United States Air Force Cancels iPad Order Plans

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Ten days ago, we first brought you the word that the United States Air Force was looking to make a pretty whopping purchase, planning to get hands on a whole load of tablet PCs, specifically iPads. But now, the word has come back saying the USAF has dropped said plans, not because we’re really not in a position to go buying large quantities of hardware–and let’s face it, who is these days?–but rather because of what looks like a strange security matter.

The plan, as it was previously known, has been cancelled, and though the Air Force hasn’t put up any specific discussion, at least one commentator believes it has the answer in that the Air Force was looking to use GoodReader as part of the package. GoodReader is a document viewer, which would be most of the point of having iPads in the cockpit anyway. But GoodReader was developed by a Russian national by the name of Yuri Selukoff, according to reports, and this may have had something to do with the Air Force’s decision to keep the iPad out of the cockpit.

This speculation raises more questions than it really answers, especially as GoodReader isn’t a strictly necessary part of the iPad’s operations anyway–there are any number of perfectly good document readers that would do the job–and even if there weren’t any such apps out there, the GoodReader app itself is widely regarded as a fine one, not to mention widely used. At last report, Selukoff actually made a bit of a statement about the speculation that the Air Force turned down the iPad sale over the GoodReader app, saying “Ha, someone’s still living in 1970, aren’t they?”.

And it’s a good point; at last report, the Air Force was looking to pick up iPads, or, as the original order put it, “equivalent devices”. If the problem was one of security, then why didn’t the Air Force simply go with the “equivalent devices” that didn’t use GoodReader? And while some might think budget issues were involved, which would make sense, it follows that the fuel savings would be sufficiently substantial to make a cost-benefit analysis a cakewalk; spend a few million today to buy devices that will save millions in fuel for years is the kind of thing that should make even a dedicated cost-cutter happy.

So what do you guys think here? What’s the real reason iPads aren’t going in Air Force cockpits? No matter what your answer, hit the comments section below and tell us what you think!