So it appears that the military may not be wanting the ever popular apple phone, the iphone. It is rumored to be much to expensive for their liking and not nearly OPEN enough for them either. Which is saying something. More claims say that it does not match up to DOD (Department Of Defense) Needs.
Smart phones are becoming more and more popular for the army, it means more data on a soldier much more of the time! If they can take video or pictures or record audio and then send that all back to base in any way at all, thats great! smart phones are allowing just that these days, plus the GPS and the few other extras that some phones offer can’t hurt either!
Sounds like there was a challenge to build more army apps and a lot of phones went up to the challenge, looks like there were 17 were for Android, 16 for iPhone, 10 for ASP.NET, seven for the LAMP open software stack, two for the BlackBerry and one for the Army Knowledge Online portal. So its not like iphone isn’t trying! It just may not end up working out for them.
To Sgt Jeff Sorenson, attaining the necessary situational awareness is more important than any cost. Getting the right devices and apps into the theater “might in many cases save soldier’s lives, which is priceless,” he said in March.
However, there is no real budget set in stone yet for any of this, so its all hear say and rumors, but its a cool thought that they are wanting Android to be a part of something big like this.