That's the catch gents and you will have to check which countries' armies are offering iPads for you to use, and they are not widely available in all branches of the armed forces. But if you're in the US, the UK, or Singapore, you might find some units using the iPad for use in the battlefield. Apart from the usual Facebook, web browsing, porn reading, email, IM, tweeting, you can get to bring the tablet to the fight.

The United States have been very much active in developing mobile applications for use in the military and they are now thinking of deploying iPads and Android devices to soldiers in battle. Sometimes, these devices are brought to use due to a matter of necessity such as this case of a US Marine pilot who got tired of carrying a lot of maps and decided to load these on his iPad and use these while inside a Cobra attack chopper. It wasn't an official device, but since it provides a more convenient way for the pilots, the USMC decided to deploy it. As reported by the LA Times:

"A Cobra attack helicopter pilot, Marine Capt. Jim 'Hottie' Carlson was running support missions above Afghanistan last summer when it occurred to him that it was taking far too long to find where U.S. troops were under attack.

'Do you have any idea how long it takes to find the right map, unfold it, and find where you're going? It's agonizing,' he said.

Frustrated that he had to flip through dozens of maps stuffed inside his chopper, Carlson, 31, loaded the documents onto his personal iPad, enabling him to zoom in, zoom out and quickly move from one map to another.

Carlson's brainstorm shortened the time it took to pinpoint a location from 'three minutes to about 30 seconds,' he recalled recently, and it soon helped change the way the military is thinking about warfare. The Marines now have more than 30 iPads in cockpits across their fleet of helicopters and fighter jets."

(Photo Source: MilitaryPhotos.net)

The United Kingdom allowed the used of the iPad for training as in the case of the Royal School of Artillery in Wiltshire which they can use for practise (nope, the iPads are not used as cannon fodder). I guess the video can explain better how they use the iPad app they developed for training.

The Singapore Army is more explicit in using the iPad as a recruitment tool and will be replacing laptop computers which are more expensive and have shorter battery life. This is a training tool just like in the UK and can be used to take photos and videos to be uploaded to a central database. The iPad will also be used by new recruits to communicate to superiors with a messaging system.

I wonder if there are still other countries using the iPad in their armed forces, but so far, these are the three countries which have concrete applications for use. With the availability of more and more tablets, even the cheaper ones made in China, they will become more affordable for most of the world's armies soon.

The problem that armed forces will face after purchase is security as more and more virus and malware authors are targeting smart phones and tablet computers as they are now becoming more widespread than desktops and laptops. It won't be long that these will be part of legitimate targets by armies in their cyberwarfare plans, which we all know by now is silently going on.