Apple bans cryptocurrency mining apps on the App Store

Apple has updated its App Store guidelines to disallow all apps from supporting on-device crypto currency mining. Henceforth, any app that includes crypto currency mining feature will be removed from the store and no new submissions will be accepted.

The new rule, which was added some time recently, states "Apps may not mine for crypto currencies unless the processing is performed off device." Also, "Apps, including any third party advertisements displayed within them, may not run unrelated background processes, such as crypto currency mining."

Generating crypto on your Apple device is effectively forbidden under the new rules. Developers cannot reward users with cryptocurrency for completing tasks in apps, and more significantly, you can’t use an app to mine coins on your machine. In the case of phones, this probably makes sense. 

You’re never going to make very much money mining cryptocurrency on your phone’s low-power hardware. So, the only reason a developer would include such functionality is to try and trick users into mining coins for them. Mining also puts stress on the phone hardware that can greatly shorten its already short lifespan. Apple is already taking heat for battery degradation in its phones without crypto mining. 

The new guidelines may have been imposed over concerns regarding the longevity of the hardware and the battery. Crypto currency mining is a processor intensive activity that puts great demand on the hardware and the power supply and could affect the life of both. Users casually running these applications after hearing about the crypto currency craze may not be fully aware of what they are getting into. 

Apple may have already had to face devices damaged by mining, which is probably why the company decided to act so strictly on the matter.

It's worth mentioning that crypto mining on smartphones is a rather fruitless activity to begin with as the processing power of these devices is not enough to finish the task quickly enough to earn enough out of it. Your device will be under load constantly for little to no reward so it's not really worth it in the long run. 

Even desktop mining is waning as people are realizing the ASICs are the only way to mine efficiently so smartphone mining is nothing more than snake oil at this point. So it's probably for the best that Apple has put a restriction on it so fewer people fall for what is essentially a scam and damage their devices.