Skip to main content

VLC for iOS gets Apple Watch support for playback controls & library browsing, new mini-player, more

Popular medial player VLC for iOS today gets a notable update that brings support for Apple Watch alongside other new features and a long list of improvements and fixes.

For Apple Watch, users will be able to control VLC directly from their wrist with playback controls, as well as view media info for their content and browse their library. Here’s a look at screenshots of the Apple Watch app showing the playback controls and other features in action:

Other new features arriving with the update today include a new mini-player for browsing your library during playback and support for looping playlists. In addition, the app gets support for password protected PLEX shares and the very long list of improvements and bug fixes below.

The updated VLC for iOS app, version 2.6.0, is available on the App Store now.

What’s New in Version 2.6.0

∙ Added support for Apple Watch – control VLC from your watch!
– playback control
– media info
– library browsing
∙ Added mini-player to browse the library during playback
∙ Added support for looping playlists
∙ New ingest mechanism for audio files
∙ Improved remote command support
∙ Improved thumbnail generation
∙ Improved thumbnail and web interface performance on devices with A5 SoC and above
∙ Fixed crash when playing media from a folder or music album on iPad
∙ Fixed crash when app goes to background while a video is playing
∙ Fixed privacy leak when using a passcode to protect the library
∙ Removed stray popup announcing VLC’s crash all the time while it actually
didn’t crash before, but terminated by the user
∙ Added support for password-protected PLEX shares
∙ Thumbnails displayed in the media library are updated to the last playback position
∙ Improved reliability when sharing media library on the local network
∙ Improved media library search delivering more accurate results
∙ Fixed ‘crop to fill screen’ on iPad
∙ Fixed issue which prevented downloading of a few files via UPnP
∙ Fixed crash when screen is being locked during playback
∙ A large number of bug fixes affecting most parts of the app

Note: following a legal request, we had to remove support for the AC-3, E-AC-3 and MLP multi-channel audio codecs in version 2.4.0.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.