Apple Tells Gliph to Remove App's Bitcoin Transfer Function

http://www.coindesk.com/apple-gliph-remove-app-bitcoin-transfer/

by dcawrey • 13 years ago

129 96 13 years ago

oleganza• 13 years ago

At the same time, Apple openly allowed Blockchain wallet in Mac App Store. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/blockchain/id688882038

cmsimike• 13 years ago

The Mac desktop is a much less controlled environment. It doesn't help Apple to block a desktop app from their app store because if they do, the developer could release it outside of the dev store. Less apps in the app store means less apps Apple can say it has in the app store.

On the other hand, realistically, the app store is the only way to get apps onto an iPhone for the general public. They can easily control things there because it's the app store or bust.

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

It doesn't help Apple to block a desktop app from their app store because if they do, the developer could release it outside of the dev store.

Safe to say that the ability to release unapproved applications on the Mac is now considered a bug by Apple, and being addressed accordingly.

JohnTHaller10• 13 years ago

For now. Macs used to allow installs of apps from anyone. Gatekeeper is currently set to only permit installs from the app store and developers who have paid the yearly Apple tax by default now. ( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5290 ) In the next release or two, expect the Gatekeeper setting to be switched to app store only by default. Yes, you'll still be able to change it, but don't expect most users to.

untog4• 13 years ago

Can't wait for Apple to start demanding 30% of all Bitcoin transactions performed on their platform.

3pt14159• 13 years ago

Bah. This is getting a bit out of hand. It is one thing to maintain quality of your app marketplace, but demanding that people remove features because you are ideologically against them is crazy.

deweller• 13 years ago

I believe Apple is monetarily opposed to these apps.

My crystal ball says Apple will likely release their own wallet services in the future and when they do, they don't want any competition.

tensafefrogs• 13 years ago

I don't believe this is the result of an ideological belief. This is standard Apple app store policy that if you allow any sort of in-app purchases, they have to go through Apple.

fat0wl• 13 years ago

well it's somewhat ideological, no? or do they allow Bitcoin payments for in-app purchases if you go through them?

My feeling has been that the major companies don't want to acknowledge Bitcoin yet and are waiting a bit to see how things play out. Not supporting it for a while won't hurt them too much financially. They lose some transaction fees but don't have to support a new payment type.

MartinMcGirk• 13 years ago

This is exactly right. Ever since they brought in in-app purchases to the app store they have required a 30% cut of everything. This isn't a dig at bitcoin specifically.

My local bus service sells bus tickets through an iOS app and they have to give up 30% of the sale to Apple. Even major retailers like Amazon and B&N ended up removing in app purchases back in 2011 [1] to avoid Apple taking 30% of their business. They are not even allowed to link to their own web stores from their apps.

Frankly I'm just amazed Gliph ever got that functionality in there in the first place.

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20082925-93/apple-forces-am...

crazygringo2• 13 years ago

But my Citibank app allows me to pay bills, transfer money between accounts, and deposit checks. LevelUp allows me to pay for things using credit cards linked to the app.

So it's pretty clear that Apple does allow financial transactions to happen in apps, without taking a cut or anything. What's unclear is why they would allow this for Citibank, LevelUp, etc., but not for bitcoin.

freyrs3• 13 years ago

Unless you pay for the special privilege by making deals with Apple behind closed doors, as most of the banking apps do. The terms of service hardly apply evenly to all applications.

JohnTHaller10• 13 years ago

Getting out of hand? This isn't some new behavior from Apple breaking with past behavior. Apple already bans competing web browsers with their own rendering engines (forcing them to use the slower Mobile Safari without JIT), bans any app which duplicates any functionality Apple has or is considering adding to their platform, and forces all providers to either give them 30% or not have in-app purchases or even links to purchases. Banning bitcoin send functionality is tame compared to that.

fharper1961• 13 years ago

Exactly! In 2010, I swore off of iOS and moved to Android for exactly this reason. I didn't want to be prisoner of a platform where a corporation could decide what software I was allowed to run on my device. I hope Apple's policy will be untenable in the long run.

dmix3• 13 years ago

Fortunately the developer of CoinJoin built an HTML5 wallet which is unbannable by Apple:

https://twitter.com/kyledrake/status/406604212009566208

lhgaghl3• 13 years ago

They could ban by heuristic or URL.

rmrfrmrf6• 13 years ago

Apple doesn't ban webapps per their policy.

lukifer3• 13 years ago

I've been waiting for the day when Apple axes the "Add To Home Screen" functionality entirely. It's a holdover from pre-App Store days, and has been sadly neglected; iOS7 shipped with several show-stopper bugs [1], only some of which have been fixed.

I have a feeling that they only keep HTML5 apps around as a pre-emptive defense against anti-trust.

[1] http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/safari-ios7-html5-problems-ap...

untog4• 13 years ago

Agreed. It was a great feature when the iPhone launched but it's barely been touched since. Yet amazingly, it's still the best. Android Chrome only just got Add To Homescreen functionality and it doesn't yet do anything special.

It's even more disappointing that Apple has implemented web push notifications... on desktop only. It's a natural fit for their webapp functionality but I don't hear anything about it being implemented. That plus the ability to register a URL scheme would really be all I'd want from Apple.

Touche2• 13 years ago

They can make web apps less convenient to use, but I don't think they are going to stop developing/shipping Safari on their phones.

gurkendoktor• 13 years ago

I don't understand the idea that Apple is secretly opposed to the web. Why would they keep investing in WebKit then? Why re-build iWork in HTML5? Why add web notifications?

iOS 7 was a pretty shaky release in general, Apple's own native apps haven't received a lot of love during the transition either.

maaku• 13 years ago

The developer of CoinJoin? Gregory Maxwell is doing HTML5 wallet apps now?

dmix3• 13 years ago

CoinPunk* always mix those two up.

kyledrake• 13 years ago

Coinpunk! I have been looking into implementing CoinJoin though. Had a discussion with Peter Todd and the Dark Wallet people about it. It's kindof a difficult proposal considering the amount of work I already have to do, but I'm not opposed to implementing it.

Houshalter• 13 years ago

This isn't what is what is happening here at all, but it gave me an idea. What if some person or organization with a lot of influence, like Apple, shorted on bitcoin, then banned it or did something to affect it's price.

This can work the other way around too, encouraging bitcoin use to increase it's value, after buying a bunch of it.

quinnchr• 13 years ago

I'd imagine it'd go the same as the thousand other incidents of people trying to game commodity/currency markets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant_presidential_a...

reginaldjcooper6• 13 years ago

Looks like Fisk and Gould were relatively unaffected by it, the country at large suffered a great loss, and nobody was punished for it.

My word, history does repeat itself, they were just shy a government handout and a multi-million dollar skiing trip.

rmrfrmrf6• 13 years ago

Before grabbing your pitchforks (again), please take the time to read this article from Gliph that clearly states Apple's policy on why they prohibit Bitcoin: https://blog.gli.ph/2013/12/09/the-state-of-bitcoin-mobile-a...

I really can't blame Apple for wanting to prevent potentially illegal content. When you allow that, you open yourself up to FBI raids, wiretapping, and other unplanned nuisances.

Are there really full Bitcoin wallets on Android? I'm glad that Apple's strict guidelines at least partly force developers to employ smarter decisions regarding disk space, network usage, and battery life (traditional Bitcoin wallets download the entire block chain and constantly poll the network for updates).

crazygringo2• 13 years ago

From Apple: “We found that your app contains content related to bitcoins – or facilitates, enables, or encourages an activity – that is not legal in all the locations in which the app is available, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

But this is ridiculous. I can use my Citibank app, the PayPal app, or whatever else, to pay for things that might not be legal either. Square could facilitate me receiving money for illegal things. It's hard to see why these are all allowed, but Bitcoin isn't.

rmrfrmrf6• 13 years ago

The examples you gave don't use Bitcoin; they all use USD. The currency itself is illegal; we're not even talking about what you're doing with the currency. Bitcoin's legality is disputed in China, Thailand, and the state of California. Since Apple operates out of California, it makes sense that they would hesitate to allow such functionality on their apps.

Edit for clarity: I interpret "facilitates, enables, or encourages an activity – that is not legal in all the locations in which the app is available" to mean that the act of making a Bitcoin transaction is illegal in certain jurisdictions.

mrb2• 13 years ago

Virtually all popular local (ie. non-hosted) Bitcoin wallets on Android are lightweight wallets. They do NOT download the full blockchain. They do NOT listen to all Bitcoin traffic. They use the Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) mode. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability#Simplified_payment_ve...

Apple would have zero reason for banning such lightweight clients, as they consume no more resources than a typical app.

biafra2• 13 years ago

What do you mean by "full Bitcoin wallets"?

There are several wallets on Android that do not rely on any servers except for the Bitcoin network servers.

Bitcoin Wallet by Andreas Schildbach: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.... Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet by Mycelium Developers: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycelium.w...

They both do not store the full Blockchain.

conanbatt2• 13 years ago

This is obviously related to the fact that they dont know how to charge the 30% comission they usually do.

Bitcoin is a risk on the controlled environment they have.

_Simon2• 13 years ago

This is so tiresome. The 30% is a service charge. It covers hosting, distribution and credit card processing to name but a few things. Before the AppStore, entities such as handango we're charging more than double as a percentage. It's not an arbitrary figure that you seem to think they plucked from their collective asses when instigating the store. So please. Drop the fucking trite meme. It's vapid.

salient• 13 years ago

This is why I think it's insane when I see Bitcoin-based services built apps for iPhone first. How naive are they? It's obvious as night and day that Apple would try to ban Bitcoin apps if they try to get into payments themselves.

We should try and stop them, of course, but why risk it by making iOS your first platform, and even your only platform for a while, if you you're building an app that has a very high chance of getting banned by Apple for arbitrary self-interested reasons.

KentLatricia• 13 years ago

Well to be fair, we released the same Bitcoin functionality for Android and Mobile Web at the same time. This was in May earlier this year (at Bitcoin 2013 in San Jose).

We survived 8 iOS releases with Bitcoin functionality in the app store without hiding that functionality to Apple.

(Gliph iOS Dev)

jljljl• 13 years ago

Off topic, but:

>Bitcoin skeptics don’t see the proof-of-work from mining as a good reason for there to significant value in the currency.

Do Bitcoin proponents see this as a good reason for the currency to have significant value? Why?

lukifer3• 13 years ago

Proof-of-work doesn't create the value; it enforces the rules of the protocol via incentives and consensus (essentially, one CPU = one vote). Any value is created entirely in people's heads. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate.

andrewla• 13 years ago

I can't speak for all proponents, obviously. From my point of view, the proof-of-work from mining is a critical part of the value of the currency, since it enforces the scarcity, and the only reason any fungible good has value is because it is scarce.

This is not unique to Bitcoin -- one of the primary reasons that USD has value is because the proof-of-work involved there; specifically, the ability to create an item that is not distinguishable from any other note of USD. If this were easy, then the dollar would be worthless, even though the actual task of "creating dollar bills" has no societal benefit other than securing the currency. (Not that you claimed it did; that is just a common objection that I am using as a strawman)

api• 13 years ago

Welcome to the wonderful world of feudalized devices.

Relevant: http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html

sirkneeland2• 13 years ago

Oh right, THIS is why it's not a good idea to use a system where a single corporation (and one predisposed to control-freakery at that) gives itself veto power over what your device can and cannot do.

(not that "everybody go buy a Nexus 5" is the answer either. The only way to keep these corporations in check is a competitive platform marketplace with considerably more than two players. Go buy a Lumia, a Jolla, a Firefox phone, a Tizen phone...support diversity, kids)

reginaldjcooper6• 13 years ago

Why not everyone go buy a Nexus 5? It looks open as phones go, you can just root it with adb[0]. As long as you can root the phone and swap in your own OS I think Google's phone is as good as any other.

[0] http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_hammerhead

Edit: I didn't read your post carefully enough. Yes, it would be wise to assume that Google will eventually become malicious and try to future-proof by supporting entities making comparably liberated phones.

sirkneeland2• 13 years ago

thanks for the edit. Indeed, my wariness of Google has increased as they have moved more and more of Android out of AOSP and into closed code that ties so closely with the Google mothership...

hoggle• 13 years ago

I've been a vocal supporter of most of Apple's policies over the years but they really are on the wrong side of history with this one.

Apple should embrace change (think different!) by accepting bitcoins themselves and let related innovation thrive on the App Stores. In the end it's all about the digital wallet which means more sales of mobile devices.

So please, dear Apple understand that the decentralized Internet of money is here. It won't go away so better get all in!

midas007• 13 years ago

Such dogma on Apple's part, taken to extreme, devoid of common-sense: the strangling innovation is a great way to push apps and their developer entourage to other platforms. There's curation and then there's disproportionate culture of "No."

Apple Tells Gliph to Remove App's Bitcoin Transfer Function

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