Calendar 2 for Mac updated to mine Monero by default; after poor reviews, dev removes app from App Store, says mining will be gone in new version, citing bugs
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica :
Context & Ripple Effects
Calendar 2's developer turned a free Mac calendar into an implicit mining rig: the update enabled Monero mining by default, and when reviews tanked he pulled the app rather than wait for Apple to act. The follow-up numbers show why the temptation existed — the app made roughly $2K in three days of mining before being removed for violating App Store guidelines, then returned with the mining features stripped out.
First-order effects
- Calendar 2 users had their CPUs spent on Monero hashing without opting in, and the developer lost his App Store distribution channel until a clean version shipped.
- The experiment proved the revenue model works at small scale — thousands of dollars in days — which is exactly what makes default-on mining attractive to struggling app developers.
Second-order effects
- Apple's guideline enforcement becomes the real backstop: any developer eyeing embedded mining now knows the cost is delisting, pushing the practice toward apps distributed outside the store.
- The episode feeds the broader cryptojacking backlash visible elsewhere in the space — Coinhive, the best-known in-browser Monero miner, shut down within a year as the crash and a Monero hard fork eroded the economics.
Third-order effects
- Monero's role as the default coin for covert mining hardens its reputation as malware-adjacent currency — analysis has tied at least 5% of all Monero in circulation to malware-driven mining — inviting stricter scanning by platforms and security vendors.
- App marketplaces drift toward treating compute consumption like data collection: undisclosed resource use becomes a publishable violation category, raising compliance costs for any app that touches user hardware.
The trend: Cryptojacking is moving from opportunistic browser scripts to a test of what platform gatekeepers will tolerate inside sanctioned app stores.