How we created COVID-19 App
I’d like to give shout-out to my teammates at IT-MED. Who didn’t gave up on the team and continues to contribute. Knows their priorities and work hard for their country Uzbekistans progress and health of the nation. Cheers guys!
Idea
In 2021 early summer, I was invited to a team of enthusiasts to work on an app related to Health & Fitness by lead by Abdulla Azizov. The idea was simple, we needed to create an app (we “IT-MED” LLC the tech organisation under the Ministry of Health of Republic of Uzbekistan — MOH) where users can get their vaccination or covid test certificates as well as other features like scanner for QR codes, medication, hospitals and doctors lookups. We believed this would really help a lot of people with their problems like quick access to any doctors, hospitals or lookup for more information about the medication they need or prescribed by their doctor. But mostly, you can get registered for vaccinations and get results from home.
My first day I got to meet the developers (mobile department) who showed me the current app they were working on and to be honest, it look really nice. The UI, the features, the code and realisation of it everything looked fine to me. Except the only problem, that it was developed only for Android as the team was only Android(Kotlin) developers. When I asked what was the problem with the app we have, management hinted to iOS version. So, the dilemma was should we keep the app and hire new iOS developers or should we start new project with Flutter. Obviously, we knew that current team could leave us if we choose Flutter, which really happed by the end of the summer. But, we also knew pretty well that with cross-platform development we can achieve more in short period of time and we were right. I believe that decision going on with Flutter helped us in the ways that we wanted. We have successfully developed MVP of our app in 1 month (cheers to GetX)
Struggles
After lots of tests and discussions(mostly about UI, like a lot, like we really did change our UI a LOT 🥲) we finally build the release version, prepared everything for AppStore and PlayMarket. Early autumn, first version of ITMed app was available for users both on PlayMarket and AppStore (yay 🥳).
What we really did miss during next releases (this was kind of my fault, didn’t do enough research) is that content really matters. Apple and Google started returning from review, suspending and removing our apps
Basically, what they kept asking was (can’t show the whole god damn list of emails we’ve sent each-other rather will summarise it)
Summary of mails between ITMED and Apple:
- Apple: Why “IT-MED LLC” is doing what they are doing? 🤦 Literally
- ITMED: Because. Why do you care?
- Apple: Reject
- ITMED: We are the tech team of MOH
- Apple: You should be MOH to do so? Why IT-MED LLC is trying to distribute apps on behalf or MOH? Do you have proof that you can do it? Reject 😈
- ITMED: Provides proof
- Apple: Shut up! That’s not enough. Go f*** yourself for 1.5 month
- ITMED: Provides Uzbekistans Presidential Decree
- Apple: Hmm, ok. But, do you have proof to work with COVID data?
- ITMED: Provides proof
- Apple: Ok ok. Jeez. Here you go
After 15–20 rejects, many phone calls and emails with Apple & Google staff starting from early autumn to early spring of 2022. We’ve got our apps up and running on AppStore
Vision
While we are still waiting review response from Google we already know what we going to do by the end of 2022. More features like video chat with your doctor, online prescriptions and more paper based services will be digitalised. So, stay tuned will get back asap with more news
