BitcoinSpinner, a new wallet for Android

[hgmichna]

I just installed and tested BitcoinSpinner on my Android smartphone. In short, apart from one crippling bug I think the program is very promising. My recommendation is to wait until this bug is fixed, then get that fixed version.

Details

The bug first. On many phone types or Android versions a keyboard defect appears that causes every digit to be entered twice. You can send 11.55 (the dot is OK) or 2200 or 0.33 bitcoins, but not most other amounts.

Of course this renders the whole program useless, but you could try it on your phone first. Perhaps yours is not affected. Since the bug is so obvious and severe, I expect it to be fixed very soon.

The program follows a very interesting concept. It is a client-server application. The server handles the power- space- and bandwidth-intensive blockchain, but it does not know your private key. I think this is a most ingenious way to handle this, because currently the blockchain handling is a severe obstacle on a mobile phone.

The Alternative, "Bitcoin Wallet", is a program that I have never seen working flawlessly on any phone. I do use it, but it is slow and unreliable. On many phones it simply crashes from time to time or every time when it is started.

So at this time, or in a few weeks, it seems that BitcoinSpinner is the way to go.

Please reply if you have tried it. Did you get the keyboard error?

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[phatsphere]

this is fixed, see the "what's new" section in the android market

[hgmichna]

Great! Thanks. Even faster than I hoped.

Meanwhile I have tested the new version. Everything works perfectly, except that the server connection could sometimes be just a tad faster. But it is still many times faster than updating the block chain would be.

Of course, there are always wishes for more functionality, like a transaction history and an address book, but the decisive point is that the bitcoin community now for the first time has a fully reliable and secure wallet on smartphones. This is great and a milestone for bitcoin. (Should raise the bitcoin exchange rate by 10%. :-)

[Jan]

Great! Thanks. Even faster than I hoped.

Meanwhile I have tested the new version. Everything works perfectly, except that the server connection could sometimes be just a tad faster. But it is still many times faster than updating the block chain would be.

Of course, there are always wishes for more functionality, like a transaction history and an address book, but the decisive point is that the bitcoin community now for the first time has a fully reliable and secure wallet on smartphones. This is great and a milestone for bitcoin. (Should raise the bitcoin exchange rate by 10%. :-)

Your wish has come true. Well, not the 10% increase, but the transaction log: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52674.msg644862#msg644862

[cbeast]

This app looks promising. I did not realize how difficult it must be to create Bitcoin clients. I look forward to future developments.

[hgmichna]

Your wish has come true. Well, not the 10% increase, but the transaction log: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52674.msg644862#msg644862

Tested and found very good.

BitcoinSpinner heralds a new era for bitcoin---ubiquity on smartphones. I consider this extremely important, because it has the potential to bite pieces out of more expensive payment systems, such as M-Pesa in Kenya or mpass in Germany. Particularly in developing countries like Kenya where many people have no bank account and only use their smartphones to keep and transfer money, bitcoin could be a relief for many.

[splatster]

I am an avid iOS Developer.  I know the desktop client is open source, but I would like to see about the source code of this app and see what I can make of it.  If apple decides to reject it from the app store, I'll just deploy it to my device and make the source available on GitHub.

[Jan]

I am an avid iOS Developer.  I know the desktop client is open source, but I would like to see about the source code of this app and see what I can make of it.  If apple decides to reject it from the app store, I'll just deploy it to my device and make the source available on GitHub.

Great!  I am looking forward to see where this goes. Good luck.

[cuboidal]

Actually getting the private key (non-encrypted) so you're not stuck with BitcoinSpinner would be useful...  Is there some existing way to do this that I'm missing?

[Jan]

Actually getting the private key (non-encrypted) so you're not stuck with BitcoinSpinner would be useful...  Is there some existing way to do this that I'm missing?

I added functionality for this in the bccapi today. I think that the BitcoinSpinner dev will add it to the app really soon.

[DiThi]

Definitely this app is the way to go!

I found a bug: the app crashes when you scan anything that's not exactly a bitcoin address (e.g. a bitcoin address with leading or trailing spaces or newlines). Also some strings are not in strings.xml (and therefore, not translated in any language).

[hgmichna]

BitcoinSpinner now has a transaction log. Great addition to an already good program.

I think, BitcoinSpinner is a milestone for bitcoin—the first reliable bitcoin wallet for smartphones.

By the way, I see no fundamental obstacle in doing a very similar bitcoin wallet in HTML5, which would run on all smartphones including those from Apple.

There are a few residual problems, like the higher risk of losing your wallet due to some bad browser update or uninstalling the browser, but this could be counteracted by putting extra emphasis on backups and making them very easy.

I must admit that I haven't even looked whether such an animal has already evolved.