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Army Special Operations Command Ditching Android For iPhone, Says Report (gizmodo.com)
The United States Army's Special Operations Command is ditching its Android phones for the "faster" iPhone, according to a report. The source cited in the story says that Android phones were freezing unexpectedly, which was one of the reasons they decided to give the iPhone 6s a spin. Gizmodo adds: The smartphones allow members of the Special Operations Command to access rich information about the battlefield. There's also quickly accessible information, like a weapons and ammunitions guide. Other apps can help with high altitude jumps; another can detect radiation. While DARPA helped develop the program on Android due to the operating system's open platform, Apple's hardware is apparently superior enough to warrant the switch.
i feel safer already!
But seriously? iPhone superior to Android? Were they buying budget phones?
What's done's in the past, forever shall last.
Work is work; life is life; fair is not!
Other apps can help with high altitude jumps;
So are they supposed to just whip out an iPhone in the middle of a HALO jump to figure out when they need to open their chute?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You may not use this device to kill people?
*doh
What hardware company is that?
My Android phone Samsung is fine. My wife's Motorola phone freezes like that.
You may not use this device to kill people?
then how did pokemon go get approved?
In my anecdotal experience, Android devices do not respond well to situations where signal goes away completely and then comes back. It's like some dumbass put in this code: while (!signal()) {} - not realizing that they are consuming all of the resources which would allow the phone to detect the signal came back.
Source: I've seen this code multiple times from people I work with... no shit you're consuming 100% of the CPU, you fool.
I can totally see Apple making a big stink about using Apple products in wartime missions.
"This insurgent extraction brought to you by iTunes, the only way to jam out with your rifle out! And Apple Maps, accurate to the last drop!"
The iPhones come with standardized turtleneck uniforms intended for high camouflage urban warfare.
If they're switching, it's because somebody's getting a kickback.
Now the army spec ops guys just need to get their apps approved through the app store.
Can the Army install custom apps for themselves or they need to be approved first for Apple?
A natural consequence of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I am so sick of seeing people use the adjective "rich" to mean "a variety of" or "varied and largely orthogonal". It is lazy writing, plain and simple.
Isn't on the battlefield a little late to be reading weapons and ammunition guides?
In demanding, life-and-death situations, being an open platform and full of nifty gizmos doesn't always make for the best mobile platform. Build quality, durability, and reliability is key, speed is a nice perk too. Samsung does okay, but Apple still has these features dialed in. When you get over being grumpy about Apple's walled garden approach to apps, those key features are really what we are looking for in the field.
Does the iPhone include a Geiger counter? Or is it just something like this i.e. a very expensive screen for a Geiger counter.
Tim Cook is a goodess on his knees
He had his tea leaves read and knows he must do as they please
Seriously, they don't have specialized equipment for high altitude jumps or to detect radiation?!
I can only hope that for a special forces tactical assault kit they are getting some custom designed ones and not off-the-shelf phones.
The article links to another article at dodbuzz that gives some better info.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
If they didn't want it to freeze I would hope they bought a Google Nexus, the only arguably vanilla Android phone. Otherwise, yeah, if it's worth the extra cost to you an iPhone probably will be more stable.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
we can also sent the info to the highest bidder and you can't install your own custom rom's.
I assume the phones can do many things, and they are only the end user device. Why not get off the shelf stuff which is reasonably cheap and well understood?
Maybe the ASOC switched because the expert on the Android forum told them to fork their own version of the software and fix it themselves, then locked the thread.
Status: BRN
They use iBomb and iDrone for most C&C needs.
is like special education?
Obviously, their grandchildren were telling them their phones weren't cool.
I deal with the DoD phones every day and it's not that the Android hardware or OS is slower or inferior, it's that the DoD's implementation is. I personally don't like iOS and find my Samsung phones far superior for personal use, but once the security software is installed the Galaxy phones are virtually useless (and this includes all the way up through the S6, not just completely outdated models). They completely missed the point on how Knox is supposed to work and try to secure both the regular partition and the Knox partition which just screws up both of them. They constantly lose connection to the server and have to be reset or just freeze entirely. Despite my vehement dislike of iOS I advise people to only get iPhones now for the office. It's just not worth fighting with what they've done to Android. So when SOCOM says their Android phones are slow and freezing and the iPhone is much faster it's completely true in the context of government secured versions (in the context of personal phones that don't have everything useful disabled in the name of security, I'll stick with my S7 Edge).
Commandos jumping out of planes with iPhones doesn't make them less gay.
They are not "faster" than Android phones. iPhones are closed source though. Android itself is not.
Could it also be because Google is doing the hard press to get 2 million foreign developers (India) for Android? It may be that the military is not keen on the idea of having all of their app usage piped through a foreign power?
And the funny thing is, two years after its release, the BlackBerry Passport is still the smartest, best engineered handheld computing device on the market, bar none. Even so-called techies on Slashdot don't know jack if it's not advertised on teevee.
They probably implemented that DoD security software for the Android version in whatever cross platform software Miguel Icaza's group produced.
I switched to iPhone 6small from Android after I needed to make an important call but found that 10 or so carrier crapware apps were running using all of the processing power -- reboot -- crapware autostarts, runs hot, burns remaining battery power before I can stop them and then no out going call for me! (Blockbuster app!! carrier map app$$, etc)
So far, the only issue with the iPhone was that (one time so far) I was waiting for a iMessage (text-message) -- (might not have have had the iMessage app in memory at the time) -- the message was sent but I didn't get it until 30 minutes later after I started the messaging app -- (I'm used to txt messages flowing through no matter what)
I know that it's nowhere\
But there is no denying that
In my experience decisions like this are typically made because somebody high up likes their iPhone and doesn't want to have to learn how to use an Android phone. Sounds overly simplistic, but I've seen it happen too many times.
Bad guess. Note "United States Army's Special Operations Command", they get a lot of say in what equipment they use. A friend's brother made some unique camera equipment. SOC guys thought it interesting. The only people this small company every saw during evaluation were "operators". The "suits" did not get involved until the "operators" said "we want this". What you say may be true for normal military procurement, but its very different for SOC.
Yep - another S6A Knox user here.
If i lose data connection for a bit, i feel-it as the phone heats up like mad while sucking the battery dry.
If i lose the data connection for too long, it will self-format (and destroy all the data/photos/application settings on the phone)
And when the data connection is working fine, the fscking antivirus randomly kicks in and slows everything down. I had battery life varying from 3 full days to 3 hours.
There's no way to get consistent functionality from a secured Samsung phone. While on iPhone everything works as it should.
Linux kernel on Android vs MACH Darwin microkernel on iOS.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
GP is right, All the vendors market to the guys wearing stars. If the general likes it then that's what we buy, doesn't matter what the grunts think.
Note "United States Army's Special Operations Command", that works entirely different. A friend's brother made some specialized photographic gear for the civilian market. SOC guys heard about it, visited, asked to evaluate it. They made some suggestions. These were incorporated into the design. They then told the guys wearing stars "we want this" and then "suits" got involved for the paperwork. Selection, evaluation and decision for this gear was made by "operators".
The real difference is in the software.
Nope, the real difference is in the ability and willingness to navigate the military procurement process.
Not necessarily in this case, note "United States Army's Special Operations Command". They get a ton of say in gear. A friend's brother had a small company that made some photographic gear for the civilian market, SCUBA divers in particular, and SOC types got interested in it and the normal military procurement process was not involved. SOC can bypass the "military procurement process". They are not just war fighters, they are also involved in finding, developing and evaluating new gear and technology.
Can't say this is conclusive by any stretch. But in my experience of using a iPhone and a Android tablet. The apps are way more susceptible to issues on Android than IOS. In fact I have owned a Nexus 7 and just recently a Samsung tablet and a Droid Android phone and all of them require reboots occasionally. My iPhone's rarely require reboots and I can't remember the last app issue on IOS. Most people I know who use Android complain mostly about stability.
Wiki has the Nett Warrior system using a samsung galaxy note II the replacement is 2015 thats a huge difference in tech what 2 whole android OS revisions etc. They also have them using a NSA approved firmware who who knows what issues.
No sir I dont like it.
People often criticize iOS devices for being boring and slow to adopt new features.
On the flip side, they are quite consistent and predictable.. Which is what you want in a managed/business environment.
If you get an iphone it /will/ be able to connect to your email systems and will likely have apps available for your middleware/cms/etc.
The iphone being the standard office phone. Hah. I need to dig up all those old threads people touting how blackberry will continue in to the future and the iphone will be a forgotten toy in a year.
iPhones are great. It's the iTunes ecosystem that turns me completely off. How can they make such a great device with a superb OS only to pair it up with desktop software that is so totally awful.
It reminds me of a potential advertisement a past employer of mine considered - never mind the visuals, the tagline was "They offered me an iPhone. I offered them a head-start!"
Someone please tell me out Military isnt buying the same phones the consumers buy? Same for Windows 10 even if its the "enterprise" edition can you imagine Microsoft having the ability to data mine our Military.lol omg.
Jack of all trades,master of none
this couldn't possibly be to call them when they're not on base?
been there; it's one of the less stupid approaches we took. I pissed off 100 people I worked with when I told a bully of an O-6 that we weren't doing something illegal. They were all afraid that someone would be upset, and the troll of a colonel looked at me, said "ok", changed the subject, and never asked again. I'd assume that this decision was even stupider than the program manager liking iphones, and more likely the gutless coward of a PM thinking that some idiot at the pentagon who's never been in combat wants an iphone.
Does NSA/DARPA/GAO really believe iPhone will do any better?
Why yes, yes it does.
Kinda the whole point, isn't it?
Really - three nearly identical posts ...
Apologies for communicating with three different individuals.
... and in all three, you seem almost desperate to have someone acknowledge that you are an insider with super-meaningful knowledge.
I am not an insider, nor have any special knowledge. It is quite well known that SOC has a wide latitude in gear selection. I merely saw a single instance of this well known practice. Apologies if your anti-military industrial complex meme or whatever failed. Perhaps there will be an F-35 post for you soon and you can find some joy.
And the funny thing is, two years after its release, the BlackBerry Passport is still the smartest, best engineered handheld computing device on the market, bar none. Even so-called techies on Slashdot don't know jack if it's not advertised on teevee.
Even still, nobody wants it.
Stick a fork in Blackberry; they're done!
Which company has the contract for all of the broken screens?
It's not the hardware or the fundamentals of Android itself, it's that the phone manufacturers can't release a reliable device if their shareholder profits depended on it. Even my Nexus 6P has crippling bugs which Google have not/will not fix. There is not enough QA and not enough patches to fix bugs. I get my security updates every month, but bugs which have been in the bug tracker since the phones release are still not fixed.
They tried one and got laughed out of the dry run.
Or somebody in the Army Brass wants a nice comfy position at Apple when they retire.
they will be the laughing stock of the world... oh wait!
The iPhone is made out of crystal and glass. It has a reputation for breaking after being dropped a few feet onto concrete. It's neither water nor dust resistant. There are many android phones out there and not all of them are bad. It seems to me that the Army would be much better off with something like the Caterpillar S40 rather than a glass bauble like the iPhone. The iPhone is a great consumer device, but it's completely unsuitable for combat operations in the field.
Personally I'm bit surprised that those are two options that are considered for any security-critical field application.
What you have here is a leader in the organization that is an Apple freak that is lying to get them to ditch Android in an attempt to get more people hooked on iPhones so his/her stock prices go up. No joke, seen these types of leaders when I was active duty.
I have been a big fan of Samsungs Rugby/Actives for years. I didn't care for Consumer Reports of a simulated pressure of five feet, which is an instant pressure on the phone, and have dropped my S7 Active in a pool and it works fine. I have nerve and balance issues so my phones go through hell. If IPhones can't handle that pressure how will they handle ASOC?
There is specialized equipment for that. I have the radiation detector in my Amazon wishlist. It's like $20 with free two day shipping. Or do you mean the military should develop a version that costs $50,000 each, when a small phone can do the same thing? Are you the guy who paid $10,000 for a hammer?