First Look: Inside the Army’s App Store for War

If all of the bureaucratic and security department hurdles can be have the best , the Army will soon establish its version of an app store , where soldier can download US Army - relevant package to their work computers and – with a little chance – mobile earphone . This is what its homepage will look like .

Called Army Marketplace , it ’ll start off boast the few dozen applications that soldiers create last year during theApps for the Army competition . Those former efforts ran the gamut from workout guides to digitized manuals for received Army labor . So far , there are 17 apps for Android phones and another 16 for iPhones .

But the Army Marketplace will do more than sell existing apps . It ’ll assist yield ideas for new ones , say Lt . Col . Gregory Motes , top dog of the Army ’s new Mobile Applications Branch . Imagine that a soldier wants an app instructing how to call for gun blast , and the app does n’t exist yet . The soldier would post a description of what she needs on a Marketplace forum , attracting discussion from fellow soldiers and likely interior designer .

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If other troops ca n’t nursing home - brew a solution , the Army would open a bidding or contracting appendage from would - be trafficker who ’ve expressed interest group on the ribbon . Ideally , the app would be available on Marketplace not long thereafter , with a nominal leverage price , a la the App Store or Android Market .

“ It ’d use an agile software - development cognitive process , to close up with the vendor and seek to quickly deform these apps around , ” Motes tells Danger Room . “ The current process of software creation [ in the Army ] is a very farseeing and arduous process . That ’s how we do thing . But app exploitation needs to be done cursorily . ”

You ’ll have to be a member of the Department of Defense community to see the storehouse and access its ware . It ’ll be host on a secure DOD server and necessitate a username and password from intranets likeArmy Knowledge Online . Eventually , Marketplace will become an app of its own , loadable onto the forthcoming Army - cut smartphone so users are n’t tie to a web site . Marketplace is n’t meant for the general populace – which make trouble for how it interacts with smartphones . ( More on that in a moment . )

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Army Marketplace ’s interior decorator are also working on personalized substance abuser pages to facilitate the app substitution . On them , customer declare their needed apps , propose new unity , and substitute criticism . On the correct hand side of that inside varlet are auto - generate lists of “ Top Ideas ” and “ Top Projects ” that others have generated . ( That ’s a screenshot of a individualised page , above . )

U. S. Army governing body like Gen. Peter Chiarelli , the vice chief of staff often seen thumbing like unbalanced on his iPhone 4 , prospect apps as a game - changing overture topushing information down to the lowest ranksand exponentially increase the Army ’s ability to learn and adapt . So the service has lay out up newfangled workshop – like Motes ’ parent organization , called connect Soldiers to Digital Applications – inside the Army ’s Training and Doctrine Command , to help generate an ecosystem of military - friendly applications .

Eventually , the Army will host apps thattrack the localization of friendly forcesormap out wartime terrainortranslate alien languages . Software author and defense team companies have already produce all of those . On top of that , the Army will launch its second Apps for the Army competition later this twelvemonth as a way to generate both more apps and a constituency for them inside the service .

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There ’s just one small problem . The government has n’t certified any unmarried mobile equipment as secure enough to have data from its connection . If all go grant to plan , the Army will bring out Marketplace in August , at theLandWarNet convention . That ’ll mean whatever applications are presently available could be well beam to a soldier ’s work computer – which does n’t really help , yield the whole estimation is to allow mobile access to the principal of Army selective information .

The Army ’s now testing Google ’s Android O topower its first smartphone prototype . That ’s made by MITRE , the federally funded defense consultancy . Other defense companies apply Android ’s open architecture as the backbone of their own mobile gadget that they ’d like to sell the Army , such asRaytheon ’s RATSandGeneral Dynamics ’ GD300 . But the Army is n’t near closely to square off on an operating arrangement or a nomadic gadget for its ultimate goal of require soldier to acquit a smartphone just as they carry a rifle .

And no Android phone has so much as start out going through the process of having the National Institute of Standards and Technology certify it as unassailable - enough to host politics data . The iPhone has started the process , Motes says , but is still calendar month aside from finishing it .

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That ’s why government BlackBerries can serve someone ’s official mail service and do practically nothing else a civilian smartphone does . As of now , “ we do n’t have a solution for authenticating software or dependable websites , ” Motes says .

How long until a phone receives certification ? “ An optimist might say 12 months , ” Motes assesses , but being pragmatic , it ’s further down the road . ”

Until then , Marketplace will be a good plaza to download internet apps and daydream up apps of the future . It wo n’t be utile for loading up your phone with Army apps .

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But it ’s possible , Motes say , that “ commanders can take risks ” if they can convince the Army there ’s a pressing need in a “ tactical surround ” for bound off authentication . Welcome to the laborious process of get the Army prepare for the daylight when every soldier is involve to stock a secured smartphone .

That ’s not the only challenge . Congress ’ inability to overtake a budget for month set back the apps curriculum . A LandWarNet debut for Marketplace remains the goal , Motes enunciate , and “ if they do n’t announce at LandWarNet , then it ’s just a big sigh . ” Another headache is secure the apps themselves , a process of going through computer code “ line by line ” looking for potential security measures flaws , which “ is gon na drive us crazy . ”

But at least Motes is convinced that at the end of this unconscious process is an agile internet site and mobile portal that will link soldier to apps that will let them do their jobs better . It ’s a lot more functional and intuitive than the comic attempt at a procurator homepage for the Apps for the Army outcome , call Storefront , currently hosted at storefront.mil/army :

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