A new report from Military.com claims the U.S. Army Special Operations Command is ditching its Android tactical smartphone in favor of the iPhone.
An Army source not authorized to speak to the media said the iPhone 6S is slated to be used in an iPhone Tactical Assault Kit, a special-operations version of the Army’s Nett Warrior battlefield situational awareness tool. The source said the Army is making the switch because the iPhone is “faster, smoother.
Android freezes up” and has to be restarted often.
The equipment package essentially consists of a smartphone connected to a networked radio, allowing unit leaders view intelligence, watch surveillance video streams from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and keep track of their location and the locations of their soldiers using GPS. Android had a particularly hard time running a split screen simultaneously showing the planned route and UAS video feed, failing to refresh properly and forcing a restart that wasted valuable time in the field, according to the source.
