Actually, they want the whole iPhone, just bulletproof. On March 5th, Apple representatives met with the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command head Major General Nick Justice, to give him and his staff a tour of the facilities and to discuss with them the possibility of designing devices with our soldiers’ needs in mind. “The Army is moving away from big-green-box solutions and toward those that will adapt along with our warfighters on the battlefield,” said Justice. While no official plans have been announced as yet, both organizations agreed to meet for further discussions.
First of all, let’s just say it: Major General Nick Justice is the greatest military name since Sergeant Slaughter. If this guy ever quit the military, he would be morally obligated to become a private detective. Or maybe a superhero. Second of all, wanna snipe terrorists in the field? There’s an app for that. Third of all, I sincerely hope that these discussions weren’t centered around modifying existing iPhone or iPad technology to suit the combat environment. These things can’t be used to stop bullets or survive the innumerable drops that they would certainly be prone to experiencing.
Instead, they have to be thinking of something like the Dell E6400 — rugged, performant under extreme conditions, etc. Also, something that can handle heavily-encrypted transmissions over a private wireless network, and preferably with Apple’s famously easy-to-use interface. Can they do it? If they did, would they make it available to the public at some point? I’m to the point where I’d sign up for the military for something like this; anything to get away from having to use the AT&T network.
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