The U.S. Army has been testing Android, iOS & Windows Phone 7 for around six weeks now to see which one will suit them best. To keep development costs down they will be choosing two of the three phone operating systems. These two chosen device operating systems will be approved U.S. Army devices to be sure they only have to develop for two types of devices. We haven’t heard any word on how they feel about the Windows 7 phones although from the start they seem to be focused more on Android and iOS. Our assumption at this point would be that these two will be the final choices.
We don’t know for sure but Android devices being used throughout our governments military will be an incredible boost for Android manufacturers and carriers alike. It only makes sense that the two major devices that will be chosen are iOS and Android although they will likely have concerns about both devices.
Android Security Concerns for the U.S. Army
The main concern over using Android as an approved device within our military is the fact that it is open source and there are already virus and malware hitting the personal use handsets. This may of course be the largest concern for anyone but security is one of the most important aspects of military so we will see how Android pans out if its chosen.
iOS lack of customization for U.S. Army
While iOS seems to be the most secure choice for a mobile OS for our military it has one major flaw and that is its ability to adapt to what would be required by them. iOS will likely be a choice out of the three although they will have to manage to get around the lack of custom setups. On a side note we have heard quite a few instances of Apples iOS tracking and this could also pose a threat to it as a decision.
With all of this being said we are going to at this point assume that Windows phones will be tossed aside because lets be honest there aren’t many people interested in Windows phones and therefore the support and thorough testing that is required can’t be done with such a small user base.