The iPhone Goes To War
December 17, 2009
The military might have brought us radio, but Apple is giving them back the iPhone. And surprisingly, it's not for Doodle Jump.
Raytheon, an american military contractor, announced yesterday at the 2009 Intelligence Warfighting Summit in Tucson they'll be developing War-oriented apps.
Their first one for example, One Force Tracker, which you won't find on the app store, is intended to support the movement of troops. Once set-up and activated it lets you share your position with the rest of the squadron, communicate through a secure channel or consult real time maps.
On top of that Raytheon isn't even concerned with iPhone's lack of multitasking :
Underneath the iPhone is a Mac OS X operating system which is based on Unix, which gives us Unix multitaskingBut this is just code for using Google Latitude with a jailbreak app. The potential is huge, delivering real-time data about each soldier's position and status would be a great advantage in today's battlefields. Thanks to some extensions the iPhone could also report on the soldier's physical condition and health in the near future. This sounds like some awesome real life Command & Conquer, don't you think? [via NYTimes Blogs]