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]