Bitcoin White Paper to Be Removed in Next Apple MacBook Update: Report
The "Easter egg" went viral earlier this year, but won’t remain on Apple for long.
Apr 26, 2023 at 8:26 a.m. UTC
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The Bitcoin white paper hidden inside the operating system of every Apple Macintosh computer shipped since 2017 will be removed in a forthcoming software update, 9to5Mac reported.
The nine-page paper was discovered inside MacOS in April 2021 by user bernd178, who posted the information on the MacOS Community Forum.
Bernd178 noticed that buried within the Image Capture Utility was a function called Virtual Scanner II, which is not enabled by default. Inside Virtual Scanner II was an image of a San Francisco bay and a PDF copy of the white paper, as CoinDesk previously reported. The "Easter egg" – a term for a hidden feature – went viral earlier this year after a post by prominent technologist Andy Baio.
A study of a beta version MacOS Ventura 13.4 shows it does not contain the file, which may have been placed on the system for testing purposes, with no intention of it being discovered by the everyday users.
The entire Virtual Scanner II tool has been removed from the beta.
When the white paper was discovered in 2021 the Apple developer community didn't appear to be that impressed.
“Why is this in /System? Is this really from Apple? What is it good for?” wrote bernd178 in their original post at the time.
“I find it hard to believe anyone cares,” a response to that post said.
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Shaurya is the Deputy Managing Editor for the Data & Tokens team, focusing on decentralized finance, markets, on-chain data, and governance across all major and minor blockchains.