Today at CTIA, Sprint introduced Sprint ID, an add-on feature for its hot new Android handsets, the Sanyo Zio, Samsung Transform, and the LG Optimus S. Sprint ID provides a custom suite of applications, widgets, wallpapers, and ringtones tailor-made for specific groups of Android users. Now available on these latest Android handsets, it is a one-click way to customize your phone to match your lifestyle.
Marketed as an alternative to endlessly searching through the Android Market, Sprint ID will come in packs suitable for the business person, the fashion-conscious, the exercise nut, and more. Businesses can also create their own ID packs and deploy them on the handsets of their employees in a one-click manner. It could be used as a way of easily delivering business-oriented information directly to a user’s handset.
For example, if you are an avid runner who lives, eats and sleeps exercise, you could select the Health and Fitness pack which would install such content as exercise tracking applications, stopwatch widgets, motivational wallpapers and exercise-themed ringtones. The ID packs can be easily changed so if your running career comes to an end and you join the world of the suits, you can drop your Health and Fitness pack and swap it out for a Business Productivity pack from your employer.
The ID packs will be available in un-branded versions as noted above and branded versions that will deliver brand-specific content to your phone. Popular brands hopping on board this interesting concept include Amazon, Blackboard, Comcast, Disney, E!, Electronic Arts, eBay, ESPN, HSN, LatCel, MTV, Notre Dame, Oprah Winfrey Network, RadioShack, Weather Channel, Where and Yahoo! These branded ID packs target broader categories of users and include packs for the Consumer, Business, Wholesale, Education, and Hispanic users.
Customers on the nation’ s#3 carrier can load up to five ID packs on their handset and switch them when they want without losing any apps or content on their handset. Thankfully, these ID packs do not lock down your handset, so a shopaholic can select a an Amazon-branded pack and still install his or her favorite coupon tracking application from the Android market.
Because they are based upon the Android platform, Sprint ID will eventually be available on a range of Sprint-branded Android handsets. This add-on feature will launch on the Sanyo Zio, Samsung Transform, and the LG Optimus S with a variety of lifestyle packs, game packs from EA, and business packs. Additional packs will be added over time and will be extended to other Android handsets.
[Via Press Release]