Soon the U.S. Army will deploy its own mobile app store. Dubbed the Army Marketplace, it initially features 17 Android and 16 iPhone apps.

The apps are intended to help soldiers accomplish every day Army-related tasks, and they were created by troops themselves during the Apps for the Army contest last year. Apps included in the store have a wide range of purposes. There’s a workout guide, an app for disaster relief that lets users create, edit, and search maps using Google Earth, and another that lets soldiers connect with the Army’s command post software in order to learn where firefights and bombings are happening.

The Army Marketplace is also intended to encourage the development of new apps. On a forum in the Marketplace, Army personnel will be able to discuss potential apps. For example, someone might suggest an app that would help call in an air strike and on the forum, soldiers, and possible app developers, could talk about what that might look like.

Source: Leslie Horn for PC Mag.