Sprint Bundles Android Apps

Top 20 Android Productivity Apps

Sprint Nextel is offering Android application packages for select mobile phones, giving customers an easy way to customize their phones without wading through the 10s of thousands of apps on the Android Market.

Called Sprint ID, the service offers packages of apps, widgets, ring tones and wallpaper. The packages, introduced Wednesday, are available for download through Sprint.

The wireless carrier launched the service to help customers cut through the clutter of the Android Market, which has more than 80,000 applications. "As the market for mobile applications expands, mobile users want a simpler way to access the data most relevant to their needs at that time," Dan Hesse, chief executive of Sprint, said in a statement.

Sprint has bundled the digital assets based on what it believes will be attractive to the broadest number of people and businesses. The company has put together non-branded packages centered on four general categories, entertainment, social networks, health and fitness and business productivity.

A number of Sprint partners plan to release their own branded packages between now and the first half of 2011. The companies include Amazon, Comcast, Disney, Electronic Arts, eBay, ESPN, Home Shopping Network, MTV, Oprah Winfrey Network and Yahoo.

Sprint is also hoping that businesses will embrace Sprint ID as a way to deploy their own packages of corporate apps to employees. Some non-branded packages put together by Sprint include Sales Force ID, which provides access to time and expense reporting, and Field Service ID, which provides access to turn-by-turn driving directions, a third-party work order application and a fleet management application.

Sprint subscribers can download up to five packages on a device. Bundles can be customized with additional apps.

Sprint intends to continue expanding the number of offerings. The bundles are available at no charge, but are only available for select phones running Google's Android operating system. The phones include the Sanyo Zio, Samsung Transform and LG Optimus S phones.

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