It’s Playing is a universal iPhone, iPod touch and iPad app that looks to fill the “I will play any video file type” space left when VLC was pulled from the App Store. It's Playing uses its own soon to be patented engine which it claims will play back most 720p content.

What differentiates It's playing, apart from pricing and the quality of the user interface, is the engine that takes advantage of the outstanding hardware and operating system it runs on.

AdditionFlow© is our optimized process for making sure that you get more video frames more synchronized with the audio, ensuring the best viewing experience.

• Play all video and audio formats commonly available on the web -- including AVI, RMVB, MKV and FLV (Flash Video)
• AdditionFlow© presentation engine: it plays most 720p hi-res video superbly — it's so great we're going to patent it.
• Image and sound precision controls
• File and folder management
• Improved privacy management
• Dynamic video quality monitoring and diagnostic

It's Playing is available as a universal binary for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch for $1.99.

[App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

It's now officially official, the VLC application for iPhone and iPad has been pulled from the App Store after several months of contention. Some of the contributors to the open-source VLC application believe that Apple's App Store isn't compatible with the GPL (GNU Public License) components of the app. Here's what the most vocal, Rémi Denis-Courmont, had to say:

At last, Apple has removed VLC media player from its application store. Thus the incompatibility between the GNU General Public License and the AppStore terms of use is resolved - the hard way. I am 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.

VLC made it's way onto the iPad first in September and then hit for the iPhone and iPod Touch in October. It was a good short run for the app and if you are one of the ones who was able to download the app within the past three months enjoy it as no one further will have the ability to get their VLC-on on their iOS devices.

[ Planet VideoLAN, thanks Anthony ]

Looks like VLC for iPhone and iPad is about to be pulled from the App Store because the Open Source Powers That Be don't believe Apple's iTunes App Store is compatible with the GPL components of the app.

Basically, anything under the GPL has to be freely transferable to anyone without restriction. Since the App Store places FairPlay DRM even on free apps like VLC, even though anyone can still download them, that's considered a restriction.

The long and the short of it is this -- if you want VLC for iPhone or iPad, go get it now.

UPDATE: Ars has a great write up on why the issue may not be as cut and dried, and whether or not VLC really will be pulled.

[iLounge, iTunes link]

VLC has been updated as a universal app that now supports iPhone as well as iPad. The update is now available in the iTunes App Store and allows you to:

• Watch natively unsupported videos on your iPhone or iPad (WMV, AVI etc)
• Open natively unsupported video attachments from emails/internet
• Open natively unsupported videos from other apps, like Dropbox

VLC also allows you to sync your favourite videos to your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad without having the need to convert them.

[ Free - iTunes link, thanks to everyone who sent this in! ]

by George Lim

VLC developers Applidium have announced that they have submitted an update to the existing iPad app that will make it universal and support the iPhone and iPod Touch. The update to VLC, the media player all our otherwise unsupported video files love, and that came to the iPad about a month ago, is now headed to the iPhone and iPod touch is currently being reviewed by Apple, and we should expect it in the AppStore any time soon.

There are few restrictions with this new version:

• It’s still not possible to use the hardware video decoder, so unfortunately in most cases 720p video still won’t play smoothly.
• Unfortunately, we couldn’t support older iPhones and iPods. You’ll need either an iPhone 3GS or an iPhone 4 (or a same-generation iPod). The reason is actually pretty simple : based on our tests, the older iPhones (3G and Edge) don’t have enough power to properly decode most movies.

But along with the restrictions, there are some new features as well:

• Playback should be smoother than the previous version. Indeed, we’ve enabled low-level assembly optimisations to use the ARMv7 core of the Apple A4 processor as efficiently as possible.
• We’re supporting a lot more video extensions. Also, as many of you requested, it’s also now possible to open attachments from Mail or Safari (or any other applications actually) in VLC!
• This update is expected soon, and will be FREE for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

We've seen how it works now on iPad, so is who's excited to see it coming to iPhone?

[iTunes link, Applidium]

by George Lim

VLC for iPad has hit the iTunes App Store, bringing with it support for a far wider ranger of video and audio formats than are natively supported by Apple.

They don't state exactly which formats are supported by VLC though we're guessing those AVI and MKV files so popular on the internet will be among them.

For the technically-inclined of you, the sources are being uploaded to videolan.org, and should be made available before the end of the day. Also, we’ve got many questions regarding an iPhone version. It’s in the works! We started with the iPad, but an iPhone and iPod version is coming. We’d also like to thank the VideoLAN team which has been very, very helping and supportive, as well as all of you who sent us nice messages on twitter and by email.

As always, with a new release it might take time to propagate to all the regional iTunes servers and stores, so if you can't find it yet, just keep checking back. If you manage to grab it, let us know what you think. Are all vidz can be yours?

UPDATED: Lifehacker has some tips on how to get the most out of it. Translation: it has a constrained set of videos it works with. Sigh.

[VLC on iTunes link - Free]

VLC is a popular media player that supports countless audio and video codecs and multiple file formats. Because of such versatility, a lot of folks use VLC as their computer's main video player. And now thanks to ZodTTD, it's available for the iPhone (jailbroken ones only, sorry)!

The project is currently in private beta but a public release is planned for 'very soon'. In its current iteration, VLC supports drag and drop files for MPEG/MPG, AVI, and MP3 formats. Support for FLAC and OGG are well on their way and they are currently researching playback for DivX, VCD, WMA, and WMV. The project is even asking for YOUR input on what codecs you want to see supported, feel free to click the Read link to let your voice be heard.

I firmly believe that this will be a game changing program for the iPhone and the jailbreaking scene in general. Imagine being able to play ANY video format like the desktop version of VLC, that freedom from iTunes will undoubtedly lead people to jailbreaking. Keep up the good work ZodTTD!

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