14 DAY TRIAL // The people involved with VLC Player haven’t wasted any time in making the app available to the iOS community, following Apple’s decision to remove the software from its App Store’s listings.
Last week, Softpedia reported that VLC Player for iOS had been removed by Apple, presumably over a license that was incompatible with the Mac maker’s own rulebook.
Rémi Denis-Courmont, one of the original creators of the VLC open-source platform, announced the app’s removal on January 9, via a post on the Planet VideoLAN blog.
Rémi claimed he didn’t know for sure why Apple had removed VLC Player from the iOS App Store, and said he believed the company “will probably never state the truth.”
In the meanwhile, developer Ryan Petrich announced on Twitter that he was doing everything he could to ensure users have access to VLC for iOS.
As such, he made it available via Cydia, the App Store alternative for users of a jailbroken iOS device.
“VLC for iOS is up on my beta repo: http://rpetri.ch/repo (it was pulled from the App Store and deserves a new home in Cydia),” Petrich wrote on Twitter.
Those who are wielding a jailbroken handset can add his beta repository (http://rpetri.ch/repo) to their sources and VLC Player will be downloaded and installed in a jiffy.
Softpedia does not encourage jailbreaking iOS devices, nor does it encourage downloading and installing software that hasn’t been approved by Apple.
Applidium, the actual makers of the iOS version of VLC Player, have issued their own response to the the removal of the app from iTunes.
In a statement obtained by 9to5mac.com, Romain Goyet from Applidium said:
“It goes without saying, we still believe the AppStore licence is compatible with the GPLv2 under the which VLC is released. Therefore, together with the VideoLAN association, we’ll do our best to not let this be the end of VLC/iOS.
“As a final word, we think it’s pretty sad to deny millions of users the right to enjoy a nice piece of open source software … in the name of freedom.”