First, Circle was a nebulous-but-innovative idea for the Bitcoin community. An invite-only suggestion of interesting things to come. A product of Circle Internet Financial Ltd., when Circle finally came out, it provided a sleek, ready, and easy-to-use interface for buying, spending, and sending bitcoins. The only thing missing from the experience happened to be mobile.

The company has just fixed that with the release of apps for iOS and Android.

Features

The mobile apps provide much of the same functionality available on the site. Once hooked up with a bank account, users can use the mobile app to purchase bitcoins on the fly (with a reasonably low fee), request and send bitcoins via the app, use QR codes for fast payments, and view bitcoin transactions translated into local currency units.

The interface is sleek and similar to the Circle web interface, with an up-front display of how many bitcoins are in the Circle wallet and a slide-out menu with options available.

Settings include resetting the pin code for access and the ability to hide the balance visible on the app. Flavor text with the “hide balance” option suggests this might be good for people who go out-and-about and want to hide their balance from people looking over their shoulder.

The slide-out menu also contains a quick conversion guide, currently 1 BTC = $389.83. It appears to update frequently as it changed at least once while writing this article.

Security

As the Circle mobile app can deposit and withdraw from a bank account it comes with several security features designed to keep malicious paws out of consumer’s wallets.

Upon initial sign-in to the app, first the Circle Android app asked if I wanted to remain signed in for 30 days (before needing the longer password again.) It then sent a verification code via SMS to my phone, which needed to be entered before I could continue.

The system also includes more multi-factor security for sending payments by using TouchID. To enhance security, app-specific PINs are used to verify the user sending the payment is the person who is holding the mobile device.

More mobile apps

The addition of Circle’s Android and iOS apps increases the total number of mobile wallets available to Bitcoin users. Already apps are proliferating and Circle is a notably functional service that competes with wallets such as Coinbase (which also permits withdrawal/deposit), Blockchain.info, and Xapo, amid others.

With more wallets hitting consumers this year, Circle’s app comes out just in time for Bitcoin Black Friday, quickly approaching this November 28th.