Topic: Development Electrum fork on IOS (Read 110 times)

Your information is a bit outdated. Since version 4.4, Electrum uses QML/Qt for Android, which is also compatible with iOS. Instead of converting Python to Swift, one can use Python with QML and build the project via Xcode. There's no need to rewrite the app in Swift, as QML/Qt supports cross-platform development, simplifying the porting process to iOS


I understand the concerns regarding reproducible builds, especially on iOS, and I currently don't see a viable solution to this issue. But if anyone has ideas regarding reproducibility, I would be happy to hear them. However, the absence of the Electrum wallet is also a significant problem for iOS users. I find myself using BlueWallet instead of Electrum, even though I would prefer to use Electrum on my iPhone.

Additionally, the lack of an official wallet in the App Store opens the door for phishing applications, which could be avoided if Electrum were available in the store. Therefore, I plan to create my own fork in the near future. The account costs only 99$, and it allows for the publication of Electrum and other applications, which makes it a small expense.

For now, I am focusing on the technical details to make this happen.


Unfortunately, I don't know how to achieve that at the moment, and I've decided to focus on creating my own fork for now, as it is significantly easier and faster. If I manage to achieve reproducibility in the future, I would be happy to reach out to them.
If anyone has advice regarding the fork or suggestions for features to add to the iOS version of the wallet, I am open to hearing them and will try to implement them now

It seems you already tried to get intouch with Electrum developers 2 days ago here it seems someone already offer the same thing on the Electrum github, but the issue is reproducible builds are not possible for iOS according to "SomberNight" one of their developers.
It was posted a year ago; you can maybe check his old post on the github page to get some idea and if you want to participate for IOS version.

Reproducible builds are quite an issue on mobile phone platforms, likely especially for iOS because it's a fenced fruit garden. And don't forget, Apple charges developers considerably more to be able to publish apps in the App store, AFAIR on a yearly basis.

Without reproducible builds you don't know if the executible has been created by exactly the published open-source code. And that means that you have to trust the developer that his public source code is exactly and only the source for the executable.

It's not much better to my knowledge (I'm no developer, so I could be terribly wrong) at Google's Play Store. To my knowledge there's no user verifiable metric to check if an app's executable code has been derived from a certain public source-code.

Fdroid's app store for Android is a bit different: to my knowledge it accepts only open-source apps and Fdroid builds the published apps by its own build infrastructure. So you can only download an executable from the source code that Fdroids infrastructure sees or has. Well, you have to trust Fdroid then that their builds don't sneak something in.

The main issue here is that the Electrum apps for all platforms are build from a single unified Python codebase with Kivy/Qt.

As far as I know, you need to compile down the codebase to an Xcode project before you can build an iOS app out of it. I'm not sure of any method to convert Python => Swift like there is with Flutter.

There are definitely other Electrum wallet versions out there.  Most of them are made for different altcoin blockchains, but they stick to the same open source, reproducible principles as the original Electrum. 

I get why you want to create your own Electrum fork with extra features - that way, you can customize it to suit your needs exactly.  but heads up: scammers have targeted the iOS with versions of Electrum a bunch of times already putting out fake wallets just to steal people's money.  So you would probably struggle to make a credible Electrum fork if you dont have a direct line to the core Electrum devs.

I was thinking about collaborating with the official developer, but it turned out to be too complicated. They want complete reproducibility; just having open source code is not enough; each user needs to be able to build it from the code themselves. However, considering the specifics of the iOS architecture, this is extremely difficult. As far as I know, it is precisely because of this problem that the official developer has not yet created and published a wallet for iOS. Therefore, I started considering creating my own fork with additional features and open source code. As far as I know, there are already various forks of Electrum wallets, such as Electrum LTC.

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I have been using the desktop version of Electrum for 11 years and am well acquainted with it. Yes, I have development experience, and I have enough existing documentation and open information to create an iOS version of the wallet. I was asking about additional features just to understand the prospects for the fork's development and what extra features could be added to this wallet that are not available in the Android version of Electrum. For example, I miss a privacy tool for transactions like CoinJoin, which is not available in the desktop version of Electrum, and I have to use Wasabi for that. Additionally, there are no wallets on iOS that use this tool at all. I haven't yet considered the technical and legal aspects of implementing this feature, but I'm interested in what other users might suggest and what they would like to see

You can check the desktop Electrum and the Android Electrum to know what you should do. As a developer, you do not need to ask what feature a wallet need when the wallet is already existing on other operating systems. Desktop Electrum is the most preferred choice, deck the features it is having.

I doubt anyone would use it unless it was controlled by the official Electrum development team.  If you do develop a working version, post an issue on the Electrum gihub and maybe the team will incorporate it into an official release.

Hi,

I’ve been using Electrum for 11 years, but I really miss it on iOS. I’m thinking about creating a fork for iPhone users. What features would you like to see? Are there any improvements you’d want compared to the Android version? Also, what privacy and other features do you think would be useful?

If this is really of interest to someone else besides me, I can try to create an open-source version for iOS.