US Air Force Eyeing 18K iPads

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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The US Air Force is looking to lighten the loads carried in plane’s cockpits, where the iPad would replace up to 40 pounds of maps and charts. The Air Force is looking to purchase an unknown amount of tablets from several vendors, but specifically mentioned Apple’s iPad, ranging from a low of 63 units to a high of 18k. The wide range of the number was not explained, but since we are talking about the military here, there must be a good reason. :D

The information came from a notice on a government procurement website and mentioned the iPad by name. However, the notice also stated that the USAF would consider similar devices.
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I can see the headline now.

Mass Crowds Small Town Looking for FREE IPAD.
 
So tablets are now used for maps? Great, it won't be long before RTS gaming comes to the tablet.
 
I can see this headline. "Plane loses way when GPS and tablet only navigational charts crap out." :D
 
Hmmm I just hope they don't pay full retail price. It would be interesting to see something like this spark companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
 
ElGuapo242 said:
I can see this headline. "Plane loses way when GPS and tablet only navigational charts crap out." :D
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The FAA has already approved iPads for one airline to replace safety manuals and other policy books required to be in the cockpit of any commercial air flight.
So the military taking notice isn't out of the ordinary.
 
These tablets are gonna replace the paper charts/manuals/maps/whatever. It's not actually gonna be used for IFR.
 
Is this why they closed the air force base in Utah. So they could buy some overpriced Ipads. Apple should just donate them!
 
Keiichi said:
Hmmm I just hope they don't pay full retail price. It would be interesting to see something like this spark companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
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Not to shoot you down or anything but the manufacturing would be very expensive in the US. Things like this are made in a country where workers can be exposed to dangerous chemicals and really bad labor practices for a reason.
I'm not complaining or posturing, we all love cheap electronics, but if it truly was made in the US, that IPad would probably cost 3 times what it costs now.
 
Keiichi said:
Hmmm I just hope they don't pay full retail price. It would be interesting to see something like this spark companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
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It's the US Military... so they will sign a contract to pay 150% - 300% instead. Can't go cheap when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars...
 
farscapesg1 said:
It's the US Military... so they will sign a contract to pay 150% - 300% instead. Can't go cheap when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars...
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Actually companies have to sell products the government for the cheapest price available, but you wouldn't know that.

And seriously why would you buy Ipads. Most overpriced piece of junk. You could also get a really cheap tablet made just for this job, no need to pay $500+ for something useless.
 
Hopefully this will trickle down to the maintenance guys too. I remember having to wheel around a separate box just for all the technical manuals and a tool box as well when going out to do some work.
 
wow that is a lot of laptops

I know sometimes goverment get discounts and other times they sub the company profit margin
 
Well, knowing how the Gov does business they'll probably pay 3-4 times the regular price. After all I saw a documentary on one company that was charging the government close to $1 Million for bolt washers and everything else. The government got on that company for charging the outrageous prices however I believe it was the govt fault for paying the company in the first place.
 
Keiichi said:
Hmmm I just hope they don't pay full retail price. It would be interesting to see something like this spark companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
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Our school bought 100 with apple setting up a server and such for an experiment, and the school got no deal, same price as the local store, no special, 1 or 100.
 
Pilot: Birdsnest, this is Eagle-one I have identified the terrorist plane with the nuclear bomb flying into Washington DC
Pilot: Birdsnest, Do I have have permission to engage and destroy?
Base: Eagle-one, permission to engage and terminate granted good shooting soldier
Pilot: Roger that
Pilot: Eagle one maneuvering into position, lined up directly behind for the kill
Pilot: Eagle one fox three FIRE!
ipodspinxx3.gif


Pilot: *tapping foot*
 
If this actually happens, I think Apple iPads will suddenly become a huge target for hackers--especially those working for foreign governments (i.e., China). How ironic would that be?
 
So take out the radio chips and cameras in them and voila instant Government approcved device!
 
BDS23 said:
So tablets are now used for maps? Great, it won't be long before RTS gaming comes to the tablet.
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Actually, they have been used as GPS devices for awhile now....even Tom Tom has an app for that. :D
 
seems like they'd be much better off with an eink like a modified kindle or something.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Actually companies have to sell products the government for the cheapest price available, but you wouldn't know that.
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ACTUALLY, most government procurements come from bids. Each branch has different bid rules and how they asses different criteria such as price, ability to fulfill, etc.
The agency does not always select the vendor with the lowest price. In fact, when we do bids I often get angry when management does select the lowest priced product because it is often not going to fulfill our needs but hey "it's the cheapest" so why not buy it :rolleyes:
Then 2 years later after hundreds of hours wasted trying to implement you have to go back out to bid for a product that will actually do what the first product was supposed to do, so you end up paying for something over and over again.
 
lollerwaffle said:
Not to shoot you down or anything but the manufacturing would be very expensive in the US. Things like this are made in a country where workers can be exposed to dangerous chemicals and really bad labor practices for a reason.
I'm not complaining or posturing, we all love cheap electronics, but if it truly was made in the US, that IPad would probably cost 3 times what it costs now.
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There is no deliberate need to expose workers to bad labor practices or dangerous chemicals. Do you really think that is the motivation for companies to use 3rd party contractors overseas? No, it's simply the need for cheaper labor to bring costs down and maximize profit and revenue. The fact that cheap labor also happens to exist in 8th world shit smelling toilets isn't anyone's fault but those countries.
 
farscapesg1 said:
It's the US Military... so they will sign a contract to pay 150% - 300% instead. Can't go cheap when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars...
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You ever develop a product for the military? If you have then you know the certs required to go along with that development to conform to milspec requirements. Those add cost, paperwork, confirmation, testing, validation, etc. I can go buy a hammer at HD for $10, but that same hammer would cost 30 times that because of how DoD rules and regulations are tacked onto what that hammer must do, how it must do it, and how it conforms to the requirement of whatever office is purchasing it.

A milspec ipad will be no different and it will most likely be redesigned to milspec standards as well.
 
cyr0n_k0r said:
= Each branch has different bid rules and how they asses different criteria such as price, ability to fulfill, etc.
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exactly, its all different between the agencies. Mine for example, is (or was, slowly starting to deviate) a lowest bid agency. So when we need someone to start manufacturing a new piece of equipment we get a bunch of different bids from companies. Whoever can sumbit the lowest bid with a product that will meet the minimum requirements gets the contract. Not all agencies are like this, many of the others I work around have a much higher budget and give middle management the opportunity to spec things out to their needs as long as they keep it in a certain budget. I think the latter ends up being a much better system
 
xIronCrossx said:
Actually companies have to sell products the government for the cheapest price available, but you wouldn't know that.

And seriously why would you buy Ipads. Most overpriced piece of junk. You could also get a really cheap tablet made just for this job, no need to pay $500+ for something useless.
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Because the iPad is ~$500, a Class III EFB is tens of thousands of dollars, and the iPad outperforms the Class III EFBs in reliability and usability.
 
Methadras said:
You ever develop a product for the military? If you have then you know the certs required to go along with that development to conform to milspec requirements. Those add cost, paperwork, confirmation, testing, validation, etc. I can go buy a hammer at HD for $10, but that same hammer would cost 30 times that because of how DoD rules and regulations are tacked onto what that hammer must do, how it must do it, and how it conforms to the requirement of whatever office is purchasing it.

A milspec ipad will be no different and it will most likely be redesigned to milspec standards as well.
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No, it won't. It is a COTS product.

That's "common off the shelf" for those of you who are not in the know.
 
Methadras said:
You ever develop a product for the military? If you have then you know the certs required to go along with that development to conform to milspec requirements. Those add cost, paperwork, confirmation, testing, validation, etc. I can go buy a hammer at HD for $10, but that same hammer would cost 30 times that because of how DoD rules and regulations are tacked onto what that hammer must do, how it must do it, and how it conforms to the requirement of whatever office is purchasing it.

A milspec ipad will be no different and it will most likely be redesigned to milspec standards as well.
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They stopped doing that for most stuff becuase of the the jokes about the $10k hammer. The Airforce has all kinds of divisions like TENCAP now that spend all day looking for consumer products that can be used for military applications. Now only stuff that needs to be hardened is hardend and the rest is just off the shelf crap. I know for a fact right now there are people developing iOS apps in the military because a couple 3 and 4 stars like thier iPads.
 
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