By The United States Army announced the winners of their first ever app challenge – Apps for the Army (or A4A, which would see some hardcore developers creating apps for the field) – and guess which platform won the hearts of our fighting men and women of the armed forces? Nearly 150 soldiers and Army civilians designed over 50 apps to get this contest rolling on both the iOS and Android platforms.
Apps were built specifically for 5 categories – Information Access, Location Awareness, Training, Mission Specific, and Miscellaneous – and Android-based apps accounted for 4 of those (the one lost category being training). You can find the list of apps, their developers, and their descriptions at the Army’s site.
Those first place winners have received $3,000 for their efforts, with 25 apps in total being shortlisted for further official development by the Army. These apps (and the devices to run them) probably won’t be deployed for standard use until Android and other platforms can materialize as secure enough for military use, but the Army’s working every day on researching and hopes to make that happen soon.
An awesome story and we wish the Army well in their continued development in getting Android into the hands of combatants and operatives throughout our armed forces.
[via Wired]
these platform wars are now getting ridiculous and boring
@Bob…then don’t read about them…
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Plain and simple this is what you get when you let a software engineering company develop a platform with developers in mind instead of a paint by numbers development experience. The things you can do with apps on Android is simply unparalleled and the story is not told nearly enough. Unfortunately the true power isn’t often used because of people porting over stuff from a lesser platform and not taking advantage of it or people just being too lazy to learn.
@Bob, you probably should stay off platform specific websites then.
The door is right over there.
@Bob, I don’t think you should now be getting ridiculed. But you are boring.
i dont see how it is boring or ridiculous, if anything this kind of stuff makes this more interesting. im wondering exactly how those 4 apps work and about those 25 on the short list. anything that helps our troops is a plus in my opinion.
@bob, are you the Bob the Builder nick jr.?
it sure is a big deal if android is adopted by the US military
This type of was it the root of progress. Is progress boring?
Motorola has been the military’s supplier for years…not surprised that Android is being widely used there now.
For those that have access to storefront and have tried; how do you download the Android apps? Every time I click on “Get It” button, I get an “Error on Page”. And when I click on the error icon, it tells me I have an “invalid argument” error at line xxx Char xxx. Any other Army guys/gals tried this yet?
so you need root? :)
ok I was wrong.
Hardly sounds like an unqualified win for Android when you read the Wired article linked to above. To quote from it:
“But in terms of battlefield utility, the most important app may be the ‘Sigacts’ program for the iPhone. It lets a soldier tap into the Army’s futuristic command post software (called, I’m not kidding, ‘Command Post of the Future’) and learn about bombings and firefights in his area.
“The app was developed by a team led by Major Greg Motes. They are also the contest’s first-place winner, ‘Physical Readiness Trainer.'”
So the most useful app overall is iOS-based and the overall winner of the contest is iOS-based.
My cell phone has been out of date for years. I was thinking of upgrading to Android. This has me reconsidering: Maybe iPhone’s advantages *are* worth doing business with AT&T.
This is awesome. Great job guys. Booyah!
What I’d like is a ruggedized cell phone: Rubberized, shock resistent, waterproof to 10meters, replaceable batteries, secure holster etc. What the Garminphone should have been.
@Cliff
Maybe you should actually look at the winners listed on the Army.mil site linked above. How Wired could figure that Sigacts was the most “useful” overall when it actually came in SECOND in it’s category to an Android app just adds fuel to the fire that Wired is biased in favor of Apple, or that its writers cannot comprehend what they read (your call).
The actual Army Top Five winning apps include three Android only apps, one Android/iOS app and one iOS only app.
So, yes it is pretty much a smashing Android win.
As FYI, the Army is looking at both the iPhone and Android based phones as potential app enablers for individual troops. Neither is touted over the other (yet) and it looks like they may even have both officially running side-by-side. Do a search for Army, smartphones, news and you’ll see the Army Times article about this. So…I’m not seeing an app throwdown here, nor does the general mention a specific platform in his message.
Regarding the error message: your IE browser is likely blocking certain content types. Click on the Notification Bar at the top of IE when you get the warning popup, and select “Show Restricted Content”. You should get a .zip file to download to your computer. Note: you will need to access via your CAC card to get to this point.
I wish I would have know a out this, I have over 40 army manuals made, just look in the android market under Michael Hart!