Why Google and Apple Failed at COVID-19 Digital Response By Wayan Vota on December 10, 2020 Back in April 2020, Apple and Google announced COVID-19 contact tracing technology for iPhone and Android mobile phones. At our Global Digital Health Forum session on digital COVAX certificates, not a single person was using either company’s apps. What happened? What led to their failure? How did the richest technology companies fail in COVID-19 digital response? After our GDHF2020 session ended, I kept wondering how Apple and Google could fail at what was a pretty easy problem: developing a contact tracing application for COVID-19 infections. Robust digital contact tracing applications are in use for many other infections diseases, and these are two of the most powerful corporations on Earth – almost independent nation-states.