Apple has signed a $159 million contract with the New Zealand Police that have opted for the iPhone maker's products over BlackBerry, Google and Microsoft.
The New Zealand Police said the deal covers 6,000 police officers receiving an iPhone, and 3,900 of those officers will also be given an iPad. The forces will initially spend $4.3 million to fund the initiative over the next three months. It expects to spend as much as $159 million in operating expenditures during the next 10 years.
It chose Apple products over BlackBerry, Google and Microsoft after surveying its officers, who said iPhones and iPads were the most useful technology tools for their line of work.
"The trial showed the most useful tools for officers were small personal devices (such as a smartphone) for making phone calls or text messaging, accessing email, and accessing information and photo databases, and a larger such as a laptop or tablet for staff who need to do more data entry," said New Zealand Police Chief Information Officer Stephen Crombie.
"Based on frontline officer feedback from the trial (over 100 staff in four districts trialed smartphones, laptops and tablets over an 11-month period), the preferred devices are the iPhone as smartphone and iPad for the tablet. The approach used to develop the applications means Police can move to other devices with relative ease as technology changes."
New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key added, "Using mobile technology means officers will be able to check offenders’ details (like photographs and bail conditions) where and when they need to, rather than having to drive to a station to access information or use the police radio. This means more time to focus on stopping crime and protecting communities, and less time each day on administration duties at their desks."
Apple will also be supplying 10,000 iPhone units to Home Depot, the fifth largest retailer in the world, who recently announced plans to ditch BlackBerry devices.
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Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
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internetlad In other news, patrol car accidents are up 300 percent Officers claim that apple maps directed them to drive into ditches and off ridges.Reply -
master_chen "Financial Crisis? World's starving? US/EU economics are in deep sh*t? USA's on a brink of war with Iran/North Korea/China? Nah, didn't heard. OH! New iPhone! SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!" (c) Obama.Reply -
deksman Agreed with 'master_chen'.Reply
I mean, lets ignore the premise of a 'financial crisis', the prospect of close to 1.5 billion people starving of which 15 million children die annually (regardless of the notion that we've been producing enough to feed 10 billion each year for over 30 years now), or that 50% of the global population lives on less than $2 per day.
Lets also ignore the premise that we can easily provide a 3x higher living standard to each person on the planet compared to what the richest people currently enjoy if we simply used our latest science and technology and unleashed it into the social system (and used it intelligently - full blown automation, elimination of planned obsolescence, production of abundance using less raw resources and energy by creating self-sufficient systems and superior synthetic materials which can be made in abundance).
The article is typical stupidity at its finest.
Ignore the actual problems that are occurring in the world and just focus on idiocy to keep things as they are.
When will people learn that governments are not problem solvers?
Real change never came from government or people in positions of power.
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Xeddicus They asked the cops what they wanted. Of course they wanted free Iphone/pads and not cheaper, just as usable alternatives...Reply -
Microgoliath Are we still on tomshardware? all i see is comments about hunger, poverty, government and war.Reply
OT: Don't see the need for officers to even have smartphones, they just need something that lasts (smartphones? lol) which can make calls. They gonna be called in for a emergency and still take the extra time to Apple map the location? they already take long enough to get to places as is.
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damianrobertjones So... Let's forget active directory and group policy... let's forget years and years of backwards compatibility or active digitizers. Let's forget machines like the Lenovo Tablet 2, Dell latitude 10 or Samsung 500t. Let's forget all of that.Reply
Someone, somewhere, got a VERY large financial incentive to go Apple. -
back_by_demand So they chose the iPhone by surveying the end user and chose the one with the most votes?Reply
Since when are NZ flatfoots qualified to decide what is technically best for the job, surely that should be decided by the IT department, a lot of the votes will be from users that want a shiney iPhone and for no other reason -
master_chen Reply
I lol'd.10437590 said:They asked the cops what they wanted. Of course they wanted free iPhones/iPads and not cheaper, just as usable alternatives...
Yes.10437591 said:Are we still on Tom's?
10437591 said:All I see is comments about hunger, poverty, government and war.
Just yet another, usual, boring, slow day. :\
Also: Mixing "Micro" and "Goliath" in one word is an absolute /0.