 3:58AM]

The majority of the world's iPhone users would prefer watching Western media, but that's because iPhone sales in Japan have been abysmal. And since 1seg is only available in Japan, I think that's a non-issue.

[antitrust311 @ Oct 30th 2008 6:29AM]

Besides 1 Seg having crappy content, it also has terrible reception. There is no way that things going to work in a purse like the picture shows.

[Pizzahut @ Oct 30th 2008 3:12AM]

No one will care about 1 seg when Slingplayer is available for iPhone. Then you can watch your cable/satellite channels
on your iPhone.

[fh @ Oct 30th 2008 3:55AM]

1seg is free, cable/satellite is not.
1seg uses regular OTA signals, Slingplayer will buffer/stall under poor 3G coverage.
1seg for iPhone doesn't really matter anyway, since the iPhone is selling so poorly in Japan and half of all the other phones already have 1seg.

Ergo: in Japan, plenty of people still care about 1seg so it will do just fine. Outside, there's no 1seg anyway, so they don't care in the first place and instead must rely on something else like Slingplayer.

[Pizzahut @ Oct 30th 2008 4:16AM]

Slingplayer for iPhone should work with both wifi and 3G. The Sling Pro-HD has built in digital tuner so you
can have OTA if you want. Cable and Satellite is what makes Sling exciting. No additional monthly fees
if you already subscribed.

[Jarethe @ Oct 30th 2008 6:04AM]

I can't wait till we have this here in the US.

[J. Mills @ Oct 30th 2008 6:18AM]

Will someone actually break out some sales numbers. The iPhone is not doing poor in sales.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09/27/japanese_iphone_3g_sales_better_than_reported.html

The 1 seg tuner will sell well.

I might get one too. I love my Japanese iPhone. You just need to stop hating since we have a very good 3g network!!

[Alfred @ Oct 30th 2008 6:40AM]

someone please tell me when the sling player is coming to the iphone. i cant wait for it to be working over 3g.

[Pizzahut @ Oct 30th 2008 6:54AM]

Contact Sling. :)

[Boards of Canada @ Oct 30th 2008 7:37AM]

We live in Osaka... when the kids hijack the tv, my wife watch tv on her cellphone. Reception is quite poor because the video (not sound) pause quite often like some crappy buffering but she still enjoy. Im more worry about cancer for all those people carrying a wifi router.

[Francisco Craesmeyer @ Oct 30th 2008 9:22AM]

This would work in brazil? If so it`s intersting, becuse none of the japanese phones came to here... There`s only one cellphone on the market that can tune to the mobile digital here ....

[Carlos Hacks @ Oct 30th 2008 9:37AM]

Probably works in Brazil, since 1-seg standard is the same as in Japan.

[André @ Jan 6th 2009 7:18PM]

Nope ! It won't work in Brazil. I myself brought a One Seg USB antena from a company called Buffalo for my PC. It didn't work.

Japan uses One Seg and Brazil uses One Seg b.

Japan: Vídeo H264 / 15fps; Audio HE-AAC v.1 low complexity.
Brazil: Vídeo H264 / 30fps; Audio HE-AAC v.2 low complexity.

[Robert Sanzalone @ Oct 30th 2008 12:12PM]

This is wonderful news and we're waiting for it with great anticipation! For people outside Japan and Brazil, 1seg is a bit of a mystery. Within these countries, it's as common as the phone itself now. One of the top reasons cited for the non-success of the iPhone in Japan has been the lack of 1seg, emoji and payment system. Emoji have come with the latest firmware upgrade, the 1seg "issue" is now taken care of with this device (albeit an ugly and bulky add-on compared to the already on board 1seg present in most slim phones) now all that is left is the payment system, which again may be taken care of with a device.

For many of us in Japan who don't really even care about watching TV on our mobile devices, the fact the add-on is a charger is reason enough for the purchase.

Softbank knows what they are doing for their Japanese audience. Don't blame AT&T for an TV band infrastructure still in place since the 1960s.

[kiwizznz @ Oct 30th 2008 10:57PM]

Dont really care about oneseg. The only reason I didn't buy this phone was that there is no FeliCa chip. I use my Sharp phone as a credit card, train pass, about 6 point cards and a few other things. The only thing I regret is not being able to run applications. Other than that my phones kicks iphone ass. (923sh) Tho the iphone is a whole lot cheaper. Mine works out to $500 odd with a 2 year contract. The phone with no contract is over $1000. The iphone is only $200 or so over here with a contract.

[gmdroid @ Oct 30th 2008 11:25PM]

Orb should just release the Orblive iPhone app through Cydia. Apple could have given them an answer by now! In the meantime, I use a 1st gen iPhone running 1.1.4 and Orblive with a 3g iPhone running PdaNet. Live TV on iPhone over 3g. Works great, although that external battery would be handy. PdaNet used a lot of power, so I often use a car charger while using Orb.

[renowned @ Nov 1st 2008 1:10AM]

This sounds great really...

http://www.latiendadeandalucia.com/