“The United States Air Force is apparently ready to follow the lead of commercial airlines and jump on the tablet bandwagon. A recent notice indicates the Air Force wants to buy thousands of Apple iPad 2s for the crews that fly cargo aircraft,” David Needle reports for TabTimes.
“The goal is to replace the paper charts and technical manuals the crew now has to carry,” Needle reports. “American Airlines and a number of other commercial carriers have already started to replace pilots manuals, which can total hundreds of pounds, with iPads.”
Needle reports, “The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command’s (AMC) planned purchase could be the largest single federal order for a tablet, according to the site NextGov, which reported on the deal after seeing a notice at the Federal Business Opportunities website. The notice said AMC wants to buy ‘a minimum of 63 and a maximum of 18,000, iPad 2, Brand Name or Equal devices’ for cargo aircraft such as the C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Only the government could have a procurement range of 63-18,000. There is no “Equal Device” to the iPad 2, so give that one up. And, if “Brand Name” is your only criterion, you need more criteria.
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