Back in 2011, VideoLAN released VLC for iOS, which garnered tons of interest immediately. Unfortunately the app was quickly pulled, not because of a breach of Apple’s App Store rules but because of licensing issues as applying Digital Rights Management (DRM) to open source software is in violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL) of which VLC is protected by.
Development for the app ceased until today when VideoLAN announced on Twitter that it was working on an iOS app again. There are no specific details about when the app will come out but VideoLAN claims it will be “way faster” than the previous version and that it would be coming “soonish.”
Yes, we are working again on the iOS app, and it is way faster than the past version. Will it appear soonish on the Store? No idea yet 🙂
— VideoLAN (@videolan) January 23, 2013
VLC is one of the most popular media players for PC and Mac and having mobile apps only makes sense. Users are no doubt clamoring for VLC on mobile devices for its great file type support. Windows RT users are also excited to bring the video player their operating system, but the VideoLAN team needs a KickStarter fund to begin development.
