It’s easy enough to look at any smartphone and call it a tiny computer, but in many ways the joke is on whoever doesn’t think these pocket machines are capable of replacing computers. In the case of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), it makes all the sense in the world to switch from laptops to Android phones.
Mounted in the front passenger seat of most of NYPD patrol cars is a laptop, often a Panasonic Toughbook. This is not just any laptop, it’s a rugged machine built to survive the demanding scenarios that happen while in the line of duty. These machines are bulky and can only be used from the driver’s side of the vehicle, unless you remove the laptop entirely.
Given the limitations, news that NYPD is looking to equip their officers with Android phones complete with a special app to replace the laptop makes all the sense in the world.
When you purchase a ruggedized computer, you’re usually not getting the top of the line. In order to keep costs down, the laptop itself is usually a little underpowered when compared to the current generation of technology. On top of this, managing the more than 2,500 laptops deployed by the NYPD requires management tools that often require a per license subscription.
The costs of keeping these machines connected to a secure network, and keeping them safe to use are expenses that grow exponentially as well. At the end of the day you’ve got 2500 or more machines that cost a lot more than top-of-the-line laptops and don’t always last as long.
Moving the NYPD to Android would make the initial hardware purchase significantly less expensive. Ruggedized Android phones are certainly nothing new, and the portability of a phone versus a mounted laptop would give officers faster access to important information. Managing large numbers of Android phones doesn’t require costly software, and the existing IT staff responsible for the laptops would be able to quickly shift between the two platforms. There’s also far less to worry about when it comes to keeping an Android phone free of viruses and malware.
When looking at this from a purely hardware and management standpoint, smartphones are clearly the better option. When it comes to the custom software needed to provide officers with information and keep the phones safe, Android makes a lot more sense.
The same hardened kernels used by the military to keep their Android products safe can be deployed on phones issued to officers to keep them being being easily hacked if the phone winds up in the wrong hands. On top of this, Android’s native side loading allows the NYPD to tightly control their own software deployment for their phones.
The special app for the NYPD grants the user access to internal databases, which are used by the NYPD for a number of different situations. As PCMag reported, the software can be used to search for registered gun owners, protection orders attached to citizens, or a quick glance at how many parolees are in a building with a simple search.
On the current laptops, this requires an officer in a vehicle to log in to several different services and assemble this information themselves. A dedicated app to help with this information would make any officer significantly more efficient.
Given that data retrieval and documentation are some of the tasks that currently force an officer to sit in his car and work, an app-driven service that allows an Android phone to replace a bulky laptop is a huge step forward. It’s not hard to see similar deployments becoming very common over the next couple of years.
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