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Running Great Britain? There's an App For That!

Posted by timothy on from the good-thing-it's-so-simple dept.

judgecorp writes "Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron will get a personalised iPad app to help him run the country. The 'government dashboard' will include health waiting list figures, crime statistics, economic statistics and a real-time news feed. Cameron is a committed Apple user — but British members of Parliament have only been allowed iPads in the House of Commons since March 2011."

5 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Lies! by dexomn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Angry Birds will be running the country.

  2. Anybody else read the title... by gman003 · · Score: 5, Funny

    as "Ruining Great Britain"?

    1. Re:Anybody else read the title... by Goose+In+Orbit · · Score: 5, Funny

      He doesn't need an iDevice to do that

  3. Why is a native client needed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stop making apps for the sake of making an app. If the solution doesn't require any specific equipment on the device, just write make it a website.

  4. Custom-developed app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Cabinet Office developers are currently building the customised iPad app so the Prime Minister can remain abreast of government business . . . is expected to be ready by March."

    I'd love to work for the government contractor that got that contract. As if the MPs expenses scandal wasn't bad enough, now we're bankrolling the Prime Minister's iTunes account.

    "The app will essentially act as a government dashboard, providing the Prime Minister with all the latest information from across Whitehall – including the latest NHS waiting-list figures, crime statistics, unemployment numbers, and a wide variety of other data – at a glance."

    I just hope that we, the taxpayers who are paying for this development work, will get a version of the app that we can use ourselves. It's fine if they scrub out the sensitive internal government data that it's (hopefully) tracking, but a sanitised version appropriate for public consumption would still be quite useful. I'd be interested to know things like crime and unemployment statistics, which can then be used to judge how well the Conservative government is actually doing.