I've seen some posts (here & on reddit) which bash Apple for their Bitcoin app ban. Firstly, Apple has not banned Bitcoin. If they did, then why are "read-only" Bitcoin apps still allowed? That has no logic in it at all. Secondly, according to the Developer Guidelines, the app's content and/or service(s) must be legal everywhere the App Store serves apps. Thus:
I have had a few iphones, and many ipods, and an Apple computer. I like their products, but this is very upsetting to me. There are soooo many apps for dealing with Bitcion on Android and that seems to be just fine. Make excuses all you want, but the fact is, Apple isn't allowing people to send bitcoins in its ecosystem. Final. This is bullshit, and I will not buy another Apple product until this changes.
1) Bitcoin has shady legal status in several overseas countries. India has declared Bitcoin an Ponzi scheme (yeah, right!), and others have outright banned Bitcoin. Thus, if Apple were to offer these apps in those countries, then because Apple is the world's most valuable billion dollar company category and thus, the largest then those governments have the opportunity to sue Apple.
Apple has an app store for each and every country that sells iphones and no app store for countries without iphones. Each app store follows the rules of that country. Look at South Korea for instance. They made some stupid laws in South Korea about certain games on certain phones. Apple pulled all the game apps affected by this law in the South Korean app store, but left them in all other countries that apply. Also, again South Korean laws are very strict about monitoring locations and taking pictures of maps. South Korea is the only country you can't "find my iphone" or use street view like apps because of the laws. Your argument has no validity. That simply isn't how it works. Bitcoins are legal in every state in the US and even taxable, so therefore the US app store should legally be find hosting Bitcoin apps. If it is banned in India, and somebody in India uses a bitcoin on Coinbase, is India going to imprison Coinbase?
The only thing India has jurisdiction over is the Indian App store.
2) The reason why Blockchain was removed is because Blockchain updated the app and provided false screen shots. Providing screen shots that do not match the app itself is against the Developer Guidelines. Another violation of the guidelines is the fact that the Blockchain's app description made no mention of the sending and receiving Bitcoin.
Maybe this is true and if it is true, then it was Apple's right 100% to pull the app, and should. Apple should require full honesty and transparency from its app developers. Do you have a press release saying this was their reason?
In conclusion, Apple is just protecting their collectively large asses from money hungry governments.
No, they aren't. Coming from a guy who loves all my Apple products, they aren't being fair about it at all.
