Sprint has dialed up an Android app whose mission is to halt distracted driving behaviors before they begin.
“Drive First” will be installed on all future Sprint Andriod phones, but subscribers must pay an additional $2 a month to engage the app. Owners of Android phones don’t need to upgrade as they’ll be able to download the app once the service launches, sometime in the third quarter, Sprint says.
The app engages GPS to determine when a cell phone is in a moving vehicle. Incoming calls are sent to voice mail while texts trigger auto-response messages. It also blocks all but three of the smartphone’s apps, in theory allowing just for essentials such as navigation.
The distracted driving technology allows parents or employers to control settings for each Sprint phone via a Web page. Although the technology allows for a user override (for emergencies or when traveling without driving), the Drive First portal logs the action.
Other upper-tier distracted driving solutions have similar functionality — such as Taser’s new Protector system and the TeenSafer subscription service — but Drive First comes with a wireless carrier’s branding, support and billing.
The Drive First app comes from the Location Labs, the same shop behind T-Mobile’s DriveSmart Plus, introduced several months back. T-Mobile had bragging rights to “the “industry’s first carrier-grade service” until now.
DriveSmart Plus is a full-featured subscription service that can be applied to all lines on a customer’s account. It’s priced at $4.99 a month and works with the LG Optimus T Android Phone.
Sprint limits Drive First customers to one smartphone per subscription, making $2 a month a better deal if two or fewer smartphones are controlled.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile said this week that the AT&T purchase of the company is not expected to affect existing services such as DriveSmart Plus for at least a year.
They may own “smart” phones but they are bonehead stupid to pay more money each month when all they have to do is use any one of ten fingers to just turn the damn thing off while driving. We really are a nation of idiots. I love how the phone industry obfuscates the obvious dangers of using a phone, smart or otherwise while driving and managers to make that public safety issue a new source of profit.