You can search "UK ETA", find the main page: https://www.gov.uk/eta

Then click "Apply for an ETA" and you're brought to this page: https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply

Then there are options for the Apple App Store and also the Google Play Store, with a helpful note: "If you cannot download the app on your phone, you should apply online." Which then has a link to start the online process below.

As problematic as it is to need a contractual relationship with a US company to interact with the UK Government, I'm sure that if you spoke with someone in the Government Digital Service who was involved with this, they'd tell you it was the least bad option.

You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen.

On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle...

It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do.

Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before.

(There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport).

And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.

/s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.

Native apps make it much smoother (or just possible at all / with much lower friction) than webapps to do things like taking photos, scanning NFC, doing payments etc. (which the visa apps are doing)

Apps are also natural "storage point" for data, and a "bookmark on the phone" (the latter is partly due to vendors not making it easy to add non-apps to your home page on the phone).

As much as I hate the push to apps for things like Reddit for monetisation purposes (and I don't install such apps), in many cases for specialized apps the experience is actually much better in the app.

And as you can read in op's article, there's a web fallback possible.

The main drawback for me is that apps take 100s of MBs those days.

In all seriousness this is likely the exact scenario here. Same thing with covid track and trace and p much any current government it contract. Minister receives backhand to push through overpriced underbaked tech solution (when existing solution was ok, and probably just needed improving over replacing). Then to avoid ministerial embarrassment and too much financial scrutiny, civil service must bend over backwards to improve uptake of new solution. Love living in Victorian Britain tbh.

In all fairness, based on my interactions with Visa Applications, the UK government website is the best so far. I love their Design Systems, consistency, and UX predictability.

https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply also follows the same design language. I’d happier facing this one than many others.

We had a nice family vacation last year in the UK (beach town in Wales). One day, we wanted to make reservations in a restaurant just a few blocks away. This was only possible by calling them. They asked for my phone number, then replied: "Sorry, is this a UK number?" When I said no, we are tourists here, the reply was that they could not make reservations for us, sorry! Same experience with two other restaurants.

We ended up preparing some hamburgers from Aldi UK that evening.

Someone else commented on this already, but I had to fly Ryan Air while I was there and after booking the tickets, I found out that the only way to get a boarding pass is by installing their app.

It's quite bleak.

As a dual citizen living outside the UK, to visit Britain I cannot apply for an ETA. Instead I must have a British passport, OR apply for a waiver document for an eye watering £500.

Obviously this makes no sense, because if the ETA is suitable for a non-British citizen it ought to be fine for a British citizen who happens to have a non-British passport, but objections have all received non-answer-answers that strongly suggest the bureaucrats didn't think of it and can't be bothered to implement support for the situation.

I hate paperwork...

I get the annoyance of being asked multiple times, but it's not that bad.

- a remainer

The flow is pretty straightforward if you ask me. It’s a few clicks and one page digests of your options.

It’s a decision tree to let most people in the world who have either an Android or iOS device easily submit their form quickly, or just proceed with the guidance to just apply online (your preference obviously).

If you visit the gov.uk page from a mobile, you get a suggestion for the app.

If you visit on _desktop_, you get https://www.gov.uk/eta/apply ( reached from https://www.gov.uk/eta ) which offers app and online (browser) options just beneath each other.

Also, the author here isn't looking at the ETA main page, they're looking specifically at the _help page for the app_ which, yes, talks about the app (but tells you that you can apply online if it doesn't work).

And if my device doesn't have a camera I don't need to scan my face? wtf?

(another example of this is that you cannot submit your taxes or do anything even slightly weird in relation to city hall in France or Belgium without Ios or Android) (needed for identification)

This is the combination of 2 effects: You CAN go to city hall or the tax office and identify yourself there without a phone (for now). However, for many not-quite-the-most-normal-thing-ever-stuff like birth certificate, past-years-how-much-tax-you-paid certificate, ... they no longer staff city hall or the tax office for these things. People working there now have only the most minimal knowledge of procedures. Hence you cannot go there for most things, you must do them remotely. Only really common stuff. To identify yourself remotely, you need Apple or Android. So you can go down and get a domicile certificate, but not, say a birth certificate or a "I'm safe to work with kids" certificate, or ... they no longer let you do this. The fucking constitution and god knows how many laws clearly state they MUST allow you to do that there and cannot ask for things like a phone, but they don't let you anyway.

I must say I wonder how this works for people who can't or won't do that ... say unemployed, or people in prison, or ...

I mean this means they must allow mobile phones in prison now, for example, doesn't it? In hospitals, including psychiatric. Or on any secret military facilities where people sleep, like ships or subs. Or, at least, sooner or later some judge will be forced to tell them to allow it.

It just seems so stupid to do this for a great many reasons, not just that this gives Trump a way to shut down the EU economy. But, as usual, saving a quick buck clearly matters more to politicians than little details like people, or security.

(Even that 'direct link' has a whole page of "ok here's what you need - click to continue" !)

So this isn't really an exception, and is to be expected if you're familiar with govuk

I think it needs to be scaled back, but with a party in power famous for paternalism, and a long history of their interaction design in this direction, I don't see it happening

The web is not a panacea. All the above is a hack job if you do it there. But there is still the backup option which was clearly found. Hell I just googled it and it went straight to the page.

Basically, as a US Citizen, even though I will only be transiting via the shthole of an airport (LHR, obviously), I need this ETA.

The process seemed* painless when described, but is rather painful. Essentially, they WANT you to use the mobile app. They do everything to make that happen (unless you are applying for someone else, in which case you may use your PC/laptop).

So I downloaded the iOS app; you have to take a selfie (so, obviously, as well lit place, neutral background, etc etc). The selfie itself took a few tries. Then you pay GBP 16 (USD ~21).

Then, the worst experience was matching the NFC-enabled US passport with the app, so that it reads the stored info from the passport chip. My US passport is recent (renewed within last 6 months). Try as I might, I just couldn't get the app to "read" the NFC-stored info (on the back cover of the passport). I tried 15 times, with the passport held at various angles, touching the iPhone here and there. It worked on the 16th try (= the passport backcover has to be held EXACTLY halfway down).

"You are holding it wrong" x 10000

I almost gave up half way thru this extremely frustrating @#$@@!!!! experience. Even as I write this I am cursing the app developers.

I can only imagine how somebody else -- say a senior citizen, who may not know tech enough, or whose fingers are not nimble enough, etc -- can easily give up this process after just a couple of tries. The usability experience is just plain shitty. Think about the consequences.

I hope the app developers are reading this.

I'm just glad I dont have to do this for 2 more years.