VLC vs. the App Stores
source link: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/04/19/vlc-vs-the-app-stores/
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VLC vs. the App Stores
VideoLAN (via Hacker News):
App Stores were a mistake.
Currently, we cannot update VLC on Windows Store, and we cannot update VLC on Android Play Store, without reducing security or dropping a lot of users…
For now, iOS App Store still allows us to ship for iOS9, but until when?
If you do wonder why we don’t update VLC on the Windows Store or why VLC/iOS can’t connect properly to OneDrive shares, it’s because Microsoft Kafkaïesque bureaucracy refuses to help us.
We’re only trying to contact someone since 2years…
VideoLAN (Anisse, Hacker News):
If you wonder why we can’t update the VLC on Android version, it’s because Google refuses to let us update:
- either we give them our private signing keys,
- or we drop support for Android TV before API-30, and all our users on TV API<30 can’t get fixes.
VLC cannot even enter the Mac App Store, because of the restrictions…
Look at all those platforms competing to benefit users.
This here is a European app store for Android and Google’s YouTube has just killed their channel. It’s obviously a problem if you depend on the incumbent’s platforms all the way.
Previously:
Android App Store Google Play Store iOS iOS 17 iOS 9 Mac App Mac App Store macOS 14 Sonoma Microsoft OneDrive VLC Windows Store YouTube
4 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
I know nothing of the licensing issues they're facing, but when the common thread is VLC, Occam's Razor leads me to believe the issue is with them, not every other app store. Surely they're not the only open-source-based app out there.
Rather reminds me of the ongoing spat between Archive.today and CloudFlare (https://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-today-is-failing-again/534317). When something works for everyone else and not you... the problem might be you.
Is there an article about what restrictions exclude VLC from the Mac App Store but not the iOS App Store?
Probably they don't want to sandbox the Mac version, there is no additional limitation specific to the Mac App Store.
Even the Android version wants full disk access, which is really horrible.
Last I tried to sandbox my Mac app (and gave up) it’s really horrible for file access. VLC wants to do things like auto detect and auto open a subtitles file adjacent to the video file. No can do, without annoying user prompts. There’s no middle ground between full disk access and single file access. Sibling file access is not a thing.
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