Billions Of Phones Might Miss Out On Apple And Google’s Contact Tracing Apps

Last week in what seemed like a rare collaboration between both companies, Apple and Google announced that they would be teaming up to create contact tracing tech that will be integrated into iOS and Android. This would allow authorities around the world to create contact tracing apps that would allow them to better track the coronavirus outbreak.

It sounds like great news and also rather uplifting to see two of the biggest tech companies in the world work together to help combat this virus threat. However, according to a report from The Financial Times (paywall), as promising as this sounds, it looks like there could be billions of phones around the world that might not be able to take advantage of this.

This is because of the hardware requirements that are needed in order for this to work, and where more basic smartphones and feature phones might not have the tech, as well as older devices that are still very much in use in various parts of the world. This would potentially result in billions of phones (and people) who will be missing out on this.

According to CSS Insight analyst Ben Wood, “The underlying technology limitation is around the fact that there are still some phones in use that won’t have the necessary Bluetooth or latest operating system. If you are in a disadvantaged group and have an old device or a [basic] feature phone, you will miss out on the benefits that this app could potentially offer.”

That being said, we suppose some contact tracing is still better than nothing, although the report does highlight one of the potential flaws in this system.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones, Medical
Tags: Apps, Coronavirus, covid-19, Google, Health, Social Hit