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iOS 13.7 Now Available With Support for Exposure Notifications Express
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Home Sharing hasn’t worked for since about iOS 6. When it was new, it worked a handful of times. Ever since then, whenever I tried it it effectively times out every single time.
I tried that in the ios 14 beta, and could disable/enable twice. Not to say it's implemented the same way in 13.7.
I think there are feasible ways around this. Allow any user to “broadcast” that they’ve tested positive. I’m sure people would try to game the system just to troll people, but there are ways to prevent this far less onerous than requiring individual states/countries to interface the API with their testing system.
It is also not rocket science to create the individual app, not least since there are open-source versions freely available. Nothing also stops multiple states in the U.S. to combine forces and develop things jointly. The only thing that might require some work is to create the clearing house for labs but even in this regard there must already be some infrastructure in place that currently collects the stats on how many tests have been done and how many positive tests have been reported.
To some degree, preventing the spamming of the system is necessary simply from the perception point of view. There are already enough people that claim that this system is useless because it creates way too many false positives that will overwhelm the system. That is of course nonsense as plenty of countries use the system already and there are no reports of it surcharging the testing system or to be more specific, that it generates a higher rate of false positives than other methods used to identify candidates for testing (such as conventional contact tracing).
But one might expect that the chorus of people complaining about false positives and as a consequence the rate of people that get an exposure notification and that don't take it seriously would increase. On the other hand, it is impossible to tell if such a potential negative effect would be worse than having to wait longer for authorities to get their act together. It simply is very hard to estimate why countries or states have failed so far to implement this system.
Two reasons: politics and money. Software engineers aren’t cheap for smaller governments already on a shoestring budget, and some places don’t want these platforms because they’d rather pretend everything is fine.
Unfortunately, we’re at the point of dysfunction in some places where the government needs to be taken out of the equation re: exposure notifications. It’s not ideal, but it’s the only route to making this tool useful. They don’t need an exposure API in countries with great governance and effective measures and enforcement — there are few cases and no deaths there.
There are easy ways to do this that will prevent spamming/trolling of false positives, but obviously Apple/Google have neither the appetite nor will to make it happen. Instead, they’ve built something that’s only about 10% as useful as it could be. Better than nothing, surely, but also not living up to its true potential.
Have you tried the recommended troubleshooting steps? It doesn't seem like this is some sort of a widespread iOS issue.
Honestly, politics aside this is going to come down to the resources the states have to develop the app. Not a lot of states have good in-house app developers. I think that's why we're only seeing a handful at this point. The new Express system will probably accelerate things quite a bit.
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In Germany, after a few false starts, the company SAP (in combination with a set of other companies) was tasked with developing the German app and also make the development open-source. If Germany is happy to tap the private sector for such a project, the U.S. shouldn't have any problems with this either. If anything, America should have even more capable private sector companies.
Sure, it still costs money but if there is a will there should be a way for states to combine their efforts and share the costs. They could even fork the German open-source app which should save even more money. There would still be legal and regulatory issues that might be state-specific. Switzerland for example had to pass a new law to enable the release of its app such that its data protection laws would allow it.
Given the availability of open-source versions, what I called a 'clearing house' for labs that allows for the generation of codes sent out along each positive test result that the tested person can enter into the app on their device (and that the app then verifies is correct by contacting this clearing house) is what requires a national/state IT infrastructure that might be harder to create for individual states. Thus, it probably is not the app but this clearing house system which is the difficult part.
But even if Apple & Google created the app (or as Apple did with iOS 13.7 incorporated its functionality into the OS), the lab clearing house aspect would still be something the health authorities would need to create on their own (of course, hopefully by piggy-backing on existing public health systems).
Very true. And not just in-house developers...but you also have to look at the fact that it costs money. Which could explain why my state doesn't seem to have any interest in it.
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Seems odd to me that the Chinese Communists Party virus has supposedly killed sooo many. But here in N. Virginia nobody I know and none of my friends know of any that have died or got sick In any way!
Have you verified that the county you live in has seen at least about as many infections as the U.S. average?
What exactly is your point? Besides is being “odd” to you?
The point probably is to sow doubt, to lay the groundwork for a collective delusion that large parts of what you read and see is actually a fabrication. Though for mtnbikerva1, those intentions might (still) be subconscious. Because the boundary between furthering collective delusion and suffering from it is a fluid one.
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The Chinese Communist Party virus is a hoax that killed no one.
For the COVID-19 virus, on the other hand, I would say 'ask Herman Cain' but he unfortunately died from it. And president Trump gets tested multiple times per day, so he seems really scared (though he tries not to show it).
Getting back on the topic of iOS, mine was working the other day, but is now showing as inactive yet still able to be turned off (implying that it's currently on). Any ideas what could have caused this?
Edit: I turned it off (which apparently deleted all the data) and now it won't let me turn it back on. It tells me to install the NZ Covid Tracer app, which I already have.
Edit: I turned it off (which apparently deleted all the data) and now it won't let me turn it back on. It tells me to install the NZ Covid Tracer app, which I already have.
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