U.S. Air Force Buys 18,000 Apple iPads to Replace Flight Bags

[bosshawk]

I believe that American Airlines has recently gotten approval from the FAA to replace their 50 lbs of paper charts with iPADs.  American has estimated how much fuel will be saved from not carrying those big chart bags with one per pilot.  Thrash may fly for American, so listen to what he says.

I doubt that many airline pilots give a rats p------ what most of you guys have to say about various other pieces of computer equipment.  They will use what their airline buys for them.  And the Air Force certainly doesn't care: just pay your taxes and keep quiet.

[Extremepredjudice]

Off the shelf is the way to go. You start having to modify stuff and the costs go up very quickly. Especially when you're buying 18,000 of something!

No it isn't. Buying off the shelf crappy IOS products isn't a good idea.

Math:
Ipad 2: 500 X 18000=9000000
Asus Eee PC T91MT-PU17-BK: 375 X 18000=6750000

9m - 6.75m = 2.25m

They could afford to build a custom version of linux for 2.25m. Then you have everything you need, a better product AND you save a bit.

You guys said the planes had WIFI, so no extra cost.

I hate Apple products like the devil incarnate but in this case you're wrong because there is already an ecosystem there. Commercial charts are already available for iPad. There are more accessories than you can shake a stick at. The Asus you pointed out has way too many moving parts and things that can go wrong. Also, as much as I hate to admit it 2.25 mil is a rounding error in the DOD budget.

read what I responded to. 2.25M isn't large, but it is certainly enough for the DOD to build a custom version of linux on.

If that ASUS has to many moving parts than choose one of the other 200+ touchscreen netbooks. I chose that one because I know off the top of my head it is a good touchscreen netbook. 

If the charts already are available for Ipads, they are certainly available downloadable.

You know the USAF has some very serious gear heads......the bid for this buy went out to all the serious players and IPAD won.

It is not like some SrA was sitting in an office with a credit card and the best buy web page up waiting for the go ahead to buy 180000 computers.

From a maintenance perspective....both comm and aircraft.....it is six of one and half dozen of the other.  They all basically fit the same bill.....the users don't care about OS, apps, what ever.....they needed some thing that was big enough to read, small enough to fit on a knee board, rugged enough to be abused (pilots abuse everything), simple enough to use and easy to update.

The contracting office put out the RFP and IPAD won.
We can argue the benifits of one OS over the other, or one table over the other....but it's too late now.

It didn't go out to everyone, because someone would've leaked it. They leak EVERYTHING!

While the users don't care about features, IT should look for the most bang for your buck. Non-mobile OSes would allow you to have more than one window at a time, easier and cheaper maintenance, longer battery life, physical keyboard(a big plus, not everyone has small fingers).

[Spaceman3750]

Hm... Personally my experiences with Android devices have been pretty awful (terrible user interface and cheap, plastic hardware), but I have yet to be able to try Honeycomb/ICS, which I do want to check out. I own an iPhone 4S and an iPad and they both meet pretty much all of my needs. With devices like phones and tablets, I need a "just works every time" device, not a "I want to customize my app launcher and 100 other things" device.

The only thing I dislike about iOS is that it's a nightmare in an enterprise/mass deployment scenario. Apple doesn't open up enough information or controls in the Mobile Device Management (MDM) API, which means that app deployment is a pain, the end user can remove the device from management, and a whole host of other limitations that IT departments rather dislike. My school district has a lot of iPads already and will be getting more - I've been trying to put together a management plan for them and in the process I have decided that if they had asked me about it from the get-go we would never have bought them.

[lordmonar]

It didn't go out to everyone, because someone would've leaked it. They leak EVERYTHING!

While the users don't care about features, IT should look for the most bang for your buck. Non-mobile OSes would allow you to have more than one window at a time, easier and cheaper maintenance, longer battery life, physical keyboard(a big plus, not everyone has small fingers).

They did leak it.....you just did not hear about it.

[Spaceman3750]

Extremeprejudice,

Something you're also not thinking about is post-purchase support (for 2-3 years, or whatever lifecycle Ma Blue has decided on). That's perfectly OK, you are approaching this like a consumer because you are one. However, whenever a business or other organization (especially the government) buys 18,000 of anything they are concerned with getting a good warranty with outstanding support for the length of the device lifecycle.

For example, I have RMA'd both Apple and Asus devices (we're going to talk about notebooks here but tablets are going to be the same thing). Apple was a four day turnaround, Asus was a three week turnaround. When you have a production device, that's a big deal. Apple offers AppleCare warranties that make it very easy to accomplish the repair process (for non-accidental damage cases), other vendors may or may not offer that (and again, when you are buying 18,000 of anything that's important because you are getting into the statistical odds that several will fail in production).

Something else to think about, is what's the average lifespan for one device vs. another (and that's the normal lifespan, not the techie I'm going to fine-tune and tweak the hell out of it lifespan), averaged over the entire group of devices. Warranty comes into play here again, but basically the overall plan is probably "we will buy a batch of these, and in three years (for example) we will replace them when the warranty runs out". With other vendors, that lifespan may be only two or one years, and if the purchaser has decided that the total lifecycle must be three years, that rules out a lot of options off the bat.

I'm not saying that Apple devices are best in all circumstances, but I'd be willing to be that in this case when you look at the total package Apple was the better option.

[SAR-EMT1]

BTW.....This is about the 900th X vs Y fight I have seen in the last 20+ years.


Pentium VS AMD


Some times it gets a little old!   

So who won this one ?

[davidsinn]

BTW.....This is about the 900th X vs Y fight I have seen in the last 20+ years.


Pentium VS AMD


Some times it gets a little old!   

So who won this one ?

Microsoft. Their stuff runs on both.

[Thrashed]

Off the shelf is the way to go. You start having to modify stuff and the costs go up very quickly. Especially when you're buying 18,000 of something!

No it isn't. Buying off the shelf crappy IOS products isn't a good idea.

Math:
Ipad 2: 500 X 18000=9000000
Asus Eee PC T91MT-PU17-BK: 375 X 18000=6750000

9m - 6.75m = 2.25m

They could afford to build a custom version of linux for 2.25m. Then you have everything you need, a better product AND you save a bit.

You guys said the planes had WIFI, so no extra cost.

Do you really think they will pay full retail price for that kind of order? My airline ordered 12,000 iPads. I'm sure they got a deal, they hate to spend money on us.

[Thrashed]

By the way, I got to play with the new iPad the other day. Jepps for the whole world, company manuals, aircraft manuals, plus all the normal apps that come with it (email, camera, etc.) It works fine and weighs about 50lbs less than what I'm carrying now. 

[Spaceman3750]

Off the shelf is the way to go. You start having to modify stuff and the costs go up very quickly. Especially when you're buying 18,000 of something!

No it isn't. Buying off the shelf crappy IOS products isn't a good idea.

Math:
Ipad 2: 500 X 18000=9000000
Asus Eee PC T91MT-PU17-BK: 375 X 18000=6750000

9m - 6.75m = 2.25m

They could afford to build a custom version of linux for 2.25m. Then you have everything you need, a better product AND you save a bit.

You guys said the planes had WIFI, so no extra cost.

Do you really think they will pay full retail price for that kind of order? My airline ordered 12,000 iPads. I'm sure they got a deal, they hate to spend money on us.

Surprisingly, Apple doesn't budge on pricing much. You might have gotten a few bucks off, good for a few thousand dollars, but it wasn't killer.

[Eclipse]

Surprisingly, Apple doesn't budge on pricing much. You might have gotten a few bucks off, good for a few thousand dollars, but it wasn't killer.

Absolutely true, and part and parcel of their belief that they are a consumer brand, not an enterprise brand.

I'd be willing to bet there is little to no price break regardless of the quantity.

[Thrashed]

So nobody knows. 

[Extremepredjudice]

Off the shelf is the way to go. You start having to modify stuff and the costs go up very quickly. Especially when you're buying 18,000 of something!

No it isn't. Buying off the shelf crappy IOS products isn't a good idea.

Math:
Ipad 2: 500 X 18000=9000000
Asus Eee PC T91MT-PU17-BK: 375 X 18000=6750000

9m - 6.75m = 2.25m

They could afford to build a custom version of linux for 2.25m. Then you have everything you need, a better product AND you save a bit.

You guys said the planes had WIFI, so no extra cost.

Do you really think they will pay full retail price for that kind of order? My airline ordered 12,000 iPads. I'm sure they got a deal, they hate to spend money on us.

Even if they would knock money off I don't know the amount. I bet you ASUS, Acer, toshiba, dell, and the lot would knock off some. But again I don't know, so consumer pricing it is.

[abdsp51]

Uncle Sam saved some dough on it, and there was no sales tax on the item.  Be interesting to see how many unit computers have iTunes installed to accommodate the iPad.  And wonder if Apple has disabled the wifi aspect and such.

[Spaceman3750]

  And wonder if Apple has disabled the wifi aspect and such.

That's easy enough for the customer to do with the iPhone Configuration Utility (also for iPads).

[abdsp51]

Maybe but it interesting to see what they have done to them to allow them to be plugged into a machine that is not stand alone.

[Eclipse]

iOS 5 no longer requires a computer to set up an iPad / iPhone, and most likely they would come from the USAF pre-configured and
secured.

Enterprise-class tools should not require a locally installed music store to configure them.

[abdsp51]

I have heard from sources that Apple does have issues with encryption.

[bassque]

I have heard from sources that Apple does have issues with encryption.

Issues with encryption?  Which specifically?  Apple uses all standard encryption protocols.  (SHA/DES/3DES/SSL etc). 

[abdsp51]

The protocals to allow devices to operate on the network.  Especially in the personal wireless area, they are not able to meet the guidelines. Personally apple wouldn't be my first choice, but they were what was purchased. Wonder what the tech support turn around time will be on them.