Mophie FLO TV

More video is on the way for the iPhone: Qualcomm's FLO TV division plans to sell live broadcast TV service for Apple's phone later this year, the company tells us, via a gadget designed in tandem with iPhone plastic-case maker Mophie. We first reported about FLO TV's plans to sell TV service for the iPhone last April.

How will it work? Mophie's cases, popular with geeks and frequent travelers, pack an extra battery inside so an iPhone can last twice as long before it needs to be plugged into a power outlet. This new case also includes a FLO TV antenna so a FLO TV iPhone app can stream live broadcast TV from Qualcomm's dedicated mobile TV network.

Channels include mobile editions of major networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, plus CNBC, Food Network, MSNBC, ESPN, etc.

FLO TV will be showing off the device at CES this week in Las Vegas.

Will anyone want to buy them when they go on sale later this year? FLO TV has been around for a few years already, but is not very popular.

That's because of a bunch of reasons: It was only available in a few markets until Qualcomm got more wireless coverage last summer; it was only available on a few phones from Verizon and AT&T, including zero popular phones; and it was too expensive -- carriers were hoping that subscribers would pay an extra ~$15/month for mobile TV service. Obviously, they haven't, and most people probably have never even heard of FLO TV.

Bill Stone, president of FLO TV for Qualcomm, has been working to fix some of those problems over the past year.

He isn't getting a FLO TV chip put directly inside the iPhone -- the best possible scenario. But by working with a popular case manufacturer, he's getting about as close as he can to what's still the most popular consumer smartphone line in the U.S. Additionally, FLO TV service is now available in more markets, covering an area where 200 million people live in the U.S. And service will be cheaper -- probably around $9 per month.

Still too much? Probably. As the iPhone App Store has shown, people are happy to download a lot of free and cheap apps, but are less interested in spending big bucks on apps.

Perhaps this will appeal to some audiences. But we are still skeptical that a huge population of people would want to pay a monthly subscription to watch a handful of linear TV channels on their phones when the iPhone App Store and YouTube already have plenty of short-form video available for free and iTunes has longer-form video available on-demand.