At long last Sprint's given the go ahead to its vendors to unleash a slew of application updates upon Instinct owners. A post on Instinct Insight details the release process, and makes it clear that the actual app updates are coming from the third-party software makers and not directly from Sprint. Sprint basically opened up the floodgates here and its up to the vendors themselves to decide what to release, when, and how (or so says the blog post).
So how do you get yourself said updates? Fire up your Instinct and launch an app. If an update is available for said program, you'll be notified when you run that program; it's a piecemeal delivery system here, not a giant file that gets pushed out to you as soon as you connect your handset to the Sprint network. Also, the blog post mentions that vendors could choose to stagger the number of updates they push out at any given time in order to avoid overwhelming Sprint's network or their own servers. So your friend might get the Browser update now but you might not get it until later today or tomorrow or what have you. Patience and persistance, my friends!
Me, I'm going to fire up my Instinct as soon as I get to the office and see what updates I can find. You? Let us know what you find and how it works for you. Meantime, here's a list of what should be available soon and what it promises to do for you and your Instinct.
Picture Mail
• Reduce system busy errors for large picturemails
• Reduction of "408" timeout errors when sending large picturemails
Browser
• Optimized vending machine shopping experience
• More robust and user friendly access to Yahoo, Hotmail, Best Buy, YouTube
• Remove feature that sent browser back one page with camera button
Sprint TV/Radio
• Optimizations to resolutions for streaming video playback
• Reductions of pausing. freezing and "flashing" during streaming video playback
• Greatly increased start up and channel change speed
Sprint Navigation
• Session will no longer run in background, preserving battery life
Sprint E-Mail
• Ability to save email address from favorites menu
Sprint Music Store
• Eliminates skips when listening via Bluetooth headset
• Eliminates periodic timeouts for Websync of music
• Eliminates changing of tracks when turning on screen from sleep mode
• Eliminates periodic failure of skip button
• Eliminates play/pause stopping after 30 - 35 minutes of music play
Push Info Services/Pocket Express
• Increased ability to play video clips
• Content for movie listing displays correctly
• Eliminates periodic error for movie details/review
Visual Voicemail/Mobil Sync
• Handle and present voicemail notification when out of data service
• Eliminates "choppy" playback when dragging progress bar
• Contact picture/image now shown correctly in playback form
