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What Happened to Apple's Walled Garden AppStore?

K

Kmax82

Diamond Member
Wow, so is anyone just a little shocked, but happy inside that Apple revised it's ToS to allow for 3rd party developing. Then re-allowed Google Voice apps and then I see today they approved VLC for the iPad which can play/stream everything that the desktop app can.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ne...ad/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I'm really thinking Apple might be turning a new leaf and ready to amp up to really give Android a run for it's money.
 
I think it was a combination of FTC pressure and the fact that they weren't at first sure what they were getting into and thus needed to test the waters first, but now that they figured out what they needed to do, they could relax the rules.
 
If VLC on the iPad truly does off playback support for almost the all codecs it does on OSX, it's already increased the devices usability ten fold in my books.

Update: after trying vlc on my iPad, I'm very disappointed with it. Very buggy and I couldn't get it to play anything the iPad doesn't already support. So much for my dream of streaming my uncompressed VOB files. Also couldn't smoothly playback videos that the iOS video player could.
 
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Isn't VLC likely to get rejected for "duplicating" existing functionality?

Apple has a huge incentive to not allow other video players. While it's possible to transcode content you own to play on it, they'd probably rather make you choose to transcode rather than "ah screw it i'll just buy this on the itunes store."
 
Tons of other video player apps have been approved.

I'm pretty disappointed by the VLC app too, but I think the thinking is like this:

"Step 1, get VLC on the app store. Step 2, fix it later."

Can you stream? I didn't see a streaming option and that makes it pretty useless because I'm not hooking it up to my computer to transfer video files.
 
GodlessAstronomer said:
Don't kid yourself, it's still a walled garden.
Click to expand...

I don't mind the walled garden as long as they don't deny non-malicious apps.. which I'm hoping is where this is headed. With the system that they setup there has to be some sort of walled garden, since they're hosting the App Store, etc... just wish it wasn't such a pain to keep up with the jailbreak.

This will never happen.. but I feel like there needs to be a switch in the Settings that says, "Turn on unrestricted App Store" or something. They could still keep porn from being in there, but just allow me to mod my device a little bit. If it doesn't break anything, allow devs to post stuff.. mainly tools like Intelliscreen, Notified Pro, SB Settings, etc...

That's more of a pipe dream though.
 
DLeRium said:
the funny thing is the app store already steamrolls Android Market....
Click to expand...

This. Apple could have kept things the way they were, but why? As the entire iOS platform evolves so too is the marketplace. No one should be shocked.
 
Kmax82 said:
Wow, so is anyone just a little shocked, but happy inside that Apple revised it's ToS to allow for 3rd party developing. Then re-allowed Google Voice apps and then I see today they approved VLC for the iPad which can play/stream everything that the desktop app can.
Click to expand...

They pretty much have to loosen things up in order to stay competitive. Their draconian model works well in a clean room environment like they have with OS X and in the past with the iPhone, but now with real competition in the phone arena they've actually got to compete on merit instead of just their brand name.

mmntech said:
Update: after trying vlc on my iPad, I'm very disappointed with it. Very buggy and I couldn't get it to play anything the iPad doesn't already support. So much for my dream of streaming my uncompressed VOB files. Also couldn't smoothly playback videos that the iOS video player could.
Click to expand...

I'm not surprised. A number of the codecs that VLC supports require licensing, like MPEG2 and AC3. So unless they start licensing them properly, and most likely charging for the app, it'll have to be limited to what the device supports and other free codecs like FLAC.

Most people ignore the licensing issues and use VLC illegally. That won't be possible with an app being distributed by Apple since they'd at least be partially liable.

DLeRium said:
the funny thing is the app store already steamrolls Android Market....
Click to expand...

With the headstart that Apple has it had better. But I really don't think that'll be the case for long. Android phones are available for multiple carriers from multiple manufacturers and are selling like hotcakes. We're already starting to see the big iOS game companies porting games to Android and it'll only get better.
 
It's still a walled garden, they're just adding a few flowers to keep your attention away from the walls. 🙂

I can't wait for VLC to be available, probably the first app I'd pay for. I have a bunch of Divx/Xvid movies that I could just transfer directly instead of converting to H.264.
 
Spicedaddy said:
It's still a walled garden, they're just adding a few flowers to keep your attention away from the walls. 🙂

I can't wait for VLC to be available, probably the first app I'd pay for. I have a bunch of Divx/Xvid movies that I could just transfer directly instead of converting to H.264.
Click to expand...

It's walled for a reason. To Apple it's all about the experience.
 
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