Blockchain’s Response to Apple | Hacker News Reader

Blockchain’s Response to Apple

blog.blockchain.info

76 pointsKenan60 comments

This was unexpected? How is not naive to expect a corporation to remove any software when it infringes on their bottomline. If you buy into developing software for this corporate-controlled walled garden of any kind you set yourself up for this. It's 2014, we've had 5 years of this kind of behavior from Apple and people still seem surprised by this fact.

I'm surprised by the outrage. Apple's position here is logical - banning bitcoin wallet apps does not impact the vast majority of its userbase while taking a strong stance in preserving its payments monopoly. Corporations are not benevolent but are rational agents acting in their best interest.

By that logic they should ban Paypal, Dwolla, Gyft, Gowallet, Visa, and any other payment app. They clearly haven't, and I'm not sure how Bitcoin apps are any different. The point is they aren't acting rationally.

And that's because those companies have made deals with Apple behind closed doors that your average app developer can't leverage. It's rational in the sense that it serves their interests.

Care to provide evidence of this ? I led the mobile development effort for a very large international bank which was doing peer-peer payments. We didn't make any special deals and were subject to the same conditions as everyone else.

One only need to make a payment through Fandango's iOS app and see that you can use PayPal to see that Apple's rules aren't the same for everyone.

You're incorrect -- this is an example of the rule, not an exception.

Apple will not let Fandango (or anyone) sell a real-world item through IAP. That is why PayPal is acceptable. It's clearly stated in the app guidelines that IAP must be for virtual / digital items only.

I worked on an app that let you buy drinks at bars. In-app purchase was clearly out, so we integrated PayPal and Stripe. Apple allowed that and it's been in the store, with periodic updates and their reviews, for years.

I was mistaken, and have misunderstood that rule all this time. Thank you for the correction.

PayPal has obtained appropriate licenses to act as a money transmitter in most states [1].

I can't tell from a casual reading of Blockchain's site if they are doing anything that would require state licensing or not. It seems that they hold a backup copy of their user's Bitcoin wallet. If that is just a backup for the "real" wallet on the mobile devices, or just used for syncing copies of the wallet between the user's multiple devices, my current vague understanding of the rules is that this would not be money transmission. However, if their servers are acting as intermediaries between the user and third parties for the exchange of Bitcoin (for goods, services, or real or virtual currency), then I think that would make them a money transmitter (or even make them a bank, which also opens up a huge regulatory can of worms).

[1] https://www.paypal-media.com/licenses

Apple is acting completely rationally. They are being selfish. Bitcoin wallets have a terrible reputation for losing their customer's money and Bitcoin itself still has very unsavoury elements (drugs, money laundering etc) to say the least. Given that the press love a good Apple story you have to ask yourself why take the potential hit to the brand for no benefit ?

For two years, that bitcoin wallet app was available for download from the App Store. Now, suddenly, it's an issue of "reputation"? What a load of crap.

Well, it is only now that bitcoin is getting more widespread recognition and traction in traditional media.

Apple has always been strong on protecting whatever competitive advantage it holds, whether it be from hardware clones or third party payment apps.

However, outrage is what it takes to get them to give ground. Take the ban on cross compilers and interpreters in apps for instance. It took substantial protest and outrage to get them to ease the restrictions.

http://allthingsd.com/20100614/apple-gives-ios-developers-a-...

What's the best way to make noise about this?

Sure, I can switch to Android but A) I don't really want to do that and B) losing a handful of Bitcoin enthusiasts to another platform is really not going to dent Apple in any way.

Switch to Android. It will make a dent.

Bitcoin people are not a random demographic, they are early adopters, many are entrepreneurs, most are young.

I don't think Apple cares all that much about losing early adopters at this stage, and the number of folks willing to switch platform over Bitcoin wallet apps isn't going to be the slightest bit noticeable.

I'm no friend of Bitcoin, but won't disregarding early adopters lead them one step closer to becoming Microsoft?

Any "dent" would be eclipsed by Apple running another TV ad in China or India.

I doubt they could care less.

It's not one dent that makes a difference. But a thousand little dents do make a difference.

They mention there were only 120K downloads. It may be true that bitcoin people are early adopters, but those early adopters aren't using wallets downloaded from the app store. For comparison December 2013 saw 3 billion total app downloads. Early adopters of iOS bitcoin wallet apps are a fraction of a fraction of a niche right now.

A) Bitcoin is not as big as you think, yet. 120K downloads is not that bad.

B) Since Apple is so hostile towards Bitcoin, many people have switched to better alternatives and simply don't care about Apple's private North Korea with an insane leader.

Return your device. Say you bought for this and now it is useless. And maybe sue for punitive damages.

And then move to palm, windows, webos.. because moving to android will just make you do the same thing to google in a couple months.

Palm's gone, I'm not sure why you'd think Microsoft would be any different than Google/Apple regarding Bitcoin, and webOS was Palm's OS.

ironically, microsoft is less toxic nowadays than osx for software freedom.

With Android you don't need to rely on Google to install third party applications on your own hardware.

technically. but then, neither with ios. but its not whats being discussed.

Sadly, Android is not secure enough for Bitcoin apps.

Arguably the same could (should?) be said about iOS.

What aspects of Android (or any OS, in general) make it unsafe for bitcoin use?

Android is the wild west compared to iOS

Bullshit.

The only rational response is to weigh the benefits of developing for and using the iOS ecosystem with your convictions about general purpose computing. If you don't think Apple shouldn't have this kind of power then don't use their products and don't support the Mac ecosystem.

Switch to Android and recommend other people to buy only Android phones from now on. Actively discourage people from buying iPhones. It will make a dent.

> The only thing that has changed is that bitcoin has become competitive to Apple’s own payment system.

Well, that, and a bunch of media, law enforcement, and legislative attention.

> Bitcoin’s use for international payments from family members sending money home to support entire communities in the developing world and for charity fundraising and fund distribution will be severely affected by this decision.

Can't they just use their web browser?

> Well, that, and a bunch of media, law enforcement, and legislative attention.

Normal currencies and online currencies suffer from these same 3 issues though.

Normal currencies are backed by sovereign governments, are controlled by regulatory regimes, and don't get pitched as a way of anonymizing transactions/avoiding government interference in shady dealings.

Cash is used anonymously and for shady dealings too. Compare this to the blockchain, which is public, not anonymous.

There is no rule that says a currency has to be backed by a government, since people have traded without government backed currency since the dawn of man.

Departed from the reality the rest of us share with "Apple attempted to strike a devastating blow to the bitcoin ecosystem"

Let's build amazing products they can't ban. On Android. On browsers. Everywhere.

Don't mistake to maliciousness what can be attributed to naievity.

The reason Apple has issues with other payment methods on their App Store is that they can't control them. Meaning, they can't ensure the user experiance they would like to, and when things go wrong, they can't fix it.

Apple's userbase is so large and diverse now that users blame things on Apple that shouldnt (e.g. they loose money through bitcoin they used with an iPhone app, Apple gets blamed ). This is their way of minimising that.

Yeah right. Bitcoin is a threat to payment systems. Apple intends to launch its own payment system soon (for more than just apps). It's as simple as that. But of course they would use an excuse like "it's for your own good". That's what all dictators say, too.

Apple's a pretty terrible company. This should've been expected.

I'm sure they would be ok with it if you paid Apple 1/3 of any Bitcoin transaction you made through it. Without doing so you create a huge hole in their app revenue tax.

No they wouldn't. Profiting from Bitcoin transfers is a regulatory nightmare. This is because there are no controls to minimise the risk that Bitcoin is being used for money laundering.

There are also no controls to minimise the risk that in-app purchases are being used for money laundering.

I thought that for money laundering to work you had to purchases with the dirty money items that can be sold for clean money, or exchanged for items that can be sold for clean money (and you also want the transactions on one or preferably both ends to be hard to trace).

What are some examples of in-app purchases that would be good for this kind of thing?

Transferable game items, for example.

The dumb money laundering argument.

If you seriously think regulators care about money laundering, ask yourself why HSBC laundered hundreds of billions of drug cartel dollars, got a slap on the wrist and nobody went to jail.

Money laundering is the new "think of the children" or "terrorists!" bullshit.

It's a legitimate argument.

Regulators DO care about money laundering they have just been completely incompetent at regulating it.

> If you seriously think regulators care about money laundering

I think that WE should care about money laundering.

I think that WE should care about the HSBC situation.

And consequently I think that everyone should care about the potential for Bitcoin to be used for money laundering.

Does apple take 1/3 of every transaction through banking apps?

If Apple allows banking apps they should allow Bitcoin apps, I don't see the problem.

Apple isn't even remotely close to having a monopoly in the SmartPhone market. That's such a non-sense thing to say in an official statement. My perception of block chain.info is now a company that lies / misrepresents the truth on purpose. Good work guys.

Apple will fight all day and all night to maintain control of money on their app store. The way they push their weight around against anything that tries to do anything outside their walled garden is nothing short of disgusting.

> The way they push their weight around against anything that tries to do anything outside their walled garden is nothing short of disgusting.

This is capitalism. They provide services that they expect you to use, and if you want to do business on the platform they control, you play by their rules. If you don't like it, you're free to leave.

Those first to paragraphs are very harsh. Which I find funny because some their harsher lawsuits were started by Jobs, who's famously quoted in their first paragraph (well he wrote it not said it).

buy android

In my opinion anyone that uses apple's products must know that at any moment, apple can decide unilaterally that the user should not use some app / functionality.

If you don't like that you probably aren't using apple products already.

Google can and has done the same thing.

You dont have to use google's app store, I have plenty of apps from other sources.

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