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Comment by zspitzer | Hacker News Reader

Is the UK app also geo-blocked to only UK based Apple/google Accounts like the new German app?

https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-app-android/issues/47...

This triggers the question: why is the app not available worldwide in the first place? And why should every country develop their own? Since Apple and Google are already providing an "Exposure Notification system", shouldn't such an app be distributed natively (i.e. not through a geo-blocked app store), like the Phone or Compass apps? I understand this would mean the app should be developed, or at least released, by Apple and Google directly. But since they're already helping out with the notification system, we're halfway there. I also understand there are lots of legal and regulatory implications for having a worldwide app, but I feel like we're past this point already.

Sorry if I'm sounding naive, but people are going to start traveling again, so limiting a tracing app to a country's borders seems arbitrarily inefficient to say the least.

I think the problem is that there is no single definition for many things around this app. Each country has a different definition of what constitutes contact for example.

It's not a single app. Apple and Google provided common APIs, but there isn't an Apple/Google "app".

There are lots of different legal requirements, and the app points towards the local testing regime for example which is different in every country.

The Apple and Google roadmap already discusses that future items include more interoperability to enable international travel, it's just not a v1 feature.

The hard part isn't building the app, the hard part is integrating with the health administrations in every country. In Germany alone, there are nearly 400 county health administration offices to interface with.

This is actually a problem. I’m in Sweden, but as it’s really hard to transfer my Apple account from the UK (especially with a family account) I’ve never bothered. So am I going to not have access to Sweden’s contract tracing app if one is built?

I have gotten a visa and worked in other countries with less effort than trying to move app store. I just don't get it.

I now live in Finland, with a Finnish address and bank card and everything and I still can't get the damn thing to change. I refuse to accept that it is a technical impossibility to have a UK bank app and a Finnish one (for example) on the same phone.

My experience here is similar and not resolved after several years. My phone now now happily installs US apps (after starting in the UK) _except_ that it will not update the Google Fi app, but my watch with the same account complains every 15 minutes about being in the wrong store with no way to resolve it.

I do have apps from both stores installed on my phone now (after a lot of trial and error), but believe there is a special place in hell _anyway_ for companies providing services like delivery who do not add their apps to stores globally (looking at you, Doordash). Do they think a tourist or business traveller never wants to order lunch to their hotel?

A general rule of software is that any bug that a US-based developer or QA tester wouldn't easily be able to trigger can remain present for a very, very long time.

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