Image via iLounge
Apple’s iPod Touch and, to a lesser extent, the iPhone are increasingly the U.S. military’s handheld device of choice for deployment on the battlefield, according to a recent report in Newsweek.
Traditionally, the military might issue electronic handheld devices, made at great expense specially for the battlefield, with the latest software. But today’s “networked warfare” requires each soldier to be linked electronically to other troops as well as to weapons systems and intelligence sources, says the report.
Making sense of the reams of data from satellites, drones and ground sensors cries out for a handheld device that is both versatile and easy to use – a requirement Apple’s mobile devices fulfill handily.
Such acceptance of a commercial product for use by the military is nearly unprecedented. Many soldiers, however, own iPods and iPhones for personal use and it’s logical their versatility might come to the attention of military strategists seeking methods for fighting the new kinds of counterinsurgency warfare the US has confronted in the post-9/11 era.
Apple’s gadgets have proved surprisingly fit for the task, according to the report.
Software developers and the U.S. Department of Defense are now developing military software for iPods that enable soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a “ballistics calculator” called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight’s Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.
As Lt. Col. Jim Ross, director of the Army’s intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors operations in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey says, when it comes to soldiers’ battlefield communications, an iPod “may be all that they need.”
[Thanks to Jonathan Taylor for the tip]
