Slashdot Mirror
No iPhone Apps, Please — We're British
GMGruman writes "The BBC has stirred up quite a row in Britain about a shocking use of taxpayer funds: creating iPhone apps to provide citizens services. As InfoWorld blogger Galen Gruman notes, it's apparently bad in Britain for the government to use modern technology during a recession, a mentality he likens as a shift from 'cool Britannia' to 'fool Britannia.'"
Not to mention that the apps don't seem terribly useful. Have a look at the original BBC article - to quote, "The most expensive application was a proposed Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) app that provides "a masterclass for changing your wheel"." and then goes on to explain how it can act as a hazard warning light, calculate fuel consumption and track RAC patrols. So, right there you've got an app costing (apparently) £40,000 to develop, that only runs on a single, expensive platform and is only of use to RAC members who don't know how to change a wheel. Waitaminute.
Firstly, if you passed your test in the UK in the past five years then knowing how to change a wheel is actually part of the test. You don't have to actually do it on the test, you just have to demonstrate that you know how - so if, for example, you're disabled you could ask someone to help and tell them what to do. Furthermore, if you don't know how to change a wheel, *and* you have RAC cover, then you could just phone the RAC and within half an hour or so a guy in a big orange van will be along and change it for you.
That forty grand could be spent on far more useful things.
With the capabilities of HTML5 you'd think they'd do webapps instead of platform-specific ones.
The summary is fucking awful. This isn't about the BBC *at all*, they're the ones reporting the story about the *Government* wasting money on largely worthless iPhone apps rather than focusing on useful, cross platform ones.
The link you give refers to some form of US only survey. They don't make it clear, other than using the word "National" rather than "International".
The article is talking about the UK, and last time I looked that is not one of the US states.
Worldwide, Symbian is still the market leader, with 44.3% of the market. The nearest competitor is RIM with 19.4%.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1372013
Given that you don't live in the UK, it's not your government, and it's not your tax money. So spare us the pleas.
The dumb article has it wrong. It's not an app for "motorcyclists", it's an app for "motorists". Motorcyclists don't "change their wheel" by the roadside, they don't carry a spare. A few might carry a spare innertube. But that's not what this app is about.
Reading between he lines the app appears to be one to encourage people to update their details with the DVLA - who are in charge of road tax and licensing. In order to encourage people to download it, it has some motoring utilities, such as the ones mentioned.
What we have here is a chain of misinformation that goes TPA -> BBC -> Galen Gruman -> "GM" Gruman -> Slashdot. The TPA is "The Tax Payers Alliance", which is a right wing lobby group against pretty much any government spending, that routinely twists the truth in press releases, and is responsible as a result for a lot of misinformation in UK news channels. So a rocky start, but at each step of the way, the message has become more twisted still.