What's on Dave's dashboard?

David Cameron now has a special app to run the country. But what else is on his iPad? John Rentoul sneaks an iPeek

John Rentoul
Tuesday 06 March 2012 20:00 EST
Comments
Cameron is a touch-screen Tory and totally techno -no surprise he has his own app
Cameron is a touch-screen Tory and totally techno -no surprise he has his own app (AFP)

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How do you know if someone has an iPad? They tell you. And David Cameron, through the hallowed osmosis of the Parliamentary Lobby, has told us that he is a signed-up member of Team Tablet. His has been nicknamed Dave's Dashboard and, at a cost to the taxpayer of £20,000, a bespoke app has been designed for it to give the Prime Minister real-time data on what is going on in his Government.

The app was built by Downing Street's IT support, known as Rohan Silva, deputy to Steve Hilton, the Silicon Valley enthusiast who is married into Google and who is off to Stanford University for a year's sabbatical. Tony Blair did not have a mobile phone when he was prime minister and hardly touched the computer on his desk at No 10.

But Dave is a touch-screen Tory and totally techno, and it's no surprise that he has an app for running the country. In a 2010 interview with the Daily Telegraph, he boasted he was "very proud that I've got an iMac and I've got a speaker remotely linked without a wire, which I did myself. I have all the music on the iMac. The cool thing is that I now control my iMac from the iPad, to play through the speaker". Rohan, watch your back.

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