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US Military Issuing iPod Touches To Soldiers
644bd346996 writes "Newsweek has an article about the latest weapons in the US military's arsenal. The iPod Touch and the iPhone are being adapted as general purpose handhelds for soldiers in the field. 'Apple gadgets are proving to be surprisingly versatile. Software developers and the US Department of Defense are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight's Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.'"
We've all had a good laugh at that clause but they may actually be close to breaching it.
Not. Unless they are getting milspec units I wonder how many lives are being put in danger by using consumer products in such varied environments. The mountains of Afghanistan in winter and the deserts of Iraq are probably both well outside of the rated range of these devices. Not only that but what happens when they get a little wet? I think the average joe shmoe probably treats his electronics a bit better than your average grunt. I personally love the idea of using something like this to control things (my wife has a sewing machine that uses a gameboy color for a controller), I'm just not soldiers are the best target audience for such efforts.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I like the idea. Smartphones have enough computing power and sufficient battery life to perform militarily useful functions, with a minimum of added weight to the soldiers gear.
I'm not sure about the platform choice though. One company controls the hardware and software. There are no alternatives in either category that allow you to benefit from prior investments- replacing the hardware or OS requires junking everything you already have. And if the public APIs don't let you do what you need, and Apple can't or won't, it won't do what you need and thats that.
Android, or even Windows Mobile, I think would be better. A lot easier to switch to another device and minimize training costs, a lot easier and cheaper to get a device custom designed and built for specific military applications. These two are far more open- anyone with a properly trained engineering team and some money can make devices for these platforms. You need a specialized gadget integrated? You'll have a dozen companies salivating at defense budget dollars. You'll get it done, balancing capability and cost will be a meaningful choice and you can make it based on the needs and the budget, not because it's the best of limited options.
While, as you say, these are probably being used somewhat past their rated specs, I'm not sure that that is a critical problem. Touches are solid state and reasonably well sealed by default, and I'm sure that shoving them in a Pelican case isn't exactly rocket surgery. I suspect that, in practice, they survive pretty well.
Beyond that, though, there is some truth to the old cliche "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Which are you better off with, the Touch running off-the-shelf software for under $250 a unit now, or the hardened mil-spec widget wending its way through the contractor process that will cost 4 times as much and be available in small quantities in 8 months?
I'd be very disappointed to hear that soldiers had grown critically dependent on the things, and wandered around lost whenever they didn't have them; but, assuming that is avoided, what is the issue? If a device improves your performance, and is available 90% of the time, you are better off on average. If these devices turn out to only last an average of 6 months, then we'll need to treat them as a consumable, hardly a novel procedure. Anybody who operates on the assumption that consumer gear will survive as well in Tora Bora as it does in Starbucks is a moron; but that isn't the only assumption you can operate on.
I dunno, you should ask this guy!
Much of the clothing, camping, and cold weather gear available at a local REI performs better than what is issued to U.S. soldiers. The military has been slow to adopt consumer products which may work better than what is currently being supplied. This is gradually changing, and it's a change for the better. You don't always need everything to be radiation hardened. Sometimes the best product for a given job is available now, and you don't want to wait for it to be tested ad nauseum, debated, defended, and advocated through the convoluted military procurement process. An iPod Touch is relatively cheap, cheap enough that it's almost disposable. On the other hand, it's too bad there's not an option for AA batteries. Recharging is tough in the field.
Make love, not reality television.
I was more reminded of this Doonesbury.
No, it's not. The iPhone OS is a nice, easy platform to develop for. If you're stuck in windows thinking, maybe it's frustrating to you because you're made to use MVC, or cause it doesn't work the way windows does. But that's your mental limitations, not a problem with the platform.
Having done both, I'd go with the iPhone.
Back in the day when the Steves ran Apple there was a very strong understanding the Apple won't sell anything to the military for any reason, especially for warfare. Of course the military wasn't ever directly sold Apple products, but they aquired them through third party purchasers and ended up being in the missile silos anyway.
I would imagine this business decree was tossed out with Jobs to help bolster sales any way they could.
That, my friends, is where my fanboy history ends - I bought a PC and ran linux. The rest I read in the flame wars here.
Loved those things. We used them through most of our deployment. You couldn't say everything, but we used code for some stuff or just told people to get to a phone or encrypted radio so you could talk in the clear. The range was short, but usually enough for talking around the camp or for a gate detail or patrol to communicate. It wasn't actually that we had a shortage of milspec radios, it was more that the damned things weigh 25 pounds. Not something you want to be carrying in addition to your weapon, ballistic vest, ammo, helmet, water, etc. We had a small supply of police type radios that could be encrypted for clear communications, but even those are fairly heavy and we had fewer of them. The battalion commander briefly tried to ban them, but we convinced him that we knew how to avoid classified conversations over plain text, and that there were no real practical alternatives.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
You proved that many times over in your posts here throughout the years. But at least you're not in denial.
You know, at least I have the balls to log in & admit I've made a stupid mistake.
You? Anonymously snipe & never admit your stupidity.
You are in denial.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Well now, there you go again using your brain.
The superest, smartyest people in the whole USA work on this stuff.
You know like Geithner.
Yet they have no clue that all the parts come from China.
And most parts are not stocked, and qtys over 100-500 are 60-90 day lead times.
We wouldn't know how to fab a microchip here if our lives depended on it.
They Live, We Sleep
Amusingly the argument is usually the other way round - Iphone user asserts that even though it might not have any extra features, it's better because it's "much nicer".
The point is that everyone's preference varies, and it's subjective - this argument isn't valid either way, and no phones or PDAs are actually better by this measure.