Why don’t we have an app?

[Mostpeculiar]

Doesn’t have to be all singing all dancing, apps are improved and updated all of the time but in April we were promised a GPS app that would alert us if we’d spent over 15 mins near someone who has tested positive

Now that the opening of bars and restaurants is imminent and I’m starting to think about the logistics of what it’ll look like I’m torn, I’m desperate to go anywhere but the idea that I’m sitting there unknowingly positive or the person on the next table is and we’re never going to be able to tell each other is mad

Feel free to tell me I’m daft and why I’m being daft as I am normally quite a brave person but not reckless and I hear so many places that have come out of restrictions but they have apps, why can’t we copy theirs ?

Because we were going to build an awesome app, the best in the world rather than use some already in use elsewhere. Only, it turns out we haven't managed to do that. Basically government arrogance and incompetence.

Because the £4.8 million given to Cummings' mates to make one wasn't enough?

Because the government are total numptys and spent millions on developing an app which they were told would never work (which also, if you go to your phone settings>privacy>health & have recently updated you’ll find they have put on your phone). Funnily enough the money was given to mates of those high up in the Tory party & despite Apple and Google offering to help & telling them it would not work they went ahead. Now Apple and Google are helping but it won’t be ready until this winter. Meanwhile there are likely to be thousands of preventable deaths as a result. Fucking idiots.

...on developing an app which they were told would never work...which also, if you go to your phone settings>privacy>health & have recently updated you’ll find they have put on your phone

Nobody has put an app on your phone. The operating systems have been updated so that you can install the relevant apps at some point in the future if you choose to.

Now Apple and Google are helping but it won’t be ready until this winter.

Apple said they hadn't heard a squeak out of the UK government as of June 19th.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53105642

Apple says it did not know the UK was working on a "hybrid" version of the NHS coronavirus contact-tracing app using tech it developed with Google.

Anyway, it's not Apple - or Googles - job to develop any app. They merely provide the API (which they have done). It's up to health agencies to write or commission an app as they see fit. Since each app needs to be integrated into a countries Track and Trace programme.

I started a thread about this long not long ago. It’s shocking actually. They also refused to endorse or collaborate with the ZOE app.

You need Apple and Google to provide the API as the bluetooth bits of the system need to work under the lockscreen - which is a security issue.

The UKs "problem" with that, was that it means you can't create a centralised tracking app. So they decided to go it alone. The problem they (immediately) hit was they couldn't bypass the security (which is actually good news for all of us, as it means it works).

Those who clearly don't know the background about how and when Apple and Google changed the approach for many countries might read this article for info: www.politico.eu/article/google-apple-coronavirus-app-privacy-uk-france-germany/.

Some apps have started to launch, none are currently problem-free. There are reported issues with the Apple-Google location tracking. Apple-Google offer an API in a decentralised model only to gather this data, there is no app, each country needs to build its own. Each app need to integrates with each country's individual track and trace systems, that can bring issues too.

which also, if you go to your phone settings>privacy>health & have recently updated you’ll find they have put on your phone).

It’s an update to the operating system so that you can download an app in the future if you choose to do so, they have not put an app on your phone.

But yes, instead of working with others the govt thought we could do our own amazing app, unsurprisingly it turns out we can’t

Because the government are dysfunctional and not very bright

The apparent outrage at an Api installed to run any future Apps would suggest that Britons wouldn’t use them anyway.

Apologies - not ‘an app’, my technology terminology isn’t great, it’s a “Covid-19 tracing software tool in the settings installed during recent update of iPhone and android phone operating systems”.. either way it’s totally pointless for now given the clusterfuck that the government are making of the situation!

@chipsandgin

Apologies - not ‘an app’, my technology terminology isn’t great, it’s a “Covid-19 tracing software tool in the settings installed during recent update of iPhone and android phone operating systems”.. either way it’s totally pointless for now given the clusterfuck that the government are making of the situation!

Not necessarily. The source code for the German version is available for free here : github.com/corona-warn-app so there's no reason why a project for a UK version couldn't be forked off from this version.

Well, no technical reason.

But then the UKs problems with Track and Trace - and indeed most of modern life has never been technical but political. LIke the housing "crisis" for example.