Comparing to many of iPhone’s smartphone companions, the iPhone has just been made a whole lot more interesting. Softbank (Japan) has just given Japanese iPhone users an interesting mobile TV add-on, I’m not talking about some sort of new iPhone application neither is it some kind of latest technology, but a whole new separate tv tuner unit and aerial that will have the ability to retransmit signal over Wi-fi to the iPhone.

In Japan, 1Seg TV is popular which lets Japanese watch mobile TV on their mobile devices. And many Japanese mobile phones come with built-in 1Seg TV tuner except the iPhone.

So I guess the Japanese love their tele just as much as we brits do!

This new 1Seg TV tuner gadget by Softbank will of course also include its own additional battery and in fact, is a more like a separate unit on its own. To get it going, all that will need to be done is to plug in the tuner to the proprietary port of the iPhone 3G, then it will start receiving 1Seg broadcast giving you mobile tv.

However, here’s the catch, it doesn’t actually display images on your iPhone, it displays it on its own separate screen, which doesn’t appeal to me as anything near portable at all! Assuming this broadcast system in Japanese is free, I think I would still have to be pretty desparate to watch 1Seg TV to have me carry around all those gadget, so I think I’ll pass for now…

[via TechChee]