VLC media player soon to be available for the iPhone

October 11, 2010

Nearly one month after the iPad release, we’re glad to announce the release of VLC for the iPhone! This will come as an update to the current iPad application, which will be universal (i.e. work on the iPad as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch).

Currently, the app is being reviewed by Apple. Hopefully, it should be made available on the AppStore pretty soon.

Concerning this new version, here are a few interesting facts :

• Playback should be smoother than the previous version. Indeed, we’ve enabled low-level assembly optimizations to use the ARMv7 core of the Apple A4 processor as efficiently as possible.
• It’s still not possible to use the hardware video decoder, so unfortunately in most cases 720p video still won’t play smoothly.
• Unfortunately, we couldn’t support older iPhones and iPods. You’ll need either an iPhone 3GS or an iPhone 4 (or a same-generation iPod). The reason is actually pretty simple : based on our tests, the older iPhones (3G and Edge) don’t have enough power to properly decode most movies.
• We’re supporting a lot more video extensions. Also, as many of you requested, it’s also now possible to open attachments from Mail or Safari (or any other applications actually) in VLC!

Follow us on twitter (we’re @applidium) to get our latest updates concerning the release!