The popular media player VLC will be making itself available as a dedicated app on Google Play this week as a beta version. The app is called VLC for Android, and had been developed for years by VLC in partnership with Dojo, JBMM, and ASUS. It has been tested by for smartphones such as the HTC One X, HTC Desire, Motorola Defy, Nexus One, Galaxy Nexus and Samsung Galaxy S III, but needs to be tried on more Android-based phones to iron out issues.
VLC has made a name for itself among media players for being able to support many audio and video file formats such as MP3, WMV, H.264, DivX, and MPEG 2, among many others others, without the need for downloading codec packs. Now, it set out to bring this convenience to Android-based devices along with other features. For one, VLC for Android offers a media library with search capabilities to facilitate the management of media files. It likewise reads subtitles, whether they are external or embedded into the file. Furthermore, it supports ARMv6, ARMv7, as well as ARMv7+NEON. Gesture and headphone-based control with both be recognized by the app. VLC for Android is expected to run on Android devices with at least Android 2.1. It will moreover support Cortex-A7 A9 and A15 processors.
At present, the team behind the VLC for Android app has gone a long way with the project. However, it still solicits for support from the public via extra funding. Likewise, it is encouraging phone manufacturers or regular phone owners to send in extra phones so that the app may be tested on these.