CTIA: Sprint tackling the problem of app discoverability

SAN FRANCISCO -- As mobile app stores evolve from boutiques to retail warehouses, discoverability is becoming an increasing problem for consumers who have to search among hundreds if not thousands of options for a particular app and for developers who have expressed increasing frustration at trying to get their content noticed. At CTIA Enterprise & Applications this week, Sprint (NYSE:S) made the first attempt to wade through that discoverability morass with the launch of Sprint ID, a software overlay on the Android operating system that allows media brands, businesses and even consumers to create their own customized bundle of widgets, apps and themes for smartphones.

The idea is turn the smartphone menu from a random collection of applications into a more structured device through the use of themed ID Packs. Many of the major media and Internet brands, including Disney, ESPN, ebay, the Home Shopping Network, E!, Electronic Arts and MTV, all signed on for the launch producing their own ID packs. Once selected from a catalog in the Android interface a bundle of applications from that brand download to the device, embedding themselves into the device and integrating with many aspects of the user interface. Using the packs, customers could turn their devices into an ESPN sports phone, which would put live scoreboard widgets from on the home screen while giving prominent placement to ESPN’s other multimedia and news apps.

The software which is available over the three Android phones Sprint unveiled at CTIA--the Samsung Transform, Samsung Zio and LG Optimus S--supports multiple ID packs, allowing customers to toggle between them, making their phones a gaming phone at one moment or a travel phone the next. Not just the big entertainment and Internet companies are utilizing the software—Notre Dame University is launching its own ID Pack, complete with its own campus and intranet applications.

There’s not much technically sophisticated about the ID Packs. If customers took the time he or she could recreate much of each ID Packs theme and application bundles on their Android phone, simply by downloading the apps and customizing the user interface. There is some functionality a customer couldn’t replicate such as direct integration with address book or other functions. For instance, location-based services developer Where integrates its ID Pack directly with the phonebook, allowing customers to save restaurants or business contact information as they search them out. Sprint, however, is acknowledging that only the most sophisticated users are likely to go through the trouble, while the ID Packs offer an easy way to deliver a lot of related apps and content to their phones quickly without forcing customers to discover it on their own.

At first glance, the implementation seems to favor the big brands at the expense of smaller developers, but Sprint has taken some steps to even the playing field. While companies like Disney and MTV are bundling only their own apps into the ID packs, Sprint is also working with Handmark to create packs that aggregate related applications by theme rather than by maker. Though the initial packs are very general, focusing on broad categories like entertainment, social network and business productivity, they have the potential to become very focused. Sprint demoed a New York-themed pack, which included the New York Times app as well as multiple other varying widgets and apps specific to the city.

Still, even those brand-neutral packs still depend on a third-party like Handmark using business or subjective criteria to assemble the packs, which could still favor the larger media brands. Sprint, however, appears to be taking the first steps toward allowing customers to make and distribute their own ID packs.

A My ID template is loaded on each device, allowing customers to place their own apps and widgets into the user interface to create a highly customized phone. So far, there’s no way for customers to share their My IDs with friends of load them into the catalog, but Sprint is introducing a small business pack, which companies can use to create their own dashboard of applications, which they can then push out to all of their employees’ phones. A Sprint spokeswoman said the operator is investigating the possibility of similar capabilities on the consumer side, allowing a customer to post custom IDs like music playlists, which friends or the general public could download.