Big news for users of the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS platform today as the VLC Media player has been confirmed for a return to the App Store. The all in one media player, which is incredibly popular on both PC and Mac, was originally removed from the Apple App Store at the start of 2011.
VideoLan confirmed that the versatile software would make a return to the iOS web store starting tomorrow July 19. In a statement “We worked hard with all major copyright holders to not repeat history and we are confident to have achieved this goal.”
Apple removed VLC over licensing conflict
The reason that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) decided to remove the original VLC media player from the App Store back in January 2011 was because of a license conflict. The GPL license that VLC was originally using was contradicted by various parts of the App Store terms of use. After months of hemming and hawing, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) removed the software and the App Store has remained without it for more than two years.
At the time, some activists said that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) removed the VLC media player from its Store because of its association with pirated content. The facts did not bear out this argument however, as it was made clear that VideoLan itself had supported the removal of the software from the App Store.
The new version of VLC has been licensed twice in an attempt to get around the App Store restrictions. VLC for iOS 2.0 uses both Mozilla Public License Version 2 and GNU General Public License Version 2.
VLC’s new features
VLC media player is now late to the iOS party. There are any number of alternative media players in the marketplace and much of the tablet and smart phone media environment has changed drastically since the last time the company had an app for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS devices.
The VideoLan group have added some new features in order to make the software attractive. VLC for iOS 2.0 will feature multi-core decoding, media synchronization over WiFi, Dropbox and more, video streaming to the software off of the web, and off of the device to larger screens via the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Airplay service.
VLC is back and it’s likely to be one of the most downloaded apps in the store tomorrow.
