NZ COVID Tracer 4+

Compatibility across devices

Overall, I have liked the ease of the COVID tracer app. Updates have seen the tracking gone from 30 to 60 days, and more businesses have included the QR code’s to sign in. Manually being able to enter has also been great.

One of the things which would be great is to have the diary link to the account rather than the phone. This would help with people who have both a work and personal phone, so that they can see where they were easier rather than looking at both diaries to work it out.

The second is that while the app is compatible with most phones, I have had no luck in getting a manual or automatic diary entry to work on the iPhone 11. I can see there were issues a few months ago, however, the recommendations to redownload the app and restart the phone have been unsuccessful. This means that two phones need to be carried to sign in, and this is not always feasible. With many places refusing entry unless you sign in to the app, it makes it quite limiting when it does not work. Having the app so it is compatible on all devices would be great.

Play but plenty of opportunity to improve

As a developing application, this has started okay. It has provided the ministry with Kerry contact details but it doesn’t give the opportunity to link with your national health if, a further improvement or capability.

It also needs the ability to manually load in details of where you have been so you don’t need to keep separate diaries or paper records.

I actually found it difficult to find a business in our area using the MOH QR image. Many businesses are using other applications and it has become quite confusing how they all work. For this so to be effective, All businesses need to be encouraged to use the one Covid QR coding system and it should be easy to do that.

Developer Response ,

Kia ora. We appreciate that the number of different QR codes on display at a business may cause confusion. We recently provided information to the developers of other apps to enable their codes to be compatible. Over time this will reduce the number of QR codes displayed by each business. For example, the Rippl app has been updated to be compatible.

Overall, very nice.

The app is easy to use and has grown a lot since April last year. Despite all the plusses of using QR codes, I still to this day find it annoying that every time I need to sign-in, I need to take my phone out, get the lighting right, scan the huge yellow poster, press ‘Done’ then turn it off. Trust me, it gets pretty tedious after 50 or so scans.

It might be even better if NFC ‘pebbles’ could be stuck to surfaces and we could just tap our phones to them. *Satisfying Apple Pay sound effect plays!* This could be another (potentially easier) option for businesses to use if multiple people are crowding around one single poster in a supermarket or shopping centre. Maybe there could be a subway-like system where you go in to a shop and tap your phone on the counter? Anyway, it’s just an idea.

Apart from that, it’s a nice app to use and should be being used in these times.