[ANN] BitcoinSpinner

[westkybitcoins]

The problem is you still have to wait to check if the transaction actually took place.

I am not sure what problem you are referring to. Please elaborate.

Maybe Findeton refers to a problem of sending couple transactions in quick succession? One needs to wait for each transaction to be picked up in a block then retrieve the TX outs again from server-side blockchain?

Yeah, that is a problem with only having one private key. I tripped up on this with StrongCoin too (although a workaround was implemented of allowing a spend to multiple addresses--this makes the problem much less severe.) Allowing multiple spends at once will help BitcoinSpinner too, but considering the simple design, it should probably be something the user has to ask for specifically. Also... while a little confusing at first, it might help to list the change itself as also being "coins on the way" ("change on the way?"), with the balance of the mini-wallet being 0.00 for a while after a spend.

StrongCoin and other alternative clients may have a limitation with change sent back to yourself. With BitcoinSpinner the change sent back to yourself is available for spending immediately, and you don't have to wait for a confirmation. In that regard BitcoinSpinner works like the Satoshi client.

You can do a simple test with BitcoinSpinner where you:
1. Have  zero balance in BitcoinSpinner
2. Send 2 bitcoins to BitcoinSpinner in a single transaction
3. Send 0.9995 BTC to another client two times right after each other with no intermediate confirmations.
4. Wait for the funds to arrive in the other client.

I see. That's great then... another plus for BitcoinSpinner.

(I checked the last StrongCoin transaction I sent earlier today, and while it worked, it seemed a bit confusing as to exactly why it crafted the two (!) transactions for my single transaction in the way that it did...)

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[cande]

Can you put up your own server?

[cypherdoc]

today i moved 0.5 BTC from my laptop wallet ->Spinner->mtgox->Spinner-> back to wallet all no problem.  Nice and easy.

[Vandroiy]

Hey! Why did I not know of this?

I might owe the authors of BCCAPI/Bitcoinspinner at least 20 BTC. Still have an old bounty on Android client, and the Schildbach wallet never qualified (ridiculous crash-and-bug party), nor did the other one.

No local block chain, but keys? Great concept! The question of key backup remains... check! Very good, I am testing the application right away!

I assume the API and client are made by different people? Oh wow, free with permissive license, awesome!

[Technomage]

This is an excellent development! I tried it yesterday, sent some coins from my Schildbach wallet to spinner, sent coins from spinner to my friend's spinner, everything worked perfectly.

It's clearly a work in progress though. There is no way to create a new Bitcoin address, no address book, no way to see sent and received transactions etc. But the core functionality is solid and the idea is excellent. It's very fast to use. Please keep developing it. I'd be happy to donate something to the developer if there is a donation address.

To Vandroiy: the Schildbach client is still the most advanced Bitcoin client for Android and it's fairly bug-free these days. It's regularly updated and works quite well.

I don't really know which client I'd like to use more right now, Spinner is faster because there is no blockchain download, but the Schildbach client has a much better set of features. Probably the Schildbach because the blockchain issue isn't a big one if you remember to download it once or twice a week. If it's at most 1 or 2 days behind, the download is fast enough to be acceptable in any situation.

[Vandroiy]

I installed it just now and sent 5 BTC. Works immediately. Very small footprint, minimalistic but functional. Will do some testing and other phones, probably this week.

This is likely to be my new favorite and the winner in my search for an Android client that started some 6 months ago.

To Vandroiy: the Schildbach client is still the most advanced Bitcoin client for Android and it's fairly bug-free these days. It's regularly updated and works quite well.

lol... just now, I updated Schildbach wallet to check. Crashed on start. I actually uninstalled it now that I have BitcoinSpinner; unless this one makes trouble as well, my choice is made. Nexus One CM7, the best standard Android environment I know of. Not that I haven't tried it on three other models. The program is just bad. It produces the kinds of errors that just do not happen when people know what they're doing. I can hardly list the amount of absurdities I've faced or seen others face using it. "Deleting Dalvik Cache destroys program", "Crashes after start", "Program no longer found", "Transactions do not sum to balance"... even the error report function crashed along with the rest of the progam.

I know all the phones in question, they range from HTC Magic and Legend over multiple Nexus Ones to modern newcomers; no general trouble with Android software. Just the Schildbach wallet misbehaving on every one of them, throughout different versions of OS and wallet.

No. I'm not paying the bounty to Schildbach unless I can actually use the program. BitcoinSpinner now has a head start; if it shows no errors, it's the winner in my opinion and gets a little donation/old bounty.

[Vandroiy]

Oh wow. When I try to type a number of Bitcoins to be sent, it is always input twice. I can only sent 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, ... BTC. lol

The last person rating it on the Google Market has the exact same issue. Just tested on another phone, again the same issue. Both phones using CyanogenMod 7.

Okay, race is on again. Who fixes first?

[Technomage]

No. I'm not paying the bounty to Schildbach unless I can actually use the program. BitcoinSpinner now has a head start; if it shows no errors, it's the winner in my opinion and gets a little donation/old bounty.

I don't care who gets the bounty, but I can say that the buggyness of Schildbachs wallet isn't universal. I've been using it with absolutely no issues for a while now. And I know at least a couple of others who have also used it without any major bugs. And they have different devices. My device is Huawei U8800 with Android 2.2.1, btw. This is getting a bit off topic though, but I'm very surprised that you've had such a negative experience with that wallet, because the experiences me and my friends have had are totally different.

Have you reported on the bugs? Andreas seems to be an active developer, the wallet has been updated fairly regularly. I'm sure he would like to tackle them.

[Vandroiy]

@Technomage, yes, multiple people sent error reports. As I said, four different models, at least five devices, and I don't think they were all on Cyanogen. But this is somewhat off-topic, and I don't really care about the story if BitcoinSpinner solves it all.

Which means I'd like the double-digit typing fixed, and maybe I'm totally happy already with that! Yes, an address book would be nice, buy hey, I can copy-paste, so any text editor does the job. I really want nothing more than a minimalistic, QR-ready Bitcoin wallet with private key backup function. And this is apparently being made with BitcoinSpinner.

Fix please. Pretty please?

[phatsphere]

… if BitcoinSpinner solves it all.

some like me like to have an application, that doesn't rely on an foreign server. i know it's "safe", but a dependency. so, there will always be demand to this other type of app.

said that, i don't like both apps. the schildbach one works (not counting how it didn't work a few month ago), but right now, for example there is a transaction listed with a double negative sign. on idea how i managed to do that.
the bitcoin spinner app just looks terrible and has no additional features that i would like to have.

the schildbach ui on top of the bccapi would be a nice mix for now i guess.

[slush]

Yes, this is OT, but I have similar issues with Bitcoin Wallet as Vandroiy (HTC Desire S). It's strange that sometimes it works (for example I made a lot of payments during Prague conference with it), but sometimes it's almost unusable. I sent a lot of tracebacks back to Andreas, not sure if it was usefull for him.

Back to topic - yes, Bitcoin Spinner is working for me :-).

[BitcoinBug]

I have a problem with it. When I try to send some bitcoins, typed numbers in amount to pay are duplicated. Example: I type "2.12" and get "22.1122". I see somebody else commented on android market with same problem, hope this will get resolved soon.

[BTCurious]

I like this app a lot!

It does crash now and then though, on my Samsung Galaxy S Plus. Nothing is lost during a crash, so it's not too bad.

[Jan]

some like me like to have an application, that doesn't rely on an foreign server. i know it's "safe", but a dependency. so, there will always be demand to this other type of app.

The light-weight'ness of BitcoinSpinner is possible because a server that manages the block chain. It is always important to have a broad selection of apps. I guess it is not possible to have a one-size-fits-all kind of app for Bitcoin.

said that, i don't like both apps. the schildbach one works (not counting how it didn't work a few month ago), but right now, for example there is a transaction listed with a double negative sign. on idea how i managed to do that.

Both apps are free and open source. If there is something you don't like you can help us all by improving it. Here is a list of suggestions on how to participate.
The sources are here: http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinspinner/
You can follow the link and contact the devs.

the bitcoin spinner app just looks terrible and has no additional features that i would like to have.

If you don't care about:

• being able to backup and restore if you loose your device
• being able to use the app right after installing
• being able to spend change sent back to yourself without waiting for the next block
• having an app that has low bandwidth, memory, storage, CPU, and battery requirements

... then BitcoinSpinner is not for you.

the schildbach ui on top of the bccapi would be a nice mix for now i guess.

I agree.

Oh wow. When I try to type a number of Bitcoins to be sent, it is always input twice. I can only sent 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, ... BTC. lol

I have PM'ed the developer regarding the double-digit issues and crashes. I assume that a fix is around the corner.

[phatsphere]

Both apps are free and open source.

I know I know. I've also already coded one or two android apps (nothing serious, but I'm at least familiar with the framework) and both apps are on my radar.

[Jan]

Oh wow. When I try to type a number of Bitcoins to be sent, it is always input twice. I can only sent 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, ... BTC. lol

I have PM'ed the developer regarding the double-digit issues and crashes. I assume that a fix is around the corner.

There is a fix out that should deal with the double-digit problem. However, the dev tells me that he cannot reproduce it on his devices physical or virtual, so please verify the fix and report back to him directly. I have told him that he should consider joining the forum as there is an old 20 BTC bounty that he might claim 

[westkybitcoins]

Oh wow. When I try to type a number of Bitcoins to be sent, it is always input twice. I can only sent 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, ... BTC. lol

I have PM'ed the developer regarding the double-digit issues and crashes. I assume that a fix is around the corner.

There is a fix out that should deal with the double-digit problem. However, the dev tells me that he cannot reproduce it on his devices physical or virtual, so please verify the fix and report back to him directly. I have told him that he should consider joining the forum as there is an old 20 BTC bounty that he might claim 

The fix seems to have taken care of the issue on my phone.

[Jan]

Oh wow. When I try to type a number of Bitcoins to be sent, it is always input twice. I can only sent 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, ... BTC. lol

I have PM'ed the developer regarding the double-digit issues and crashes. I assume that a fix is around the corner.

There is a fix out that should deal with the double-digit problem. However, the dev tells me that he cannot reproduce it on his devices physical or virtual, so please verify the fix and report back to him directly. I have told him that he should consider joining the forum as there is an old 20 BTC bounty that he might claim 

The BitcoinSpinner developer has joined the forum and is lurking in the newbie area: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20292.msg642928#msg642928
How do I accelerate his white listing?

[BitcoinBug]

There is a fix out that should deal with the double-digit problem. However, the dev tells me that he cannot reproduce it on his devices physical or virtual, so please verify the fix and report back to him directly. I have told him that he should consider joining the forum as there is an old 20 BTC bounty that he might claim 

The fix seems to have taken care of the issue on my phone.

Yep, fixed!

[phatsphere]

How do I accelerate his white listing?

Wild guess: PM the admins of that subforum: RylandAlmanza, trentzb, SomeoneWeird, MiningBuddy