The WSJ reports that Softbank and Apple plan to jointly develop mobile phones. They say specifically in the article that these phones will allow people to download directly from the iTunes Music Store. Apple will be manufacturing phones under it’s own brand (outsourced production, of course), for the first time, the article reports. This is no surprise: The WSJ also says that Apple selected Softbank because they intend to offer high speed network access for mobiles — and get this — “with a focus on improving convenience for consumers.”

There’s been a bit of buzz about what Masayoshi Son would do after Softbank bought Vodophone K.K., and I guess this is the beginning. We can probably expect a pretty aggressive push by Softbank to differentiate itself in the saturated Japanese market. Son-san has had a reputation for really playing hard in the markets he’s entered, and he also has the Yahoo brand which is very very popular in Japan. KDDI already has a music download service (Chaku-Uta) so the market is already more advanced than here in the U.S., so it’ll get interesting fast.

These developments are definitely worth watching!