Do they need those apps to carry out their duties? If not, that should remain on personal devices and left in a secure location while on duty. There have been too many incidents of apps like Strava publishing locations that it's just not worth missing something important.

This is a work phone and people should have an extra cell phone for personal uses, and when they're at a government job with sensitive information they should be using their work phone. People who don't work with sensitive information or interesting responsibilities can use whatever phone they want if they don't mind totally forfeiting their privacy.

But eBay? Amazon? Walmart? Popular apps and games? Sure, get those whitelisted. Or are we thinking about maximizing the value proposition of a work phone at a government job?

All the "apps" you mentioned should just be well designed web sites. No reason for an app.

Good point, we'll get the Navy right on that.

The point is that if you argue a soldier shouldn't have Target or Amazon on their phone, it's pointless, as they still have Safari or Chrome.

I'm not sure that's a complete argument.

If you're arguing that soldiers shouldn't do business with Target or Amazon on their mobile device, blocking an app won't get the job done, agreed.

But if the argument for blocking the app has to do with untrusted native code running on a device used for military purposes, the surface area of a browser is much smaller than the surface area of a plethora of native apps.

> the bureaucratic overhead would be either really cumbersome or the value of <insert service> so small...

Oh, I see you are already familiar with how the U.S. government operates.