I can't imagine that Apple would let anything through that weakens the iTunes/iOS death grip on media playing. Especially something as robust as VLC.
It seems to me that software that allows the iPad to stream movies from any brand media server is a game changer.
There isn't a ban on "media playing".
However, there is a ban on GPL licensed apps, as they GPL is incompatible with the app store terms of use.
Then again, saying that makes me feel like I'm missing something. Am I?
They would basically have to special case apps licensed w/ the GPL. Sadly I doubt it's worth the legal and/or operations costs involved.
I'm not a license snob, whatever works for a project is great (GPL has been great for Linux). However this is a prime example of why MIT and BSD licenses are more free than the GPL.
http://www.idsoftware.com/doom-classic/
There are probably more examples. The GPL is not incompatible with the App Store.
The GPL's terms only become relevant when a third party wants to use it to distribute the work. And it seems the GPL (v3, at least) would not allow a third party to publish Doom on the App Store.
"the particular license violation that FSF brought up with Apple was section 6 of the GPLv2, which states that a redistributor of the licensed program may not impose further restrictions on the recipients to copy, distribute, or modify the program. Apple's App Store terms of service do impose several restrictions, such as limiting usage of the program to five devices approved by Apple."
http://lwn.net/Articles/391423/
Looks like I was wrong!
the iTunes/iOS death grip on media playing
Apple approved Plex, for both iPhone and iPad. Check out what Plex Nine does.
The iPad does video so well because it uses hardware support. From the "hardware limitation" comment, I suspect VLC isn't able to take advantage of this. Given that, I don't think it could weaken the iTunes/iOS "death grip" even if it were accepted.
But if they aren't using hardware acceleration then I suspect it wont get approved. Would you want a player that everyone is going to be downloading (so they can watch any video) out there making people think your device is slow and underpowered? I wouldn't.
EDIT: Nevermind my last paragraph. There is apparently already players in the store that don't use acceleration.
VLC on the iPad doesn't have any GPU/DSP because there are no APIs to to so... So, forget playback of 720MKV for now. But to decode DivX, Xvid, or DVD rips, the CPU is more than enough...
Anyway, thanks for a great product! I haven't really used any video player but yours since I first found out about it.
[1]: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oplayer-hd/id373236724?mt=8