Build it with me: Bitcoin wallet for Mac

http://nico.im/blog/bitcoin-wallet-for-mac/

by niico • 13 years ago

50 32 13 years ago

nwh4• 13 years ago

I'm struggling to feel enthusiastic about this one, it seems to be designed more to just do something with Bitcoin, rather than provide any actual innovation.

pazimzadeh2• 13 years ago

Really? I don't know of any bitcoin wallets that are really great to use.

I hope that this app or another one can do to Bitcoin what Transmit did to FTP (http://panic.com/transmit/) or the Github native app did to Git (http://mac.github.com/).

ianlevesque5• 13 years ago

Yeah I'm not a big fan of this particular design, but putting together a polished and featureful alternative that uses the real bitcoind behind the scenes is definitely an opportunity.

garretruh• 13 years ago

Do people really prefer graphical git over the command line? I'm honestly curious. FTP with a GUI I get, but it doesn't seem like git lends itself as well to such a UI.

jbaudanza• 13 years ago

Maybe throw the code up on github?

jethroalias97• 13 years ago

I expect people would be reluctant to use a client not sanctioned by bitcoin.org officially, although I'm not sure how difficult that is. It may be as simple as sending an email to get them to add it to the list.

I would think that any new bitcoin wallet could be introducing a substantial security risk before it has been extensively field tested. If someone where to sneak some code in, or even just screw up a security protocol, all the stored bitcoins would be at risk.

1) http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

2) https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wallet

nwh4• 13 years ago

If this were a real client, it would be an interface to bitcoind rather than a replacement.

achalkley• 13 years ago

Right. I've been working on an RPC client for iPhone.

gesman• 13 years ago

I agree with you that most bitcoin wallets are either look ugly or are hackable online wallets maintained by third party.

Among all I tried I like Electrum the most for it's speed and it's deterministic nature, i.e. the whole wallet can be fully recovered from passphrase, instead of regular backups.

niico3• 13 years ago

Im glad we are on the same page. Ideally I would love to build a full suite where you can see and control everything from one app. Iterations from the basic wallet are pretty much unlimited.

msarnoff• 13 years ago

If you do decide to build this app, I would highly recommend making it open-source. Properly building a custom-skinned OS X app is not easy. Compared to UIKit on iOS, which was built from the ground up to support animation and appearance customization, AppKit is a dinosaur.

When subclassing controls, you'll encounter AppKit bugs, things that can't be skinned without overriding private methods, and inconsistencies between OS versions. The animation APIs are woefully inadequate, especially if you need to support 10.7 or 10.6. (over two-thirds of the install base as of January, according to [1])

If done well, the source code would be a valuable resource to the Mac developer community. Custom-styled desktop experiences are becoming the new norm, yet building them remains somewhat of a black art.

[1] http://www.cultofmac.com/208455/os-x-mountain-lion-now-accou...

nwh4• 13 years ago

There's also no way that anyone from the Bitcoin community would want to use a closed-source wallet.

ianlevesque5• 13 years ago

Yeah it has to be open source. Accept donations in bitcoins.

niico3• 13 years ago

Yeah, that's why Im looking for someone to build it with me ;)

question-all• 13 years ago

Are there no existing mac bitcoin wallets?

ianlevesque5• 13 years ago

Most of the major ones work just fine on OS X: bitcoin-qt, armory, electrum, multibit. They just don't provide a great user experience.

samweinberg• 13 years ago

I wouldn't say Armory works fine on OS X. In fact, it's a bit of a hassle to set up. From their website:

>WARNING: This does not work on all OSX systems. We are working hard to expand the compatibility set. If it does not work for you, most users have success from the directions on the Building Armory from Source page. It takes a little bit of effort, but it works!

brvs• 13 years ago

This will be useful to all the people who buy useful items and do practical things with bitcoins. Thank you!

kmasters2• 13 years ago

There are a lot of issues around bitcoin and seeking to build a pretty interface to it addresses none of them.

One of my objections to bitcoin is the suggestion that I use Tor to mask my IP to keep my actual IP from occurring in the blockchain.

I think if you are telling users to use Tor to "stay safe" thats a problem already.

Second, "balance" information from your wallet is also stored in the blockchain.

Thats comforting, an IP address combined with how much bitcoin I possess. We have seen where that ended up more than once. Why not just paint a target on my forehead?

Cold storage is one solution to backing up your bitcoin and keeping it offline until needed.

Needing to "create a new bitcoin address" for every transaction, also fishy.

I would rather someone build a solution to bitcoins defiencies than see a pretty screen.

vhf2• 13 years ago

> mask my IP to keep my actual IP from occurring in the blockchain.

The blockchain does not store any IP address.

> Needing to "create a new bitcoin address" for every transaction, also fishy.

Creating a new bitcoin address for every transaction is not recommended and not needed. So no, it's not fishy. On the contrary, having the possibility to generate different address and using one address for one addressee is quite smart and useful.

kmasters2• 13 years ago

From bitcoin.org

Bitcoin is not anonymous

Some effort is required in order to protect your privacy with Bitcoin. All Bitcoin transactions are stored publicly and permanently on the network, which means anyone can see the balance and transactions of any Bitcoin address. However, the identity of the owner cannot be associated with their Bitcoin address until personal information is revealed by the owner during an exchange. This is why it is recommended for Bitcoin owners to use many different Bitcoin addresses; in fact, you should create a new one each time you receive money. This is especially important for public uses such as websites. You might also want to consider hiding your computer's IP address with a tool like Tor so that it cannot be logged.

ianpurton• 13 years ago

Hi niico,

This looks a lot like https://www.strongcoin.com but with a dashboard. I will probably add this kind of functionality too. (I own strongcoin)

But to build your app, I recommend you take the code for http://carbonwallet.com which is already available on github and submit a pull request for a dashboard like you have in your post.

CarbonWallet is already available as a chrome application, and the logic is tried and tested.

niico3• 13 years ago

Thanks, I will definitely take a look at both. Great job btw with Strongcoin

Build it with me: Bitcoin wallet for Mac

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