Few media players offer as many video and audio codecs as VLC, the open source playback application developed by Video Lan. Frequently updated to reflect the latest developments in reading environments, Android is not really at the cutting edge, at least in its Google Play version: there, VLC has not been updated since August 2023. According to the developers, the reasons why the software is not updated are due to Google’s requirements.
This involves having a video and audio file with an unplayable codec so that, once VLC is installed, said file looks and sounds. And that’s it This player is one of the most recommended on all platforms, whether on computer or mobile. In the second case, VLC has supported Android since 2012, an evolution which has not always had its best moments. Because Google doesn’t make things too easy, at least in the developers’ opinion.
Support for older devices at risk
VLC and Android player
To publish applications on Google Play, it is essential to respect Google’s policy for its App Store, also in the event of updates. With successive versions of Android Google increases the minimum for an app to stay up to date on the Play Store. But what if the developer wanted to maintain support for older versions of Android? Then you have to give the signing keys to Google, which is really tricky since it involves losing absolute control of the software. This is exactly what VideoLAN claims don’t update VLC on Android.
Just go to Google Play and search for VLC to discover that the last update took place on August 27, 2023, which is too long for an application whose development does not stop. In fact, the Android branch of GitHub, the repository where VideoLAN publicly publishes the code, It was updated a few weeks ago with version 3.6 beta 2. The latest version of Google Play is 3.5.4.
VideoLAN developers have expressed their disagreement with Google’s policies regarding app updates. The fleet of devices used by VLC being somewhat old, notably Android TV, developers cannot update the player in their own way without conflicting with Google policies. Concretely, to continue maintaining old versions, VideoLAN would have to give the signing information to Google, a requirement that the developers of the player are not ready to assume.
To update VLC on Android and maintain support for older versions, VideoLAN would have to forego signing Google credentials, something developers are not willing to allow.
The main problem comes from using VLC on Android versions 10 and below. VideoLAN wants to maintain support for older systems, but since distributing the app through Google Play would require APKs to be signed by the store instead of the developer (due to App Bundles), VideoLAN does not want to abandon the cryptographic keys from Google because considers them their own private element.
The only solution proposed by Google is to forget users with Android 10 and above, both on portable devices and on Android TV. This would mean losing a huge user base, there’s a reason Android on TVs isn’t really well updated. According to VideoLAN, “tens of millions of users” would be excluded from said Android TV.
Android is not the only operating system that VideoLAN has problems with, the developers also haven’t updated VLC in the Windows app store for a long time. And for a reason quite similar to that used with Android: VideoLAN assures that Microsoft has not given it a response to its requests to be able to update the application.
Cover image | DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT edited
By | FranDroid
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