Proposal to develop a NuBits Android wallet - Final version now available

[masterOfDisaster]

I don’t know what @Cybnate meant and I don’t know how many Android devices are encrypted (although that feature is available for some time now - at least since Gingerbread 2.3.4 - with some constraints), but I doubt that a majority or even a big share of phones and tablets is encrypted.
Encrypted file systems are much less convenient for trouble shooting, they should drain the battery faster and I expect the devices to be (at least a little bit) slowed down by the encryption.
And convenience is still a major factor for making decisions (although I think it’s often based on the wrong decision making algorithms) - or why do you think encrypted emails never went mainstream?

[willy]

or why do you think encrypted emails never went mainstream?

E-mail encryption usually requires both ends to have the encryption key. Constant exchange of keys between you and your recipient is necessary.

An encrypted android file system only requires you to enter the key at booting. That’s basically exactly the amount of times you need to enter your SIM code.
It’s easy. People protect SIM cards with codes. While not file systems? NuBits private keys might be worth protecting.
I’ve encrypted all of my devices and did not experience a feeling, as if something would slow down my system. I know, that this can be very subjective though…

[masterOfDisaster]

Using PKI for key exchange it’s not that big a deal.
I see another reason: it’s less convenient, because it requires extra steps.
The same is true for encrypted file systems.

There are a lot of things that are worth being protected.
Ever thought why lots of people use google services, facebook, etc.? These services are convenient. And as you don’t have to pay anything you need to be aware that you and your private data are the product the business cases are built around.

While one could argue that privacy is worth being protected, it’s convenient to use these services.

That’s one of the reasons why I see huge success for NuBits coming. Using NuBits is convenient (and luckily for the users with no drawbacks or risks except for sudden system failure ).
Nevertheless we shouldn’t get detracted from the reasons for that success.

Convenience wins.

[masterOfDisaster]

Before it completely drifts off-topic:
the Android wallet still works like a charm. I already love it!
It’s nice to show people NuBits on the phone
Lol, that sounds a little bit like “New kids on the block” - for those who can (and want to) remember.

…some want to have NuBits once they’ve seen what they are…
The Andoid app is great for marketing - what’s at the current stage more important and more useful than the real-world use of NBT on the phone. I hope that will change soon!

Can’t wait to have an IOS app as well

[Cybnate]

I think Cybnate meant file system encryption, not pin-protection on lock screen.

Have to admit that it was what I thought not knowing about the lack of default device/file based encryption.
So pin-protection alone is not very helpful, at best only against your 10 year old cousin.

Can’t wait to have an IOS app as well

It is hard to find a dev willing and available and from what I’m hearing it would be at least 2x to 3x times more expensive to build than this Android wallet. Dogecoin is the only one besides Bitcoin to have one (soon). Given the marketshare of iOS and the current NBT usage I’m not sure if there is value in doing so in the short term. Maybe we can run a motion like a poll to test the waters and see how many people would be interested and whether the Shareholders are prepared to pay that premium in the short term?

[Cybnate]

The confirmation question you asked triggered me into finding an issue. When you click on the transaction and choose setting (upper right corner in brown bar) you have an option to directly browse to the blockexplorer. Unfortunately the link is broken. Will log this one with Matthew. When it works you should be able to check the number of confirmations relatively easy looking at the blockexplorer website. It is a bit of a workaround, but how often would you check the number of confirmations? With NuBits you have a number of confirmations in minutes anyway.

Matthew just fixed this issue (see above). Just clear the browser cache and it works as advertised

I’ve also uploaded a new APK Matthew provided me which links direct into https instead of using the automatic redirect. A bit more secure.
Please make sure you have a backup of your wallet when you have coins in there before you install the new APK! I’ve added the link here: Proposal to develop a NuBits Android wallet - Final version now available

[MatthewLM]

One thing to note that some people may have concern over is that the block download should stall about every 49,999 blocks, as the app needs to download valid block hashes from the server. This shouldn’t take long but it is a noticeable stall.

Using the “experimental” BIP70 feature, payments can be made over bluetooth and this is virtually instant. This works with both QR and NFC payments. The BIP70 feature would be enabled by default if I updated the app to the latest code. However the latest code is not ready yet. As things exist currently, you need connected peers to receive transactions and transactions can take a while to be received.

[Cybnate]

Using the “experimental” BIP70 feature, payments can be made over bluetooth and this is virtually instant. This works with both QR and NFC payments

Would someone be able to confirm the working of this interesting hidden feature? I only have one Android device.
You would be able to transfer value with peers even when internet is blocked or unavailable. This is a great feature to have in countries hostile to cryptocurrencies or where the internet is patchy or blocked by the government. Not sure how best to market this as they are very different markets. It probably needs to go together with NFC pre-paid cards with a dollar value which can easily be added to the wallet? But I’m going a bit off-topic…

Edit: a useful link to read more about BIP70. It refers to bitcoinj, but we basically have a nubitsj implementation so just replace Bitcoin with NuBits. https://bitcoinj.github.io/payment-protocol

[Cybnate]

For the NFC fans, the following documentation was published with the App on Github:

NFC (Near field communication)

The Android NuBits Wallet supports reading NuBits requests via NFC, either from a passive NFC tag or from
another NFC capable Android device that is requesting coins.

For this to work, just enable NFC in your phone and hold your phone to the tag or device (with
the “Request coins” dialog open). The “Send coins” dialog will open with fields populated.

Instructions for preparing an NFC tag with your address:

• We have successfully tested this NFC tag writer:
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nxp.nfc.tagwriter
  Other writers should work as well, let us know if you succeed.

• Some tags have less than 50 bytes capacity, those won’t work. 1 KB tags recommended.

• The tag needs to contain a Nubits URI. You can construct one with the “Request coins” dialog,
  then share with messaging or email. You can also construct the URI manually. Example for Mainnet:
  nu:1G2Y2jP5YFZ5RGk2PXaeWwbeA5y1ZtFhoL

• The type of the message needs to be URI or URL (not Text).

• If you put your tag at a public place, don’t forget to enable write protect. Otherwise, someone
  could overwrite the tag with his own Nubits address.

[Cybnate]

There are only a few days left for the official testing of the NuBits Android wallet.

At the moment the application looks very stable. Small issues have been fixed by Matthew. The incidental performance issues due to intensive testing doesn’t appear to be a big problem and solutions to speed things up are available. The server analytics don’t point to a structural resource issue on the server hosting the backend for the Android App. I will continue to monitor that and inform the community when up scaling might need to be considered.

Please let me know if you think there are still issues preventing me from finalising the contract and paying developer Matthew and myself according to the terms of the custodial grant. This will occur together with the successful publication of the App on the Google App market after the 13th of January (GMT).

[Marshall]

I personally love it and think it’s been great. The application has been working flawlessly for me. I approve finalizing the contract.

Now we need Nu-QT to display QR codes!

[Cybnate]

I personally love it and think it’s been great. The application has been working flawlessly for me. I approve finalizing the contract.

Now we need Nu-QT to display QR codes!

Thanks for the feedback and I have a surprise for you, Nu-QT already has QR codes. Just go to the Receive Coins section and at the bottom you will find a few buttons. One of them is Show QR Code.

On a different note I hope that payments can be more and more done through the supported NFC though as it is much faster and convenient for both retailer and consumer. Just need to ensure that payments terminals support NFC and Nu. Hope someone is willing to dive into that. Making a good Android App for the retailers which can be plugged into their current systems would be awesome. Problem is that there are so many ‘current systems’

[Marshall]

I’m running Nu-QT on OS X. I don’t see it?

[Cybnate]

That is weird. (deleted comment about wallet). It works on Windows. Is your client version 0.5.1 or higher?

[CoinGame]

I don’t believe it’s available on the OSX client for whatever reason… I’ll have to ping @Ben to verify, but i’m pretty sure this is something we stumbled upon in early testing. It’s probably the same way in Peercoin and whatever version of Bitcoin it was branched from.

[Marshall]

Yep, the latest version 0.5.2

It’s not the end of the world, I still generate QR codes easily.

[Cybnate]

FINAL Version 1.0 of Android App released!!

14-Jan-2015 (GMT)

Today I can share with proud the final version of the NuBits Android App. The App can now officially be downloaded from the Android App store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matthewmitchell.nubits_android_wallet
Please uninstall the TEST APK if you used it earlier, but make sure you have a backup if you have any coins in it. The install the version from the App store and then restore the wallet.

Thanks to all of you who tested this in the last 2 weeks. We can now confirm it is stable, functional and working according to specifications. I will transfer the funds according to the contractual obligations in the next 12 hours.

Disclaimer
Please backup and encrypt your wallet before adding coins to it. Best to also move the backup to a USB or external device. Never store more coins on it than you are prepared to loose as the App comes with no warranties or guarantees. There are also ways to export the private keys but that is not for the uninitiated (search for Bitcoin ABE Android private keys export and replace Bitcoin with NuBits). Please use small amounts and nothing more you can afford to loose.

Source code:
The repository for the ABE explorer here: https://github.com/Cybnate/NuBits-Abe-explorer
The repository for nubitsj here: https://github.com/Cybnate/NuBitsj
And the wallet itself here: https://github.com/Cybnate/Nubits-Android-wallet

Here is the link to the original contracted work: https://gist.github.com/Cybnate/dcc3cd4f682754314486
Please check the link (especially the functionality section) before submitting any issues.

Submitting Issues
Please use this thread or Github to submit any issues/bugs.

Wish-list
I’m also welcoming a wish-list, but keep it a bit down to earth and feasible. Some have already been mentioned in the gist, but happy to add to this list.The code is open source people are free to add pull requests with fixes. However I’m not promising any new releases until I have been able to contract or arrange a developer to test any PRs and compile the code. Stay tuned for proposals regarding updates in the next few weeks.

Why use this App over the other Android app

• This App is paid by the NuBits shareholders and not in control of a third party or competing entity.

• Although I don’t accept any formal liability I can be morally held accountable to ensure this App continues to work as per the custodial grant. As the hosting has been pre-paid for at least 18 months I will commit doing so or ensuring it will be done.

• This App can be changed, tweaked and tailored by the community as they wish. I intend to raise at least one proposal based on input
  from the community for a custodial grant to release an improved
  version.

• It has an address book. Good to track your transactions and add e.g. your friend’s names to them

• It is optimised for mobile and is likely faster (no guarantees).

• Add your own trusted peer node (or run it uniquely for faster synchronisation)

• It has NFC/URI and Bluetooth support for almost instant transfers of coins

• (advanced) Source code is available so you could set up your own trusted server and compile the App to connect to your own server

Check out the features in the gist as there are a few more…

Enjoy!

[tomjoad]

Our official NuBits Android app has been added to the Download page at www.nubits.com/download. Please consider leaving a review on the Google Play page if you’ve enjoyed using it.

[Cybnate]

FYI

Today I have transferred the final payments for this custodial grant which include:

• NBT 1600 to Matthew Mitchell, the developer (2nd and final payment)
• NBT 450 to support the hosting of the App for the next 18 months
• NBT 300 as the custodial fee of 300 NBT.

All amounts are according to the contract for which the custodial grant was given to me by the NuShareholders.
The transactions can be found here: https://blockexplorer.nu/transactions/218076de994f247e931d331da505db1181c06b19e307e2bfbf0de11cbc96affe

Thanks again to everyone who voted for this grant and I hope to do more business with you in the near future.

[DavidMc0]

Well done on getting this together.

The app seems great.

One issue I have so far is that when you close the app, it stays connected to peers. Similar apps for Bitcoin etc have a ‘disconnect’ option in the menu.

Is this something that’s easy to add? I’m not sure what resources are used on the phone when it remains connected, so don’t know how big a deal this is.

Thanks for all of you work on this!