Conundrum

At around 1020 this morning I get a text message from the NHS test and trace people, inviting me to download their shiny new app from Apple or Google.

Sadly, as far as I can make out, this does not play on my Microsoft mobile phone which runs on Windows. Furthermore, when I checked the other day, I think the story was that it does play not on a lot of other, older phones.

So Microsoft have not done whatever it would take to convert the Apple-Google effort so that it would run on their phones. Which, to be fair, have been discontinued and are probably more or less on life-support rather than on regular support - all of which probably means that cranking up up a whole new app on them would be expensive. Quite possibly not justified for the numbers involved, not that I have any idea what they might be.

On the other hand, the Bill & Melinda Foundation has given a great deal of money to other aspects of the Covid effort. Perhaps as much as $500m.

Is all this enough to push me off my Microsoft phone - which I like and have got used to - and spend the money to move somewhere else, somewhere more app friendly? The £500 or so? Plus all the bother?

PS: I had been meaning to visit the shiny new Microsoft shop at Oxford Circus to see what they had to say about moving somewhere else, but that has now been on hold for six months.

Reference 1: https://covid19.nhs.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/.