Mophie juice pack TV hands-on

You won't know it by the product's official name, but this is the FLO TV appendage for the iPhone that's been teased since November last year. Combining a mobile TV receiver with Mophie's juice pack, this is 2mm thicker and noticeably heavier than the normal external battery pack. You can see comparison shots in the gallery below -- the red and black units are samples of the new peripherals while the white one is the standard Mophie hardware. Alas, no working FLO TV demos were available, but we were told the iPhone UI should be one different from what the company offers at present. Reps kept mum on pricing, but they confirmed the juice pack TV should be arriving in the first half of 2010.

Mophie juice pack TV hands-on

[crazy4pie Posted Jan 9th 2010 4:02PM]

kewl.... ipod touch version or just iphone?

[slipdisc Posted Jan 9th 2010 4:10PM]

@crazy4pie Both. UI should be on different from what the company offers at present.

[crazy4pie Posted Jan 9th 2010 5:26PM]

@slipdisc

but it still costs money :(

[paezbak Posted Jan 9th 2010 4:31PM]

This is definitely what you call 'brick'-ing your iphone..

[Dasaii Posted Jan 9th 2010 4:47PM]

I don't really understand why anybody would choose to make their phone much uglier.

[chipw Posted Jan 9th 2010 4:56PM]

@Dasaii
I'm just going to take a wild guess and say it's for more battery life.

For example, you might need more battery if your traveling.

[nicholas1987ucsb Posted Jan 9th 2010 4:56PM]

WANT. Awesome.

[purfikt Posted Jan 9th 2010 5:06PM]

Agreed that thing is CHUNKY!

I understand the advantages of Flow-tv (and I know it's different than a data netwok) but I really wish I could watch tv over the 3G network I already pay $30/month for (that's $360 yearly to be redundantly emphatic). I would LOVE to see a Hulu app or something that let's me watch the major networks live over the 3G. I guess I could buy a slingbox and use My3G since I'm alreay jailbroken...

[intrglctcrevfnk Posted Jan 9th 2010 5:26PM]

@purfikt
slingbox and orb work great over 3G. Had to get 3g unrestrictor to bypass the slingbox wifi requirement and the latest update of orb broke 3g live tv. worth the 3 bucks though.

[patches Posted Jan 9th 2010 7:31PM]

@purfikt
skyfire browser on winmobile allows for viewing many flash sites. If the Palm Pre flash update does what everyone thinks it will it should also allow for this. I often drive around in the car watching sports off justin.tv or other sites over sprints 3G with my winmo phone. They crippled hulu though frm what I remember. many sites still work great.

Dont think ATT wants Iphone users sucking up even more bandwidth so I doubt you will see this anytime soon for that IPhone of yours.

[dragonfli Posted Jan 9th 2010 5:47PM]

Question: what's the advantage of FLO TV other than to spend more for a dedicated tuner/device plus FLO service for only a handful of channels?

[reflexrym Posted Jan 9th 2010 6:14PM]

I think this product don't have big potential, the iphone in it is so big!
Same with N900 cases for TV.
http://www.maemocommunity.com/

[jonbruc Posted Jan 9th 2010 6:26PM]

I liked until I saw that I would have to sign up for the mobile TV service.

[Phylop Posted Jan 9th 2010 6:33PM]

Does it self destruct on impact like other such "Battery Pack" cases?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 9th 2010 7:28PM]

Are any manufacturers creating any of these 'juice packs' for other devices? I'd sure love one for the Nexus One.

[Dusty Posted Jan 9th 2010 8:37PM]

I want :)

[Marcsman1987 Posted Jan 9th 2010 11:16PM]

Mann...don't waste ur money on this. It's very easy, no,no... It's too easy for the small charging port at the bottom to get damaged. I've ran thru two of these things already. Dust enters the case and scratches the back of ur phone as well. I thought it was awesome @ first but it's too much trouble worrying about dust or lint of ur pockets to mess up the "Juice Pak".