The New York Police Department had begun issuing new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus handsets to officers as part of the department’s planned move away from Windows Phone devices.
Officers from Patrol Borough Manhattan South lined up outside an old police academy in Gramercy Park on Sunday to pick up their new standard issue equipment, and are among the first to receive iPhone as part of a hardware upgrade strategy, reports New York Daily News.
The rollout, announced last year, will see iPhones replacing around 36,000 Nokia handsets. The Nokia phones will be collected, wiped, and sold back to the company.
The new iPhone 7/7 Plus devices will be furnished by AT&T as part of the carrier’s contract with the NYPD. The rollout began last month, when officers in the Bronx and Staten Island traded in their dated Nokia devices for the Apple handsets. The department is handing out around 600 iPhone per day.
Officers will use the iPhones to access 911 dispatches, perform background checks, access criminal histories, video and surveillance photos, and fill out reports. Cops responding to a call will be furnished with information about the involved address, and its potential dangers.
NYPD dispatches are pushed to the NYPD 911 app before they are broadcast over radios. The alerts can be geofenced, so they only reach officers located in a specific area.
The NYPD finished its Windows Phone rollout in 2016. However, Microsoft ended support for the mobile platform since then, saddling the department with obsolete equipment.
