bitcoin wallet for windows mobile (8)

[VeeMiner]

Hi everyone

has anyone thought of creating a wallet for windows mobile? I own a smartphone with this operating system and I believe that we will see this platform on the rise. Will someone pick up the challenge of creating a wallet for this platform? I would even be willing to chip in on the development in case someone starts it up.

Thank you

Vee

[Andreas Schildbach]

Someone should port the Android runtime over to Windows Phone. This will solve all the app problems with one strike.

[GimpyPrime]

Hi everyone

has anyone thought of creating a wallet for windows mobile? I own a smartphone with this operating system and I believe that we will see this platform on the rise. Will someone pick up the challenge of creating a wallet for this platform? I would even be willing to chip in on the development in case someone starts it up.

Thank you

Vee

I am building a wallet for Windows 8 / Windows Store. The networking API will be open source, as for the wallet app itself I have not decided yet. I assume for it to gain any level of credibility in Bitcoin network I will likely need to make all components open source. It is guaranteed to be a free Windows Store Application.

Porting it to the Windows 8 phone shouldn't be a challenge, the code will all build except for the XAML. The interface will need to be redesigned for a smaller screen. And although it will build I don't imagine a phone user is going to want a 6gb blockchain download over their data plan. So at this point I would need to leverage the community for ideas to get around this.

Currently I am using raw sockets to communicate between nodes. Following the specification seems to be relatively straight forward. Although I see some references to JSON-RPC throughout the forums and it has added a little bit of confusion for me. I am not sure if this is just some kind of wrapper to simplify client development or if it is part of official spec and should be supported. Personally I'd rather stick with sockets.

[GimpyPrime]

Also,

Vee may I ask what your proficiencies are?

My primary skills would be C#/VB.Net, WCF(JSON/SOAP), Asp.Net. Oracle, MSSQL, HTML5, Silverlight, WinRT, Web Service Architecture. Secondary skills would be C++, C, and other things that I haven't touched since college. Additionally I also have a strong IT background as it related to database administration, network administration, Active Directory, backups, firewalls, etc... Currently most of my day to day work is architecting software for Banks and Insurance Companies.

To be honest I am not entirely sure Microsoft will accept the application into the Windows Store. Given that Apple has removed their first and only bitcoin client from the Apple App Store.

[VeeMiner]

Hi everyone

has anyone thought of creating a wallet for windows mobile? I own a smartphone with this operating system and I believe that we will see this platform on the rise. Will someone pick up the challenge of creating a wallet for this platform? I would even be willing to chip in on the development in case someone starts it up.

Thank you

Vee

I am building a wallet for Windows 8 / Windows Store. The networking API will be open source, as for the wallet app itself I have not decided yet. I assume for it to gain any level of credibility in Bitcoin network I will likely need to make all components open source. It is guaranteed to be a free Windows Store Application.

Porting it to the Windows 8 phone shouldn't be a challenge, the code will all build except for the XAML. The interface will need to be redesigned for a smaller screen. And although it will build I don't imagine a phone user is going to want a 6gb blockchain download over their data plan. So at this point I would need to leverage the community for ideas to get around this.

Currently I am using raw sockets to communicate between nodes. Following the specification seems to be relatively straight forward. Although I see some references to JSON-RPC throughout the forums and it has added a little bit of confusion for me. I am not sure if this is just some kind of wrapper to simplify client development or if it is part of official spec and should be supported. Personally I'd rather stick with sockets.

Hi Gimpy. I suggest having a server with the blockchain downloaded and just let the clients connect to it.

Anyway by chipping in I mean donating for development in bitcoin, not necessarily programming

[GimpyPrime]

Hi everyone

has anyone thought of creating a wallet for windows mobile? I own a smartphone with this operating system and I believe that we will see this platform on the rise. Will someone pick up the challenge of creating a wallet for this platform? I would even be willing to chip in on the development in case someone starts it up.

Thank you

Vee

I am building a wallet for Windows 8 / Windows Store. The networking API will be open source, as for the wallet app itself I have not decided yet. I assume for it to gain any level of credibility in Bitcoin network I will likely need to make all components open source. It is guaranteed to be a free Windows Store Application.

Porting it to the Windows 8 phone shouldn't be a challenge, the code will all build except for the XAML. The interface will need to be redesigned for a smaller screen. And although it will build I don't imagine a phone user is going to want a 6gb blockchain download over their data plan. So at this point I would need to leverage the community for ideas to get around this.

Currently I am using raw sockets to communicate between nodes. Following the specification seems to be relatively straight forward. Although I see some references to JSON-RPC throughout the forums and it has added a little bit of confusion for me. I am not sure if this is just some kind of wrapper to simplify client development or if it is part of official spec and should be supported. Personally I'd rather stick with sockets.

Hi Gimpy. I suggest having a server with the blockchain downloaded and just let the clients connect to it.

Anyway by chipping in I mean donating for development in bitcoin, not necessarily programming

I thought about having a server with the entire block chain for the mobile users and I still may go that route. I had a concern that this would break the decentralized model of Bitcoin. If my server ever got hacked a malicious user could potential distribute bad information to the clients, perhaps even make someone think that they had received coins when really they hadn't. Private keys would still be safe for the client, but spoofing transaction information could be equally disastrous. I was reading about bloom filtering, and it could serve as an alternative solution.

If you want to chip in you are more than welcome, but before I do any public appeals for crowd funding I'd like to have a prototype going. In the meantime I am going to try and get a grant from the Bitcoin Foundation. I have a small team which includes 2 web developers, a graphic artist, which makes 4 if you include myself. Most of the work will be done by me, but I leverage the others for voluntary work whenever they are available. At some point I hope to pay them a bit to speed up the project.

Second phase of this project is a vendor application. The goal is to have an advanced wallet which allows retailers to manage a product listings, prices, with a secured local wallet so that staff managing the app can't access the private keys, but still have some ability to issue refunds. I am still designing what this may look like. Fluctuations in bitcoin value make pricing difficult for retailers, so I am working on a pricing component which will allow inventory prices to be derived from base values. I'm only in brainstorming mode for this phase although it will reuse a lot of existing code in my wallet app, this project likely won't go into full gear until Q4 2013. The intention with this app is again to release it for free.

[VeeMiner]

Hi everyone

has anyone thought of creating a wallet for windows mobile? I own a smartphone with this operating system and I believe that we will see this platform on the rise. Will someone pick up the challenge of creating a wallet for this platform? I would even be willing to chip in on the development in case someone starts it up.

Thank you

Vee

I am building a wallet for Windows 8 / Windows Store. The networking API will be open source, as for the wallet app itself I have not decided yet. I assume for it to gain any level of credibility in Bitcoin network I will likely need to make all components open source. It is guaranteed to be a free Windows Store Application.

Porting it to the Windows 8 phone shouldn't be a challenge, the code will all build except for the XAML. The interface will need to be redesigned for a smaller screen. And although it will build I don't imagine a phone user is going to want a 6gb blockchain download over their data plan. So at this point I would need to leverage the community for ideas to get around this.

Currently I am using raw sockets to communicate between nodes. Following the specification seems to be relatively straight forward. Although I see some references to JSON-RPC throughout the forums and it has added a little bit of confusion for me. I am not sure if this is just some kind of wrapper to simplify client development or if it is part of official spec and should be supported. Personally I'd rather stick with sockets.

Hi Gimpy. I suggest having a server with the blockchain downloaded and just let the clients connect to it.

Anyway by chipping in I mean donating for development in bitcoin, not necessarily programming

I thought about having a server with the entire block chain for the mobile users and I still may go that route. I had a concern that this would break the decentralized model of Bitcoin. If my server ever got hacked a malicious user could potential distribute bad information to the clients, perhaps even make someone think that they had received coins when really they hadn't. Private keys would still be safe for the client, but spoofing transaction information could be equally disastrous. I was reading about bloom filtering, and it could serve as an alternative solution.

If you want to chip in you are more than welcome, but before I do any public appeals for crowd funding I'd like to have a prototype going. In the meantime I am going to try and get a grant from the Bitcoin Foundation. I have a small team which includes 2 web developers, a graphic artist, which makes 4 if you include myself. Most of the work will be done by me, but I leverage the others for voluntary work whenever they are available. At some point I hope to pay them a bit to speed up the project.

Second phase of this project is a vendor application. The goal is to have an advanced wallet which allows retailers to manage a product listings, prices, with a secured local wallet so that staff managing the app can't access the private keys, but still have some ability to issue refunds. I am still designing what this may look like. Fluctuations in bitcoin value make pricing difficult for retailers, so I am working on a pricing component which will allow inventory prices to be derived from base values. I'm only in brainstorming mode for this phase although it will reuse a lot of existing code in my wallet app, this project likely won't go into full gear until Q4 2013. The intention with this app is again to release it for free.

sounds great! let me know what goes on with your project...

[Andreas Schildbach]

I strongly suggest looking into the bitcoinj library. It has been ported to C#, but that port isn't maintained any more I think. That would be the security, durable SPV route.

If you want a "trust the server" security model, I'd try to make use of established protocols like Bitcoin Spinner or Electrum/Stratum.

[coinsider]

Mobile wallets are badly needed. I am a Bitcoin evangelist and go around and sell small parcels of Bitcoins (like 0.1 BTC ) for no profit just to promote Bitcoin, increase the user base and remove the barrier of entry (which was none for myself but, you know, some people prefer to take baby steps) . My life would have been much easier with mobile wallets on WP and iPhone.

[Andreas Schildbach]

Mobile wallets are badly needed. I am a Bitcoin evangelist and go around and sell small parcels of Bitcoins (like 0.1 BTC ) for no profit just to promote Bitcoin, increase the user base and remove the barrier of entry (which was none for myself but, you know, some people prefer to take baby steps) . My life would have been much easier with mobile wallets on WP and iPhone.

For iOS, we are the wrong people to address. There would have been a wallet for iOS already years ago, but Apple banned them. Tell people they have bought into the wrong platform.

For Windows Phone, the user base is still very small and there is no reason it will grow significantly. That's probably the reason some apps do not exist. Windows Phone users are early adopters, similar to several years ago when people were using Android 1.x phones.

[elebit]

People pitched in a pretty hefty sum as a bounty to the first working Android app. Perhaps that would be one way to go for Windows Mobile users as well? It's quite a big undertaking to build a mobile wallet, and what better way to reward the developer than with Bitcoins?

[Andreas Schildbach]

People pitched in a pretty hefty sum as a bounty to the first working Android app. Perhaps that would be one way to go for Windows Mobile users as well? It's quite a big undertaking to build a mobile wallet, and what better way to reward the developer than with Bitcoins?

Well it obviously worked, but the bounty was never awarded.

[elebit]

Well it obviously worked, but the bounty was never awarded.

Wasn't it? So who's sitting on all the money now?

[Andreas Schildbach]

Well it obviously worked, but the bounty was never awarded.

Wasn't it? So who's sitting on all the money now?

The people who pledged, except some who donated (part of) their share. There was no intermediary involved.

[elebit]

The people who pledged, except some who donated (part of) their share. There was no intermediary involved.

That saddens me. I believe the payment was pretty large. You deserve a bunch!

[stenkross]

I believe I saw a guy posting on reddit a few weeks ago. He had created a wallet app for Win phone 8, but it was rejected by Microsoft. Something about their policy regarding money transmitting apps and the app issuer not being a bank from what I recall.

[stenkross]

Found the link btw:
http://www.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/1ahavh/

[Fugger]

Found the link btw:
http://www.reddit.com/r/windowsphone/comments/1ahavh/

Thank you! was really interested in that since I have Windows Phone...

[Mike Hearn]

Bounties are a bad way to fund software, this is well known by now. The money that was pledged for the Bitcoin wallet app is a great example of how easy it is for someone to say, "I'll fund this!" and then find excuses or reasons not to release the money. Funded work has to be very tightly defined and the bounties you see thrown around the Bitcoin community virtually never qualify - nobody sane would accept a commercial contract as vague as these, so we shouldn't expect developers to do so here either.

Assurance contracts could be a great way to fund development of Bitcoin Wallet, but they need some supporting infrastructure and to be carefully planned. For example, Andreas would need to precisely specify what he will build, down to the level of detail of mockups/screenshots and precisely described UI flows. Then he assigns what he thinks it will cost. Then he waits for people to pledge and when the target amount has been reached, takes the pledged money or gives it to a third party arbitrator. Then the code is written (or released if it was already written) and the arbitrator decides if the contract was fulfilled.

[Jan]

Well it obviously worked, but the bounty was never awarded.

Wasn't it? So who's sitting on all the money now?

The people who pledged, except some who donated (part of) their share. There was no intermediary involved.

As far as I remember BitcoinSpinner claimed 20 BTC two years ago. Back then its not a big amount.