Matt Hancock tells Sky News the tech firm would not make a change required to make the contact-tracing app work.
Addressing the U-turn at Thursday's coronavirus news conference in Downing Street, the health secretary defended the move.He added that some of the features of the now-abandoned NHSX app will be incorporated into a new design with the two tech firms.
Mr Hancock said developers had been working on both the NHSX app and the design offered by Apple and Google since May, but a"technical barrier" was encountered when testing the NHSX app on the Isle of Wight. "We found that our app works well on Android devices but Apple software prevents iPhones being used effectively for contact tracing unless you are using Apple's own technology," the health secretary said.He said the NHSX app was better at measuring distance than the Google-Apple model.
"As it stands, our app won't work because Apple won't change their system, but it can measure distance," Mr Hancock explained.He said the best way forward was to work together to overcome the issues, adding:"We have agreed to join forces with Google and Apple to bring the best bits of both systems together.
"We will share our algorithm and the work that we have done on distance calculation and combine that with their work to deliver a new solution."But he added:"Given my experience over the last three or four months on this one, I'm not going to put a date on it, we'll just work incredibly hard to make it happen."
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