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US Department of Defense approves iPhones and iPads for military use

US Department of Defense approves iPhones and iPads for military use

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iphone 5 luxuriating stock 1020
iphone 5 luxuriating stock 1020

The US Department of Defense has cleared Apple's iPhone and iPad for use on its military networks. Bloomberg reports that devices running Apple's latest iOS 6 operating system have been approved for internal deployment, becoming the third company after Samsung and BlackBerry to see its devices certified.

The Department previously told The Verge that it has more than 600,000 commercial mobile devices in operational and pilot use. BlackBerry has traditionally dominated with over 470,000 devices distributed within the agency, compared with 41,000 iOS and 8,700 Android smartphones. The Defense Department is taking steps to reduce its mobile device approval time to less than twelve months, getting more smartphones and tablets into the hands of its three-million-strong workforce.