Apple and Google want your phone to become a coronavirus tracking device. Can it really work?

Apple and Google grew into global forces by creating wildly popular devices and applications. Their products became iconic for their elegant, user-friendly designs, and for their ability to handle heaps of data. Now those companies, who have often gone head-to-head in the past, are trying to apply that technical sensibility and mass appeal to develop a huge program to help track — and ultimately contain — the spread of the coronavirus.