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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.
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?
then how did pokemon go get approved?
It does seem like we're missing part of the story here. The hardware isn't the core difference between Apple and the various Android phones, most of them are as capable as any other if you picked up a reasonably recent model. If anything, there are Android phones sporting more memory or faster processors.
The real difference is in the software. It's in the operating system, as well as how it handles applications, and which applications are available for the device. It's also potentially in the enterprise management of such devices, but I don't see that mentioned here either. All of those are software differences primarily.
Apple has had an enterprise mechanism for installing custom apps for years now, completely bypassing the store. This has been the case almost as long as there's been an a store.
With the right management software, the apps can even be loaded and updated automatically. All without Apple ever seeing them.
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.
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!"
You don't remember all the free press Apple got early in the Iraq War when a bullet went through a soldier's vest and stopped in his 1st gen iPod?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
> A DoD contract would mean a LOT of money to Apple,
Meh. They could sell what, a couple thousand phones to SOC? 10k maybe? That's what, an hour of retail?
This isn't the 50's.
The real difference is in the software.
Nope, the real difference is in the ability and willingness to navigate the military procurement process.
The real difference is in the software.
Nope, the real difference is in the ability and willingness to navigate the military procurement process.
I thought about that, thinking maybe the only Android OEMs who were willing to do that were obscure ones making crappy devices, but then I remembered that Samsung has actually gone to the effort of getting at least one of their devices certified for classified data. If they're doing that, they can certainly navigate the procurement process. And the Samsung flagships are very good devices, clearly competitive with the iPhone.
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I doubt it. I had android phones most of my career and only switched to iPhone about 18 months ago. The android phones tend to suck, it's that simple. They freeze, they lose performance (frequent reboots often fix that) and occasional exhibit unexpected and inconsistent behaviors (icon/button clicks don't work until app/phone restart, a button that did one thing sometimes does something else, etc). Android battery life sucks so bad there are apps you need to use to help manage it - not because the battery is a problem but it seems something is always running that drains it. With my iPhone, it just works. In 18 months I can count the number of reboots on one hand. I can go the entire weekend without recharging. Occasionally there is an app crash but nothing like I saw on android. When you're out on the sharp tip of the spear and your life may depend on information being reliably available, android is not the best bet. I'm not saying iPhone is something I'd want to bet my life on either but if I was in their position and wanted the best available, it's the iPhone.
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).
Now the army spec ops guys just need to get their apps approved through the app store.
The DoD already pays for an enterprise cert for iOS. They have been running their own server w/ app install capabilities for the last ~6 years or so, even when they were just tinkering with iOS deployments.
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.
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It does seem like we're missing part of the story here. The hardware isn't the core difference between Apple and the various Android phones, most of them are as capable as any other if you picked up a reasonably recent model. If anything, there are Android phones sporting more memory or faster processors.
Except that that's not completely true, and even in the true half, there are mitigating factors.
The iPhone's CPU is typically much faster than Android processors where it matters, but slower where it doesn't. That is, the iPhone's CPU is extremely fast at single threaded or dual threaded operation, but Android devices win multithreaded benchmarks. As most mobile workloads are not very parallel, the iPhone's CPU typically is a much better bet.
In terms of memory, while you're correct that most Android devices ship with more, they also need significantly more. 90% of processes on Android use garbage collection. It's been demonstrated over and over that garbage collection only works well when there's an excess of memory hanging about. A garbage collector is a fine thing when it has a spare gig or two to fill with things it might collect in the future; but it's a terrible idea on a memory constrained example. This is why when you look at application launch tests between top end Android and iOS devices, typically the iOS device will have more processes still in memory on the second loop through the apps, despite having half the amount of RAM.
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 iPhone could be in fact superior to the task that the Army needed the device to do.
Don't go all Android Fanboi! Android does many things better than iOS... However iOS does some things better.
When designing a software there are tradeoffs that are needed. Sometimes those tradeoffs may enhance more people than they hinder, however the minority may find that missing ability to greatly improve that function they prefer.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Actually, you're full of shit too.
Source: your actual links.
Android has 309 defects with a CVSS score of 7 or higher (on a scale of 1-10). 90 of them with a CVSS score of 10.
IOS has 254 defects with a CVSS score of 7 or higher. 21 of them with a CVSS score of 10.
But hey, don't let facts get in your way.