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Doesn't the Army have the ability to make its own, more pertinent, more secure mobile device for the troops? I figure some of the strengths of Android iOS on t

Doesn't the Army have the ability to make its own, more pertinent, more secure mobile device for the troops? I figure some of the strengths of Android iOS on the consumer side may wind up being weaknesses or just plan extraneous on the defense military side.. (security, why would you need to install "apps", etc). Also, I thought those kinds of devices needed more verified software than is available on consumer-grade devices. I'm not sure about that one, though. EDIT: Maybe it would make some sense if they forked Android and used it for their own in house purposes.

wmf 16y ago
Doesn't the Army have the ability to make its own, more pertinent, more secure mobile device for the troops? Which would then be so expensive that most soldiers would not be issued them and thus would buy civilian devices with their own money.
- grav1tas 16y ago
  Maybe my edit went in too late. It really could be a modded platform, which isn't THAT much more expensive. Figure in cost of tweaking the software and providing infrastructure along with installing custom software on the phone and you've got something that at most probably wouldn't be much more than twice as expensive as a normal smartphone. Exclude infrastructure costs that would probably be there whether you used civilian stock phones or not. I don't see how what you said fully relates. If the soldiers bought their own devices, they wouldn't get to put secret information on them...which was the point I was trying to make. I should have emphasized "more secure" more than I did. The soldiers can freely buy whatever phone they want for their own private use. Why should the taxpayer be buying personal smartphones, anyway?
  - wmf 16y ago
    My impression is that anything mil-spec becomes really expensive, but I could be wrong. I was also making an analogy to soldiers buying their own gear when the military won't buy it for them, which AFAIK is happening in Iraq.
ZachPruckowski 16y ago
"Doesn't the Army have the ability to make its own, more pertinent, more secure mobile device for the troops?" There's only half a million active-duty soldiers in the Army, compared to tens of millions of iPhone/Android customers. At that scale, adapting existing products may be cheaper.

wmf 16y ago

Doesn't the Army have the ability to make its own, more pertinent, more secure mobile device for the troops? Which would then be so expensive that most soldiers would not be issued them and thus would buy civilian devices with their own money.

grav1tas 16y ago
Maybe my edit went in too late. It really could be a modded platform, which isn't THAT much more expensive. Figure in cost of tweaking the software and providing infrastructure along with installing custom software on the phone and you've got something that at most probably wouldn't be much more than twice as expensive as a normal smartphone. Exclude infrastructure costs that would probably be there whether you used civilian stock phones or not. I don't see how what you said fully relates. If the soldiers bought their own devices, they wouldn't get to put secret information on them...which was the point I was trying to make. I should have emphasized "more secure" more than I did. The soldiers can freely buy whatever phone they want for their own private use. Why should the taxpayer be buying personal smartphones, anyway?
- wmf 16y ago
  My impression is that anything mil-spec becomes really expensive, but I could be wrong. I was also making an analogy to soldiers buying their own gear when the military won't buy it for them, which AFAIK is happening in Iraq.

ZachPruckowski 16y ago

"Doesn't the Army have the ability to make its own, more pertinent, more secure mobile device for the troops?" There's only half a million active-duty soldiers in the Army, compared to tens of millions of iPhone/Android customers. At that scale, adapting existing products may be cheaper.