Apple Pulls VLC Media Player From AppStore 754
An anonymous reader writes "Apple has removed VLC media player from the App Store, putting an end to the controversy on the license (in)compatibilities. Indeed, the iTunes page for VLC media player stopped working. VLC developer Rémi Denis-Courmont notes that he is 'not going to pity the owners of iDevices, and not even the MobileVLC developers who doubtless wasted a lot of their time. This end should not have come to a surprise to anyone.'"
Re:iTunes policy won't work on the desktop (Score:0, Interesting)
Android has never 'eaten Apple's lunch' on iPhone sales. It has fed on WIndows Mobile, and RIM for the most part. It's sales also leveled off a few months ago. Although it will be a major player in the market, I don't think it will driving Windows or iOS out of the market any time soon.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?threadid=115395 [appleinsider.com]
Re:This is why I refuse to buy apple products. (Score:3, Interesting)
I was wondering if someone would point that out. It was pulled due to licensing issues at the request of one of the developers, not due to some Apple initiated vendetta.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/01/vlc-for-iphone-and-ipad-soon-to-disappear-thanks-to-gpl-complain/ [engadget.com]
Most iPhone users don't even know what VLC is or care for that matter. The build in media player works fine for pretty much any digital download supplied with DVD's and Blu-Ray, as well any number of h.264 compatible profiles.
Re:iTunes policy won't work on the desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
"Eating someone's lunch" is a rather ambiguous phrase, so I don't know why you're being so contrary. Hell, I even qualified it with "starting to". If all you're saying is that Android's rise has hurt MS & RIM more than Apple, well then we have no disagreement. But I suggest that most of those lost Windows Phone and Blackberry users would have gotten an iPhone if Android hadn't come on so strong. Which of these trend lines do you think Apple would prefer to have? Android has not leveled off. In fact, Nielsen shows it increasing.
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/01/04/iphone-continues-to-hold-off-android-in-u-s-smartphone-market-share/ [macrumors.com]
Re:This is why I refuse to buy apple products. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a dedicated linux user for the past 5 years and I'm thinking of dumping it all and going to macs.
I spend way too much time fiddling and screwing around trying to get normal things to work. The other day for example my wife wanted a sound to come on when she got an email in thunderbird. Should be easy, no? Doesn't work on ubuntu without some serious googling/screwing around. Google earth which for some reason vanished from the medibuntu repository... same deal. For some reason the installer set the symlink to point somewhere else. And still the fonts are screwed up, don't know why.
Or one of my favorites? Kdenlive, a great video editor, can't export to h.264 out of the box on ubuntu because it uses lame so you have to put your own custom export in. Or a recent clean install of Kubuntu 10.10 that left the master mixing channel muted (not through kmix but through alsamixer). Or the fact that the newest ubuntu amarok packages kill it's ability to talk to my wife's ipod. On and on. I'm not pointing fingers here, the devs and packagers do a fab job for the most part but it's always just shy of the goal line it seems.
Look, I loves me linux, but I have 3 kids, a wife, a job, and a life. And I won't do windows not for the least part because of the safety factor for my kids and wife not downloading shite. So do I want to come home from my IT job and have a nice safe controlled environment for my wife and kids to hop on, do email, surf the web, etc in a reasonably safe way where I don't need to spend hours on end fiddling when something doesn't work? Sounds f'ing great to me.
Re:iTunes policy won't work on the desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
Android has never 'eaten Apple's lunch' on iPhone sales.
Google (Android), per comScore, passed Apple (iOS) as #2 in total active smartphone subscribers. (Still trails Blackberry, though if Android climbs and Blackberry falls in the next quarter at the same rate, Android will be #1 and Blackberry and iOS will be number #2.)
Now, comScore may overstate Google's position (Nielsen, for instance, has Apple ahead of Google -- and RIM -- with Google predicted to take the number 1 slot in Q1 2011), but pretty much all sources have Android growing fast, and on the verge of passing Apple in the smartphone market if not actually ahead.
It's sales also leveled off a few months ago.
Well, no. The Apple Insider forum post you link to interprets an 8% increase in the daily activation rate between August and October as a sign that the activation rate has reached a "plateau", but increasing by 8% in two months is not a plateau. It might be a reduction in the previous rate of increase, but an 8% increase in two months is a 58% annualized rate of increase, which is pretty far from flat.
Its not surprising that Apple Insider distorts things in that direction, of course, but it is a distortion, and not a particularly subtle one.
Because the other company pulled them (Score:5, Interesting)
They guy who requested VLC be pulled works for Nokia. So you do the math as to why Apple was asked to remove an app Nokia had power over...
Re:This is why I refuse to buy apple products. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a dedicated linux user for the past 5 years and I'm thinking of dumping it all and going to macs.
Instead I'm a dedicated mac user and I'm thinking of dumping it all and going to linux. ;)
I spend way too much time fiddling and screwing around trying to get normal things to work. The other day for example my wife wanted a sound to come on when she got an email in thunderbird. Should be easy, no? Doesn't work on ubuntu without some serious googling/screwing around. Google earth which for some reason vanished from the medibuntu repository... same deal. For some reason the installer set the symlink to point somewhere else. And still the fonts are screwed up, don't know why.
I spend way too much time fiddling and screwing around trying to get normal things to work. And Apple keeps deleting my posts when I whine on their support forums. The other day for example I wanted to connect my Android phone to my macbook. Should be easy, no? Doesn't work on a mac at all because "RNDIS is a Microsoft protocol".
Or one of my favorites? Kdenlive, a great video editor, can't export to h.264 out of the box on ubuntu because it uses lame so you have to put your own custom export in.
After I switched to linux, kdenlive exported to h.264 out of the box simply by choosing "H.264" from the format list (which included HDV, DV, MPEG2, MPEG4, Xvid, Flash, RealVideo, Theora and Webm). Of course, that only worked after I enabled the restricted codecs, which aren't "restricted" by any technical reason, but only by the illiberal laws of some countries which sacrifice civil liberties to create monopolies for the profit of big enterprises. Thankfully I don't live in one of them.
Or a recent clean install of Kubuntu 10.10 that left the master mixing channel muted (not through kmix but through alsamixer).
Effectively I have some problems with that %$&%# PulseAudio which keeps eating all of my CPU just to play an MP3 :D ...
Or the fact that the newest ubuntu amarok packages kill it's ability to talk to my wife's ipod.
...but I'm happy anyway because I switched to a non-Apple mp3 player which doesn't require me to either use a closed, buggy, heavy, alien, limited application or to rely on amateur reverse-engineered libraries just to transfer music on it. It also costed much less and does have a removable battery.
Look, I loves me linux, but I have 3 kids, a wife, a job, and a life.
Look, I love Apple devices, but I have an underpaid IT job, so I can't afford to spend 3x the money to buy underpowered hardware.