An interesting early application development in the Wi-Max space: Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) has tied up with with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to develop a new mobile portal for Wi-Max. The company’s deal with Google will team the network and location detection capabilities with Google’s Google Apps services, which include Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk. The portal will also have multimedia services including music, video, TV and on-demand products.

Also, Sprint will provide open standard APIs to its partners and developer community to create apps for its Wi-Max handsets/devices. As Sprint hopes, Wi-Max will be embedded into personal media players, mobile Internet devices, gaming devices and phones. Eventually, the WiMAX service will be available in vehicles for navigation information, news and entertainment. More details in release.

Earlier this month Sprint announced a tie-up with Clearwire for a nationwide Wi-Max network for a commercial launch in first half of 2008.