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

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."

Why is a native client needed?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Been there...

[stm2]

Chile, 1971: http://davidszondy.com/future/Dystopias/project_cybersyn.htm [davidszondy.com]

See here is the problem with modern government

[Osgeld]

While your country is in a rescission, your people are in the streets protesting, and having to budget for a simple can of beans what does the government do?

Buy the most expensive, most shiny status symbol toy cause they cant be bothered to check their fucking email at their desk.

Re:Obama's Ipad

[magarity]

It's really hard to identify when any president is really on vacation. Obama doubtless golfs with people he needs to talk to and discusses business just like GWB used to host foreign leaders at his ranch in Texas. Neither one is a vacation or 'just' a golf game in my book but each's political opponents count them as goof off time.

Re:See here is the problem with modern government

[chrb]

This app will cost way more than $500. A team of professional app developers, working on a government contract, will cost hundreds of thousands, the final cost with maintenance and bug fixing may well be over $1 million. Remember that even a very simple app costs $100k+ http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/23/210241/osha-app-costs-govt-200k [slashdot.org]

Re:waiting list figures

[Winchy]

Waiting lists are inevitable in a system where demand slightly outstrips supply and so are valuable metrics on how the system in operating. That's not to say emergency treatment is restricted, but you will probably have to wait a while to get your bunions treated. It seems to me a sign of a mature and caring democracy where this metric *is* the primary concern of a society. Oh... and no one believes it is "free". It is only "free" at the point of delivery, we know we pay a lot for it and that's why we need to make sure we're receiving value for the money. This is why the metric is important.