Quote from: kwukduck on December 07, 2011, 04:12:16 PM

Since we're back at using centralized solutions, we might aswell drop bitcoin and go back to classical banking.

How does something like this represent the idea that bitcoin stands for?

I understand the point of the blockchain not being on the phone, for storage and bandwith reasons.
The arguments i hear most are outdated i think.
-Most new smartphones have at least 16GB internal storage.
-You don't download the entire blockchain over the mobile network, use wifi for that and only mobile for transactions and updates.

And yea, i know your phone may have only 512mb of storage, but that doesn't matter for now since the masses of people ain't gonna use bitcoin for at least another 5 years, IF it ever gets off the ground in the first place.
By then, smartphones will have 1TB storage and at least a 10mbit mobile connection, so yea, we can keep it decentralized!

Take a good look at the scalability section of the Bitcoin wiki, and lets assume that 5 years from now Bitcoin is broadly adopted. Blocks will be measured in the gigabytes. Let's see how your mobile thingy will cope with that.

Quote from: kwukduck on December 07, 2011, 04:12:16 PM

[edit]
Ok, this is what i see is a potential problem.
This bitcoinspinner company wants to make money.. but oops, the app is free. (ofcourse it, is, and always will be, you'll be paying with personal information from your phone)
So, they invent the system all over again, they will start to lend out non-existing bitcoins to users, at a nice rate.
Where do those bitcoins come from? Well, from the other users that have plenty balance, unless everybody wants to spend all the money they have at once, they will be doing fine, just like the banks!

The 'you own the keys' argument doesn't really hold up imo, after all, you 'own' your creditcard too, still the company manages it and in the end has ultimate control over it.

For some reason it seems that you think that every company is evil. There is nothing I can do about that I guess. But there is at least one thing that you have misunderstood. Because the private keys never leave the app there is no way that the server can spend your coins or give some of your coins to other users. The 'you own your credit card' analogy you propose is ridiculous. If you don't trust the app that you download on the Android Market you can download the sources, inspect the code, even make your own fork, and roll your own.

Another thing... The only privileges that BitcoinSpinner requires are NetworkConnectivity and View Network State (you are notified about thins when you install the app). This means that it cannot loot your contacts or other personal information.

At the end BitcoinSpinner is not for everyone, and it is good that there are other options out there. BitcoinSpinner, like the Satoshi client itself, is a piece of beta software. Let's learn and improve...