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I would personally prefer is apps used this instead of being monetized by ads or IAPs. But this is only feasible if the developers program their apps to run the equations sparingly, so their customers' batteries doesn't drain in a couple of minutes, and so our phones batteries' lifespans doesn't reduce more than they should.

Ads are horrible. They are annoying, and they affect parts of out brains that we have no control over; they cost us more than we think. IAPs are definitely better, but developers seem to abuse them so much that they become obtrusive. That's why I think this sounds like a good idea in theory, but greedy developers will probably abuse it too much.

Then there's of course the issue with Apple letting developers do this.
 
Does anyone have a list of Unity-based apps?

I want to know which ones to avoid updating... I really don't want what should be a low-power-use app to suck down all my battery...
 
Just FYI, my 650m with 1GB GDDR5 only did 20-30 MH/s. I estimate this to be measured in KH/s

Yeah, Nvidias aren't hashing monsters. I got ~100 MHash out of the 5750 in my iMac. I have no idea how fast an A7 can hash, but i think has some crypto instructions. The 20 MHash at best estimate was a number I pulled from my ass.

Are the math equations being solved necessary or have some kind of value to anyone?

They are necessary to confirm new transactions on the bitcoin network. Among other things, it prevents double spends (I agree to pay peter and paul with the same bitcoin - whichever transaction makes it into a mined block wins, and the other is thrown away).

Even if this is implemented, it would be so miniscule that developers would barely make anything. Bitcoin mining is aimed towards ATI/AMD based systems, not mobile devices. Also, I'd be ticked if developers implement this. I could see bugs like it working in the background when you're not even using the app.

AMD GPUs have been left in the dust by FPGAs, and then ASICs. Bitcoin mining is an arms race. Bringing an iPhone to the mining field is like bringing a knife to a thermo-nuclear war. An AMD GPU would be like brining a machine gun to said thermo-nuclear war.
 
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I find it interesting that the Nexus 5 was released yesterday and this malware comes out today? Coincidence? ;)
 
If Apple lets this into apps in the App Store, I will seriously consider going back to a dumb phone with no apps or data capabilities. Unless developers are required to notify users (which gives me the option to not download those apps), I consider this to be wrong. As I understand Bitcoins currently, most people get them from their own devices. That's fine by me. Do what you want with your own stuff, but don't go using my devices to make money for yourself without my permission.

Even if you get a free app that is useful enough for you to use often? What if safari/maps (google or Apple) is doing this right now, would you even know the difference?

I agree that any app that drains too much battery would be an issue, but I would just stop using that app.
 
I'm not sure you get the point. The idea behind this is that you wouldn't be a paying customer.

And I wouldn't want my battery to drain and have to charge 2-3x daily to save $0.99 for an app - or even a $3.00 app.

The cost of electricity to charge my device multiple times a day would eventually cost more than what I saved.
 
I have no idea how much this would matter on a device such as the iPhone, but if you're constantly running the CPU at its max TDP, it should also shorten the lifespan of the device due to thermal stress.

However, I have yet to see a defective logic board that wasn't caused by water or physical force, so that may or may not be be a problem.
 
Are the math equations being solved necessary or have some kind of value to anyone?

From my understanding of it they don't, it just has value because people say it has value and it isn't backed by anything at all.

As for the actual topic of the thread, I don't care if they want to do this as long as it doesn't run in the background draining the battery, and as long as the developers are very clear about what they are doing. If they try to slip it in without telling people or it runs in the background then I hope Apple blocks these apps.
 
As far as I can tell, it takes more than the cost of a bitcoin in electricity to mine a bitcoin. So remind me again why this is considered valuable?
 
This is OK as long as the apps disclose what's going on.

E.g.:

"This app is free because it mines bitcoins for the developer in the background. So you pay for the app just by playing*! No ads, no IAP, no up-front cost. Best of all it doesn't impact the game's performance!"
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* Bitcoin mining draws additional battery power
 
I believe that market research is increasingly showing that this isn't the case. A lot of the creativity in the App Store these days is not in the apps themselves, it's in coming up with a convoluted way to make a profit. I say this as a developer making a quality application (according to my customers) that sells for a flat rate.

Yeah, there are times when I hate what the AppStore has become.

As a consumer, I see lots of exciting Apps which become exercises in frustration because of the IAP system. I remember seeing a featured todo-list app the other day which charged a subscription.

As a developer, we refuse to take part in that system.

Ultimately, I put a lot of the blame at Apple's door. They created this 'freemium' monster in response to people asking for trials and demos.

The problem is that applications then get remade around this new business model, and the purity of the vision of the developers gets corrupted by it. Suddenly it's no longer enough to make a fun game; you need to stuff it with various different types of in-game currencies and whatnot in order to make a living.

Then, because developers desperately need your attention to survive, they start spamming your device with notifications. I've seen this from big-name developers like Rovio, Gameloft and even EA.

The result is a worse quality experience all around.

spam notifications.png
 
Problem with most regular systems working for Bitcoin, is that you spend more in power, than you earn in Bitcoin profit. You really need an ASICs which in themselves need to be powerful enough to offset the cost of buying them, followed by the power (and Internet connection) needed to support them.

While it is all out of pocket, with little chance of making any currency (Virtual or otherwise) I prefer to donate my idle CPU and GPU time for something that could potentially benefit everyone, such as Folding@Home.
 
Even if you get a free app that is useful enough for you to use often? What if safari/maps (google or Apple) is doing this right now, would you even know the difference?

I agree that any app that drains too much battery would be an issue, but I would just stop using that app.

If Google were doing it I would gladly drop their apps for alternatives. But they make their money off of ads and the like. Somehow I doubt they would be interested in doing this, but they probably won't stop it on android devices.

Apple on the other hand makes their money off of the devices. If said devices are suddenly experiencing low battery life which is discovered to be rooted in Bitcoin mining in proprietary apps, then Apple is going down. With how many corporate enemies they have, that would end up in court fast.
 
As far as I can tell, it takes more than the cost of a bitcoin in electricity to mine a bitcoin. So remind me again why this is considered valuable?

The point is that if you do something like this, you're using other people's electricity.

So it just disguises the cost in their utility bills, while at the same time making them think their iPhone's have suddenly got worse at keeping their charge. I don't expect Apple to allow that to happen.
 
if everyone can make there own then they are worthless...

to anyone using this article to get knowledge of virtual currency - read up on bit coins - it's a really neat concept.

The difficulty in "mining" is the control used to manage the rate of expansion of the volume of the currency to balance the need for it.

Ends up that the difficulty (mostly measured in electricity cost for the computers and AC costs for larger mining operations) of getting a bit coin is about the same as the value you get in coin.
 
How many iphones does it take to equal the processing power of a modern desktop with a beefy GPU? Well, we can try to guess. An iphone has a 5watt charger. A decent desktop has a 500 watt power supply. So, probably about 100 iphones = 1 desktop in processing power.

Also, it would only be working on the iphone when the game is running. A desktop is instead running it all the time. So, assuming the iphone user plays 30 min a day....that's 48000 iphones = 1 desktop.

Honestly, I don't see the point of this.

Isn't that 4800 = 1 desktop? And mobile devices are a lot more computationally efficient than desktop copupters. But you still have a point. A developer would need a lot of hours played just to make back thr $80 they spend on this plugin.
 
No way hose. This is tantamount to "malware" because it is using the battery and resources of any iOS device owned by one person to enrich another.
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This is a malware, period. No other way to put it.

If this is implemented, not only Apple will yank the app...
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App Store Review Guidelines

13.2: Apps that rapidly drain the device's battery or generate excessive heat will be rejected

key word being: rapidly

The last quote is the key. Apple won't yank apps that use this because Apple's own apps, and plenty of other poorly optimized apps (animated games, etc.), already max out the CPU and drain the battery more than careful use of this background mining.

One of the worst offenders in heating up the device (and thus draining battery life) is Apple's own Maps app left running while driving (and probably sending tracking data back to Apple's own servers for data mining). Google's also.

This is not much different.

Don't like apps that heat up your device? Don't run them.
 
You'd need about 10,000 customers using your app 1 hour a day before you mine as many bitcoins as a single GPU running 24x7.

The electricity used will increase their power bill and the additional charges will wear their iPad's battery out faster. It's tantamount to theft. It's also diverting real natural resources (oil, gas, coal, etc) to generate resources that have no intrinsic value (bitcoin). As far as I'm concerned it's eco terrorism.
 
I mined with BTCminter with my GT 650m, and was earning .002 bitcoins per day. That's only $.40 a day, or about $160 a year.

So I'm expecting this to earn a lot less. Like $20 a year tops.

$20 per year per user. It starts to add up quickly. Especially if you have the volume of users that games like Candy Crush have.
 
This is a fantastic idea for bitcoin mining developers... two things for me though is that 1) it should be prominently labeled as an app that includes this plugin if they do include it, and 2) the app should include NO other advertising if they do include this, considering it not only helps the developer monetarily but also drains the client's resources and battery life. If developers do this and hide it from consumers, I would expect the high chance of a consumer backlash if they were to find out would overcome the potential benefits of keeping such an operation clandestine, although some developers out there just really don't care.

Perhaps some more benevolent and industrious developers would be willing to figure out a way to share the bitcoin mining proceeds with the folks who help them mine, although I'm not so sure of the viability of this idea considering how difficult it is to effectively mine.
 
The cost of electricity to charge my device multiple times a day would eventually cost more than what I saved.

Hahahaha, oh man... that's rich.

Your phone takes between 1 to 3 Watts of energy. Lets say 3 Watts. I believe your phone takes about 2 hours to charge (source: http://www.apple.com/batteries/ & http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=10516). Lets punch these numbers into a calculator...
http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/watt-to-kwh-calculator.htm

So 0.006 kWh to charge a phone. I'm not sure how much your electric company charges you, but I pay around $0.07 per kWh. If I'm doing my math correctly, it would take 166 complete battery drains to reach a cost of $0.07. That's assuming you went from 100% to 0% doing nothing but using this application.
 
Brilliant idea, mine those bitcoins and use up those Lion 500 battery charge cycles to save a few bucks off an app.

Apples battery's :apple: aren't easily user replaceable so it will cost loads to get it replaced when you've exhausted the cells.
 
Since this supposedly mines during the devices' latent times, wouldn't turning off Background App Refresh keep it from mining in the background?
 
I think this may be one of the worst ideas since before hyperbole was invented.
 
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