Are You Appy Now?

The story of the 'World Class' Covid-19 tracking app that was promised by NHSX, trialled on the Isle of Wight and now abandoned goes from bad to extremely bad to worse (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/20/nhs-covid-app-developers-tried-to-block-rival-symptom-trackers). It is now claimed that, rather than seeking help from people who were developing alternative apps (in some cases, predating the the NHSX development) were treated as 'enemies' who might delay uptake of an effective tracking system. They also did not respond to warnings that their system would only recognise a tiny minority of iPhones. One can't help but wonder whether the government initiative was more concerned about getting political capital from the exercise rather than helping to limit the spread of the virus