Ledger announces native desktop wallet and mobile wallet

Ledger announced that they will release desktop native wallet app and also mobile wallet app.

Desktop native app will be available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. It will support Ledger Nano S and Ledger Blue. You don’t have to connect your hardware wallet to view your wallets. This will be very useful and it will also provide a dashboard view of all assets. You can also protect it with passwords. You will need to connect your Ledger to transfer funds. I’m not sure you’ll be able to retrieve new Bitcoin addresses to receive funds without connecting your Ledger.

Currently, you have to use Chrome to use Ledger. The software is provided as a Chrome extension. Since it’s based on JavaScript and web based technology, there were some concerns about security risks. There was a recent report about vulnerability. After the report, Ledger updated the Chrome extension to check your address from your hardware wallet’s display when accessing your receiving address. Native desktop wallet will be safer than Chrome extension because it’s harder to attack native clients.

They will also release mobile wallet app for iOS and Android. I’m not sure how it will work with the hardware device. Here are two bullet points made from the announcement for the mobile wallet:

Install/uninstall apps on Ledger Nano S automatically to smoothly manage a non limited number of cryptos on one device
One of the downside of Ledger Nano S was it’s small memory. If you have diverse assets, you have to delete and install apps on Ledger device constantly. I hope they fix this problem also for the desktop wallet. It’s unclear how the device will connect to iOS or Android. On iOS you need “Lightning to USB Camera Adapter” to connect USB devices. I’m not sure about Android. But are there many device that work with USB connection on Android? Maybe they will release a new version of the hardware wallet.

100+ cryptocurrencies support
How will it support more currencies than hardware device supports? For non-supported cryptos will it be a software wallet? Can’t wait to have more details.

Native desktop wallet will be released during Q2 2018, and mobile app during Q3 2018. New version of the Ledger Manager(Chrome extension) is also expected for Q2 2018.

Check out the full announcement from https://www.ledger.fr/2018/02/23/announcing-new-ledger-wallet-desktop-mobile-applications/.

@shaikh.mughees