VLC Blacklists Newer Huawei Devices To Combat Negative App Reviews (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Some newer Huawei phones are actively being blocked from installing the open-source VLC media player app from Google Play. VLC's developers announced today that they're blacklisting some of Huawei's devices after unhappy users left too many one-star reviews for the app. But the negative reviews stem from a decision on Huawei's part and has nothing to do with VLC. The negative reviews are a result of Huawei's aggressive battery management and tendency to kill background apps, which directly affects VLC's background audio playback feature. Huawei users on VLC's forums are well aware of the issue. It's possible to manually disable these battery optimizations and have the app function properly in the background, but VLC claims that people often don't know how to do that, so they blame the app instead. The devices being blacklisted are the Huawei P8, P10, and P20. Users can still manually download the APK from VLC's website if they're interested in using the player.

Comments

Smart Decision

[DatbeDank]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

The smart users will go to Google and learn how to download the separate APK while also disabling the power saving features.

Re: Smart Decision

[ras]

In that case the smart users won't have Samsung phones either, as the S8 does exactly the same thing. I installed Google SMS app, replacing Samsung's. It took me ages to figure out why SMS's were going missing. Turned out Samsung was killing it. They whitelist their own SMS app, of course.

Re: Smart Decision

[bytestorm]

I have the same experience; the battery utility tells you which apps it wants to "optimize," but in no way does it (or can it) tell you what that will do to app functionality, so it's extremely easy to click through and "optimize all" without thinking about it. This list-based power management probably needs to be done at the Android platform level, not through separate OEM applications, so user applications can report what functionality they'll lose if you disable background operation.

But once I figured out what it was doing, I became extremely happy with how easy it was to work with.

I have similar issues.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly I have similar issues with PC software I write. The code works great, but the moron owning the computer doesn't know how to maintain their machine. Typically this is an issue with Windows users, but some OSX and noobie Linux users as well. In the end they hurt sales and fill customer support tickets. Yes "Dillon" I know you "have all the antivirus, windows, everything else updated", but Intel is still showing a video driver 7 years newer than the one currently on your shitty laptop. Please download and install it from them like I asked you to do 4 times...

It's just the way computing is these days. We let dumb asses access the network. You live with it. Lucky for VLC they have a way to block idiots.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Shikaku]

You can't fix the issue if the OS is doing it without forcefully editing the OS. Huawei phones have a built in "background app killer" app that is enabled by default. You'd have to have the right permissions and possibly be root to force an exception on your own, and any app that gets around it is basically acting like a virus.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Shikaku]

Actually, the second sentence should be part of the summary. This one:

Huawei phones have a built in "background app killer" app that is enabled by default.

Re: It is the app’s fault

[Shikaku]

Except play music. I think some people install and use it for that feature alone.

Just a quick reminder...

[hyades1]

VideoLAN's VLC player is the best media player around. Period. Nothing is even close. If you have a media file and want to play it, VLC Player does it well with a minimum of drama...and it's free.

I'm glad they're doing this. All they have is their reputation. They don't need it tarnished by malware-infested Chinese crap-phones running an OS designed to make personal privacy a quaint historical footnote.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[SuiteSisterMary]

Because people will blindly hit the 'OK' button, have problems, and blame the software.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[thegarbz]

Opinion. VLC is far from the best media player.

It may be the player capable of playing the most formats independent of system codecs.
It may be the player with support for extensible features and filters
It may be the best player for transmitting video over the network.

I have it installed for those reasons alone, but I for one use it as a backup.
IMO the interface is crap, the file handling is crap, using it is infuriating, seeking accurately is a PITA, and I prefer MPC-HC in every way.

Though maybe once in a blue moon I find a file that doesn't play properly in MPC-HC, then I open it in VLC and usually find it broken enough to not continue trying with VLC as well.

Re:Just a quick reminder...

[mujadaddy]

I agree with everything you said and would only add that for 4GB+ files, VLCs tearing is awful.

Actually, from my own Eye Tests (long-time video editing background), VLC's *screenshots* of identical frames appear better than MPC-HCs, but of course, you may only get 1 frame in 30 in VLC while playing...

Sounds reasonable

[piojo]

I had a Huawei and I experienced endless problems with background apps. I also develop mobile games.

If a device doesn't have enough RAM to run your program, you must block installation. If a device doesn't have the needed processing power to give a decent user experience, you should either rewrite the app to use different resources and lighter logic on low-end devices, or block those devices.

If the OS causes your users to have a bad experience, you should work around it or stop development and distribution for that OS. All the better of the app is open source, so someone else could pick up development targeting that platform without directly hurting your brand if their users have a bad experience.