“Apple is making good on its recent bitcoin policy shift, with a new bitcoin wallet app appearing for download in the iOS App Store,” Jon Southurst reports for CoinDesk.
“The ‘Coinpocket’ app is described by its developer as a wrapper for a previously available open source HTML5 version, this time with full access to the camera hardware for QR code scanning,” Southurst reports. “While its feature set is fairly basic, Coinpocket allows users to do anything they could do on previously-available iPhone wallet apps like Coinbase and Blockchain, which had gone some time without updates before being subsequently removed from the store.”
Apple “updated its policy last week to include ‘approved’ digital currencies,” Southurst reports. “It’s not just wallet apps finding new approval from Apple; others have appeared that allow bitcoin purchases from within the app, which also appear to avoid Apple’s 30% share of all in-app purchase amounts rule.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple allows virtual currencies in apps, opening door to Bitcoin – June 3, 2014
Apparent theft at prominent Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox shakes Bitcoin world – February 25, 2014
New Bitcoin-stealing trojan, ‘OSX/CoinThief.A,’ targets OS X users – February 10, 2014
Russian authorities say Bitcoin illegal – February 10, 2014
Enraged Bitcoin true believers shoot, smash iPhones after Apple yanks Bitcoin app from App Store – February 6, 2014
Apple pulls ‘Blockchain’ Bitcoin app from iTunes App Store – February 6, 2014
Apple App Store’s rocky relationship with Bitcoin apps – December 10, 2013
Reiterating, BitCoin is not so good. Might as well trade in leaves.
Someone might get what I just said.
Gollum, do you really think bitcoin is any more risky then our fiat currency called the US dollar. A currency, I might add, that has no intrinsic value other than people’s faith in the US government to honor the currency. Based on the actions of our government lately, I’m not sure i can put much faith in anything they promise.
Be that as it may, only the true gamblers among us will invest in bitcoin. Bitcoins volatility makes it a very, very risky investment. But as a way to transfer funds, especially internationally, it is a vehicle that is hard to beat.
I’m glad Apple is allowing bitcoin apps once again. Bitcoin may not be for everyone, as Gollum’s comment indicates, but having choices, especially in currency, is never a bad thing.
All human interaction relies on trust. If you don’t start there, you have nothing. Bitcoin is, and always will be, a target for hackers and therefore an untrusted currency by the majority of the world.
Moreover, too many choices in currency (as opposed to payment method) is absolutely a bad thing. One of the critical things that was done in the USA during the of its independence was to squelch out all the local currencies and establish a single currency for all colonies. Each state still had the right to charter local banks to use its own currency, of course, but the de facto currency they was trusted came from the federal government. Local and state banks crashed regularly but the gold-backed US dollar became the global standard. It lubricated interstate and international trading. Contrast this to the many other nations founded about the same time as the USA — no universal currency meant more expensive trading due to exchange fees. Even when Nixon made the critical error of allowing Wall Street to have its way and eliminate the gold standard, it didn’t change the fact that the US dollar was still trustworthy.
Fast forward to today: many people think the Euro is in crisis. They are wrong. The Euro paved the way for significantly easier trade and the value of the Euro — which was launched at parity to the US dollar — is currently worth $1.36. That’s right, folks, the euro is worth 36% more than the US dollar because no matter how badly small european states may overspend their little budgets, Washington DC is full of incompetent corporate lapdog representatives that are on their way to digging a debt for the USA that the nation will never be able to repay. Ironically, too, some of the states represented by the loudest blowhard anti-“big guvmint” right wingers are the ones who are the least fiscally responsible, voting for extreme defense spending and voting themselves federal handouts. Not that the liberal weenies are any better, but at least those whiners waste money within the borders of the USA instead of in foreign nationbuilding.
The US dollar would recover its trust and its value if the federal budget was balanced and a realistic plan was enacted to pay off 5 decades of accumulated debt. Instead, we have two spendaholic parties establishing partisan gridlock who are more intent on destroying each other than paying attention to communist China, a corrupt nation and currency manipulator that has every major corporation in its back pocket.
Not the phone sanitizers.
Yes!
Bitcoin has taken a server bashing over the past year due to bank scandals, crooked trades, drug payments and malware. I can’t blame Apple for taking out the Bitcoin apps if only to examine the situation as well as let it calm down. I strongly expect they’ve modified their vetting of Bitcoin related apps after the slew of related malware, one of which slipped by them earlier this year.
Hopefully, the entire computer community will take Bitcoin more seriously and keep vigil on its value and security. If it has no future, if screwing over people in Bitcoin related crimes continues, what’s the point of keeping it as currency?
And yes of course, the same applies to the abused US dollar. What is a dollar really worth without reliable backing and trust?