09 Feb 2014 / Dawn.com – SAN FRANCISCO: Apple’s decision to remove a program used to send and receive Bitcoins from its App Store prompted Barry Silbert to end a love affair with his iPhone.
“I’m switching,” Silbert, chief executive officer of New York-based SecondMarket Inc., said in an email after Apple this week removed his Bitcoin application of choice, Blockchain.info. “Shopping for a new phone this weekend.”
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, technology enthusiasts who used to see the Cupertino, Calif.-based company as a kindred spirit are voicing their frustration over its policies. Apple requires apps to be legal everywhere they’re offered, and some governments including China and India have questioned Bitcoin’s legal status.
The ouster of Blockchain is causing a backlash, and some are going to extreme measures to show their displeasure. Several people posted videos online destroying their iPhones. One user shot his iPhone with a sniper rifle, another smashed it with a metal bar and another threw it down a flight of stairs.
Bitcoins exist only as software, and transactions are completed via computing devices. Even though no physical currency exists, merchants from car dealers and Web stores are accepting the digital money.
Mobile apps such as Coinbase, which was removed from the App Store last year, and Blockchain have become a popular way to make payments.
Blockchain had been downloaded 120,000 times before being removed. Apple has already shut out several other applications that facilitate digital-money payments from its online store….. Read more
http://www.dawn.com/news/1085812/apple-bitcoin-rift-has-enthusiasts-ditching-iphones
