That, however, was the promise of anonymous “well-placed sources” in an eye-opening Electronista story Wednesday. Those sources said the Pentagon was on the verge of phasing out “nearly all” of the hundreds of thousands of BlackBerries issued to its employees, and replacing them with some 650,000 iPhones, iPads and iPod touches.

“There is no truth to this claim,” says Air Force Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s new mobility initiative. “We are not looking to replace those 470,000 BlackBerries with the systems they claim we’re looking to order.”

Big caveat: The military’s new “mobility” plan may lead troops and Pentagon civilians to get secured Apple smartphones and tablets. Ditto for Android devices. And Windows devices. “And let’s not leave RIM out of that picture,” John Hickey, the mobility program manager for the Defense Information Systems Agency, told reporters last month.