VLC is one of the premier video players on PC and Mac. It has long been a favorite amongst users and at one point, was even available on iOS, but due to some legal issues, had to be taken down from the App Store. I had used it before and while it was a terrific video player, it lacked many features many of the newer video players on iOS had. Well, VLC for iOS is finally out again on iOS and this time, it looks like it’s here to stay. It has been fully rewritten and now includes a ton of new features to make it again the premier video playing app on iOS.

One of the biggest changes to come to VLC for iOS is the fact that there are now many more ways to get your videos into the app. Before, you could only transfer video via iTunes which was very limited. Now, you can transfer video over WiFi through an embedded web server, grab videos on Dropbox, directly open a network stream, or download from a web server. The most handy to me is being able to upload your photos via WiFi which was a major feature missing in the previous build.

In terms of playing video, VLC for iOS can play pretty much every format you throw at it, which is basically the major selling point of VLC on any platform. It can even play videos that haven’t been completely uploaded correctly. Playing video contains the usual features that are found in other apps such as being able to scrub through a movie however there are a few features I found that aren’t in other apps that are quite neat. You can adjust playback speed and play videos at 0.25x speed or as fast as 4.00x speed, although at that speed, it can be very unstable. Another cool feature is the ability to adjust the way a video looks and mess with brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and gamma. As for the forward and rewind buttons, these are actually useful and allows you to jump in 1-minute increments within the video.

The only downside to uploading your videos via WiFi is that if your device goes to sleep while the video is uploading, it will fail to transfer properly. You must make sure this doesn’t happen if you want a successful transfer.

Overall, VLC for iOS is a fantastic video player. not only that, it’s free and contains zero ads. There are still a few bugs in the app which need to be ironed out however and it could still do with a bit more optimization, but luckily, since the app seems like it’s here to stay now, we’ll be seeing a lot more regular updates now. Even if you already have a regular video player you use, download VLC for iOS anyways as a back up just in case you have something that might not play in another player. You never know, it just might work in VLC.

App Store Link: VLC for iOS
Version: 2.0.2
Developer: VideoLAN
Price: Free
Compatible Devices: (Universal App) iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.