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

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.

3 Likes

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).

2 Likes

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!

3 Likes

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’

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

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

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.

Yep, the latest version 0.5.2

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

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!

6 Likes

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.

1 Like

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.

5 Likes

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!

1 Like

Thanks for sharing your experience. Will have a look at this and check in with the developer. It is not my experience when I really close the App and not only put it in the background.

Just linking to the roadmap and upgrade proposal: NuBits Android kickstarter-style pre-funding and roadmap - Please donate now!