The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB for short), a government body that investigates plane crashes, is the latest in a growing line of federal agencies to stop using BlackBerry smartphones among their operational staff. To further rub salt into RIM’s wound, the NTSB has decided to rely on iPhones to get the job done instead. Other notable and larger national-security departments and agencies that have shifted to the iPhone cause while ditching BlackBerry include the Defense Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Transportation Security Administration.
According to the NTSB, this switch to the iPhone 5 is because BlackBerrys “have been failing both at inopportune times and at an unacceptable rate.” In addition, they mentioned that “the NTSB requires effective, reliable and stable communication capabilities to carry out its primary investigative mission and to ensure employee safety in remote locations.” Hopefully the employees using the iPhone 5 will not rely on Apple Maps to help get them to the place of emergency, otherwise they might end up on the wrong continent altogether.
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