My only problem with this article is it frames it in consumer terms which obscures the point. The military would never use iOS because the Military demands complete obedience from their contractors and Apple would never give them that.

What's interesting is they aren't using proprietary software from Microsoft. Microsoft has a history of bending over backwards for Military contracts and I have no doubt they did everything in their power to get Windows Embedded on these phones. So the fact that Android won out shows proprietary software can't count on guaranteed government contracts like it used to.

It seems like this headline was crafted specifically to incite a mobile OS flamewar. And yet, there is very little content in the article that explains why or to what extent Android will be used.

Obviously they need an OS that is highly customizable, and I assume that's why Android is an easy choice. But to me, it seems like the OS is fairly unimportant on such a purpose-built device.

What I'm more interested is how they intend on setting up reliable communications between the devices. Obviously they can't go into a warzone and expect there to be Verizon cell towers every few miles. I assume there is already a system in place, but the article doesn't explain any of this, or how the hardware will have to adapt to the existing system. Or how the OS will have to be modified to use the different hardware.

All around a pretty stupid article. I've seen much better from ars.

Anyone else wondering if they are going to disable the feature that records the location of Android devices and sends it back to Google?

Three thoughts immediately came to mind:

Doesn't the US spend enough on the military already?!

I wonder how much information an enemy could obtain if they got a hold of one of these?

And then the realization that the answer is probably "not much" and that by an enemy holding on to one, they are almost certainly giving away their position. So I wonder if a lot of the utility in the long run will come from tracking phones that get lost and stolen on a battlefield.