Yesterday, we reported on a macOS app called Calendar 2 that seemingly added cryptocurrency mining as an alternative to paying for premium features. At the time, the app’s developers, Qbix, had made the decision to remove the feature from the app.

The company now tells us, however, that Apple ended up pulling the app from the Mac App Store for violating its guidelines…

Following the app’s removal from the App Store, Magarshak says that Apple worked with him to put the app back on the store with all mining features removed. Furthermore, Qbix is offering all users of the app, new and old, a free year of premium features.

Furthermore, Magarshak says that Qbix was able to earn about $2,000 worth of the cryptocurrency Monero during the three-day period that mining was live in the application. For comparison’s sake, Qbix has made around $700,000 from its apps over the last 7 years:

As a way to make it up to users who were affected by the previous release, we will be unlocking all the Premium Features for a whole year, for everyone who has been a Calendar user, up to and including the version that’s currently out on the store. We had to scramble to get this version out, but in the next version we will unlock Calendar for anyone who’s downloaded it before then.

As for the future, Magarshak says he is concerned about the “growing global energy use of Proof of Work based crypto.” Thus, he and several others have founded a spinoff company, Intercoin Inc, that they hope will solve some of the issues with cryptocurrency.

With Apple now having made its stance against apps mining cryptocurrency in the background firm, what do you think? Would you be willing to let an app mine cryptocurrency in the background in exchange for additional features? Let us know down in the comments!

“I believe in the future of crypto currency, just not Proof of Work. So we started a spinoff company, Intercoin Inc. to make a global currency and payment network that doesn’t rely on Proof of Work, Proof of Stake and can handle an unlimited number of transactions at the same time.”