The touchscreen Apple phone that you use to listen to music, text friends and play games could soon be used by the Army to track foes, train soldiers and plan attacks.
In a statement this week, the Army said that key members of its staff visited Apple headquarters on March 5 to take a tour of its laboratories and to discuss the use of Apple gear — including the iPad, iPhone, iPod, iMac, and MacBook — in Army business and battlefield operations.
“We’re continuing to leverage commercial technology for battlefield uses; we can’t ignore that kind of existing knowledge,” said Nick Justice, commanding general of the Army’s research, development and engineering command. “Our job, as stewards of the taxpayer’s dollar, is to adopt and adapt appropriate commercial technology and offer the best possible solution to the warfighter.”
The Army said the purpose of the meeting was to support an initiative titled “Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications,” to assess how handhelds and apps can be used in a tactical environment by a warfighter.
If the Army does implement Apple’s consumer products into its operations, it would be an interesting shift for the tech industry. Traditionally, the Army has exclusive access to cutting-edge technology years before a consumer rendition of it hits the commercial market. In this case, it would be the other way around.
In the past year, we’ve already seen a few examples of military apps for the iPhone. In December, for example, military contractor Raytheon announced an app that can be used to track the locations of friends and foes on real-time maps. Raytheon also previewed an air-traffic simulator to help train air-traffic controllers, which sounds an awful lot like the popular game Flight Control.
Press release [U.S. Army]
Via DaringFireball
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Photo: U.S. Army
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