US Census Conducted With iPhones?
The Census Follies discusses the Census Bureau’s high-profile, $3 billion dollar failure developing a $600 hand-held device to modernize census taking. The ultimate reason, accompanied by no heads rolling, was given as something like ‘failure to convey requirements to the vendor,’ Harris Corp. I’ll say!
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) who loves busting pork second only to busting balls, is quoted saying:
So we’re still going to pay $600, four times what the American [tax]payer should be paying, for something that can be done on a $150 BlackBerry…A $400 iPhone can do twice as much as the $600 handheld. You could buy iPhones and do all of this.
Leaving aside the iPhone’s unavailability at the time (2006) - this begs the question - why not? I don’t mean that sarcastically. I honestly want to know why the decision was made to start from scratch on a handset with capabilities that could probably be stuffed into a Treo or customized UPS hand-held computer.