VLC Player for iPhone Still Hanging Tight as Free Download on iTunes

Despite showing a clear disapproval of Apple’s App Store guidelines, the developers of VLC Media Player for iOS still have a binary available through iTunes, at the time of this writing. Following news that Apple had been sent a formal notification of copyright infringement for not allowing other means of distributing VLC Player except for its App Store, the application was expected to disappear from iTunes listings.

To this day, it hasn’t, much to our surprise.

As reported last week by Softpedia, Rémi Denis-Courmont, one of the leading developers behind the VLC Media Player, announced that a formal notification of copyright infringement had been sent to Apple regarding the distribution of their VLC Media Player for iOS devices.

Basically, it says that since VLC Player is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), Apple cannot restrict the means of distributing the app.

Yet it does, Denis-Courmont stressed last week, by applying Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection, which prevents users from freely sharing iOS applications that are distributed through the iTunes App Store.

As such, VLC developers uphold that Apple is violating the terms of the GPL.

Following reports that VLC was the topic of such discussions, Apple was widely believed to promptly pull the software from its App Store listings. For now, it’s still there.

In case Apple finally decides to yank it, be sure to grab the binary while you still can. It works with both iPhone and iPad, as well as with the iPod touch, according to the device-compatibility list.

It’s also one of those must have iOS apps, which would make it a shame if it got pulled.

Download VLC Media Player for iOS (Free)

Version 1.1.0 of the app runs on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the recent iPod touches; adds the ability to delete files from the application, without having to go through iTunes; recognizes many more extensions; boasts much faster decoding thanks to assembly optimizations.