New York’s finest are getting new iPhones after the city’s police department decided to replace two-year old devices from a different manufacturer that have become outdated far more quickly than expected, according to a report.
The NYPD plans replace 36,000 smartphones running on Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone software, the New York Postreported on Monday, citing sources at the police department. By the end of the year, the agency will begin buying brand-new iPhones to replace the handsets that officers had been carrying while on duty.
The iPhones would replace the police department’s Nokia-branded Windows Phones, which it bought through a $160 million initiative intended to modernize the force’s mobile technology. The department also created several custom apps for the phones for police work.
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However, Microsoft in July announced that it would stop updating the Windows Phone software and would instead focus its attention on Windows 10 Mobile, a newer operating system that is incompatible with the NYPD’s devices. Left with the choice of sticking with an outdated operating system that would no longer get security updates or buying bigger-selling devices that get regular updates like Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, the NYPD chose the latter.
The original decision to switch to Windows Phone was made by Jessica Tisch, police deputy commissioner of information technology, according to the report. A source said to have knowledge of the decision-making process told the Post that Tisch chose Windows Phone partly because the department was already using Microsoft software for video surveillance.
It’s unknown whether the new iPhones would work with that video surveillance technology.
The sources didn’t tell the Post which version of the iPhone the department plans to buy.
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a Coins2Day request for comment.