Contact-tracing app: First version worked on more phones

The unique NHS Covid-19 app, which was shelved, would have labored on a bigger variety of handsets than the app which launched in England and Wales this week, I’ve found.

VMware Pivotal, the agency behind it, has simply printed its software program code.

It reveals that it really works on 97.5% of handsets, and offers extra correct measurements of contacts between customers.

One professional informed me the primary app was higher – however VMware Pivotal says it doesn’t want to compete.

The brand new app does not work with quite a lot of older telephones, together with iPhones made earlier than 2015, and Android telephones not operating the Android 6.zero working system or above.

It will probably additionally generate false readings of shut contacts in a 3rd of circumstances.

“In comparison with model two of the NHS app that we’re utilizing now, this app seems to have a big benefit by way of distance-measuring accuracy, no less than as much as about eight metres,” mentioned Prof Alan Woodward, a pc scientist at Surrey College.

VMware Pivotal was contracted by the well being service’s digital division NHSX to work on the unique contact-tracing app, which was trialled on the Isle of Wight in Might.

In June it was shelved as a result of the app, developed with out the co-operation of Apple and Google, failed to select up contacts between iPhones once they have been asleep.

Underneath the administration of Baroness Harding’s Take a look at and Hint organisation, a brand new crew began work on an app utilizing the Apple Google privacy-focused toolkit, which had already been adopted by many different nations.

However engineers at VMware carried on creating the Bluetooth know-how behind their app and imagine they’ve improved it, going some strategy to mitigating the issue with detecting iPhones and making the measurement of distance between telephones much more correct.

However VMware insists that it isn’t attempting to reopen the argument about which know-how the NHS app ought to use.

It says it has been speaking to Apple and Google, and the hope is that they’ll take some elements of the Herald Bluetooth system to enhance their know-how, which the vast majority of authorities contact tracing apps use.

The corporate additionally factors out that the Apple Google system is simply out there to governments, so companies reminiscent of cruise ships or workplace buildings would possibly want to develop their very own apps utilizing the Herald know-how.

“The very last thing we wish this to be seen as is adversarial,” an engineer at VMware mentioned, insisting there was no rivalry with the crew that constructed the ultimate model of the NHS app.

“This can be a complete bunch of individuals worldwide working collectively. We’re all buddies.”

Prof Woodward mentioned that whereas the VMware software program was prone to be more practical than apps primarily based on the Apple/Google API, “it retains the privateness points mentioned on the outset of constructing these apps”.

Apple and Google have mentioned they’re inspecting an improve to their system which ought to enhance its accuracy in measuring distance. That may result in higher efficiency for all nations utilizing the platform, together with the NHS Covid-19 app.