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Open Source VLC Media Player Coming To iPad
Stoobalou writes "The people behind VLC, quite probably the most useful media player available right now, have submitted an iPod version to the Apple software police. VLC — which is rightfully famous for having a go at playing just about any kind of audio or video file you care to throw at it — should appear some time next week, if it makes it through the often unfathomable approval process implemented by Apple. The Open Source Video Lan Client has been tweaked to run on the iPod by software developer Applidium."
what's the difference between and ipod touch and an ipad other than size and a little performance maybe?
Yes, let's all thank Apple for being gracious enough to allow us to run an application of our choice on our hardware.
Once network neutrality is completely dead and website->customer ISP payments are common, Apple will probably use their position to operate another toll booth as the first hardware vendor to benefit from a non-neutral internet. Can we look forward to petitioning Apple to pretty, pretty please add our favorite website to their whitelist, as well?
This practice sickens me. Enjoy your pretty noose!
Could we please try to insert more anti-Apple bias in our article summaries please. I find Slashdot entirely too soft on Apple lately and would like to see it come to an end. We need to be harsher against them, dammit! Rather than "...have submitted an iPod version to the Apple software police" could we please instead use "...have submitted an iPod version to the Apple software Nazis." I mean, if we're going to broadcast an overwhelming bias against Apple in the article summaries (as opposed to just keeping them to the comments - I mean, who bothers to read the comments, after all), we might as well Godwin it at the same time, right?
sigh...
Waiting until Apple can give feedback on it, as long as the wait is not too long, is a way to demonstrate to Apple that you're acting in good faith and attempting to comply with their policies and processes. It shows that if Apple finds a minor fault with the app and requests something be changed, they're willing to wait to incorporate those changes before letting non-compliant versions get "out into the wild".
What a toadying and servile response. It's open source, what the fuck business do they have saying they support it if they're trying to quash non-approved changes.
This is the state of Apple developers though, always sucking up and rationalizing away every cruel thing Apple does, as their world revolves so entirely around it.
Being a dick with your API, and refusing to let someone into your app store on technicalities certainly counts, is one of Microsoft's signature moves. Way to go Jobs, think just like the other shithead monopolist.
And thus we have a demonstration of that "fight the power!" attitude I mentioned.
Do I get points if I called "Pretentious Dweeb" earlier in the evening? Or do I just score you under the bonus section?
But it's also still a curated platform, and Apple will maintain absolute and unflinching control over the end-user experience, period. There is no pretense or duplicity on this point. Anyone who's not comfortable with that fact ought to stay away from the platform.
Yeah, they're pretty clear about that.
They do support some FOSS, quite explicitly, and their agreements have been revised specifically to make this clear.
They support the bare minimum to qualify for the GPLv2 through the tivo-loophole. But that's not very open, and Apple shouldn't be calling themselves open-source friendly when their only concession is not refusing apps whose source has been published.
This is not a contradiction, and it's not arbitrary "cruelty",
Of course it's not arbitrary, like everything they do to their users it's to make them money. It's still a series of arbitrary restriction to the user, which amount to cruelty because they're intentional crippling of the device. Apple is going to more work to provide a lesser product simply because the user is more easily monetized.
And yes, it's a contradiction to open source. If you support open source you support the user doing what they want with their software. I am told that iPhone users can't even create applications for their own use, or modify open source, without paying to become developers or jailbreaking and pirating the tools. (Or is this incorrect?)
and being willing to work within this framework isn't "servile".
Yeah, it is. You just think it's worth it.