Millennius suspends iPhone sales in protest of Apple's removal of the last Bitcoin wallet App

MELBOURNE: FRIDAY, February 7, 2014 – Leading Australian online consumer electronics retailer Millennius says it will suspend selling all iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5c and 5s, effective immediately to protest against Apple removing the blockchain.info app (the only remaining bitcoin wallet app) from its App store.

The app removal is seen by many as an anti-competitive move by Apple, and continues to alienate its core users who once saw Apple as a visionary company that promotes futurism. More than 120,000 iPhone users are affected by the Blockchain blacklisting.

“Apple seems to have betrayed its own ideals, and those who believed in the brand,” said Millennius founder Pierre Boutros.

“Millennius has decided to suspend sales of the current versions of the iPhone until Bitcoin wallets allowed are back on the Apple app store,” Mr Boutros said.

Millennius’ existing iPhone stock will be kept to continue servicing warrantees and replacements for past purchases.

“We hope that other iPhone retailers who accept Bitcoins such as Overstock can also apply the necessary pressure to Apple in reversing their decision.” Mr Boutros said.

“Although this will most likely impact our bottom line, we want to do our bit to help amplify the disappointment expressed by the cryptocurrency community.”

This has not come lightly as Millennius Bitcoin sales data (http://www.millennius.com/M.pdf) released earlier in the week shows phones are the highest selling category, with phones being over 53% of products sold for customers paying via Bitcoins.

“This has only been done in response to Apple as it has so poorly communicated its reasons for such a decision,” Boutros said.

“We can only see the decision as hostile towards the Bitcoin ecosystem, and therefore need to take action just like those in the community who have made their switch away from iPhones.”