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I recently sent some bitcoin to a friend using the blockchain.info iPhone app and it sent it with 0 transaction fees. As a result it caused an awkward situation as my friend was watching block after block added to the blockchain while our transaction remained at 0/unconfirmed. It eventually got into the blockchain about 8 hours later.

Is this a bug in the app? I couldn't find any way to control the transaction fee.

EDIT: I'm frankly perplexed that no one seems interested in this question. Let me put it a bit more starkly.

Making payments using mobile devices is one of the huge promises of bitcoin and was a core part of the original Satoshi vision. As it stands, the only functional payment app on the top (or 2nd to top... whatever) mobile platform has a serious flaw, in which there is no way to ensure that payments get confirmed in any reasonable amount of time.

Shouldn't this be adressed?

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I can't elaborate much on your answer but can provide reasons as to why this market seems so bare. Apple has shut down other providers of BitCoin wallets for "legal reasons" -- all due to the legal ambiguity of BTC transactions.

Your best bet is to look into mobile-optimized websites that offer BTC transactions. I'm unfortunately not too knowledgable on the topic - but at first glance, you might want to check out https://walletbit.com/, https://bips.me/ or something similar. Happy hunting!

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I looked again at the web inteface and found this:

Account Settings - Continue - (password if promted) - General - Default Fee Policy - Generous

I'm not sure if this is something new or if I just missed it before. I then sent a test transaction of 0.01 BTC from my iPhone and it included a transaction fee of 0.0005 BTC. So this seems to be a solution.

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Further update, the transactions from Blockchain iOS app only seem to intermittently add miners fees. It is very frustration. One transfer will have a 'generous' fee (as requested via the Blockchain.info site) and then the next will have no fee. Very irritating especially when trying to do local transactions and a confirmation can take an hour or more!

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I agree this is a horrible limitation of this app too and makes the app pretty much useless the way it is. I used to use it to send bitcoins but sometimes my transactions would take hours or even days to be confirmed, so I no longer use it. Unfortunately I'm stuck carrying around a laptop now if I want to be able to spend bitcoins. That's kind of awkward to do in a restaurant. This is almost reason enough to switch to Android.

I've always had my Blockchain.info web setting set to "generous" but it seems like the iPhone app ignores this setting and almost all of my transactions are sent without fees.

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  • I think it may have to do with the amount of the transaction but I'm not sure. What is the ballpark amount of transactions you send that have no fee?
    – RentFree
    Commented Nov 7, 2013 at 21:20

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