In the olden days, there were two versions of VLC Remote, one for the iPhone and one for the iPad.

That made sense to me when the iPad was new, and it took me a lot of work to build iPad support, but it doesn’t seem right any more.

As a result, VLC Remote will now work on the iPad and also the iPhone.

This release also brings the new UI to the iPad with the advanced controls appearing as a (collapsable) sidebar on the right. New features from the iPhone version like album art and the graphical equaliser are now available on the iPad too.

Whether you bought the iPhone version or the iPad version, you can now use it on both devices. You’ll get an interface which has been optimised for the device you are using.

In an ideal world, I would now merge VLC Remote (for iPhone) with VLC Remote for iPad as they both work on both devices.

Unfortunately Apple doesn’t have a way to do this, so I’ll keep both versions running.

I’ll change the name on the iTunes store so that the iPad version appears as ‘Legacy VLC Remote for the iPad’. This should encourage new users to purchase the ‘iPhone version’, but VLC Remote will keep on working just fine whichever version you bought.

I have guessed at some questions you might have…

Will I still get updates?

Yes, until Apple provides a way to merge the apps, I’ll just update both of them. You can still download VLC Remote for iPad if you bought that, or VLC Remote if you bought that, and you’ll keep getting the new updates.

Why are you changing the name on iTunes?

Since both apps are now the same, I’m using the name change to encourage new buyers to just get the standard VLC Remote.

Do I have to buy the new version

Definitely not. If you have already paid for the iPad version, you can stick with that and it will work on the iPhone and iPad.

I already bought both versions

That’s great – thank you. You can use either one on any of your devices.

Can I switch to the ‘iPhone’ VLC Remote

Sadly not. Apple doesn’t provide any way for me to switch people between versions. If they do in future, then I’ll move everyone over.

I still have a question…

Please contact me through the settings page. I’ll be happy to help.

Thank you for supporting VLC Remote. I do appreciate it.

so, new VLC Remote, new design.

inevitably, there were some decisions to be made about what controls should be there, and how to present them. My goal was to make VLC Remote easy to use, but with powerful features readily accessible.

Or in the wonderful words of Einstein – ‘As simple as possible, but no simpler’

One thing that went was the separate stop and pause buttons. Stop mostly exists from the days of VHS when it mattered whether your movie was stopped (the head stopped spinning against the tape), or paused (the head was spinning, and your tape was wearing out).
With digital media, it doesn’t really matter whether the player is paused. That’s why a lot of players save the space and get rid of it completely.

Having said that – some people like the finality of a stop command which says ‘I’m never coming back to this track!’

At the moment, you can double-tap on the play/pause button to stop. If I get a lot of requests to bring back the stop control as a separate button – I will.

Another thing we got rid of was the separate playlist view – we figured we could just use the playlist in the main display.

The downside of this is that the delete-track controls are kinda hidden. They’re still there – but you have to know what you are looking for.

If you swipe left on any item in the playlist, then you’ll see a delete control for that item. You will also see the ‘delete all’ button at the top left of the screen.
I’ll probably add a tutorial element so that people learn about this. I will also add a delete option to the ‘share’ menu in the next revision. I’m open to suggestions on how to make it more obvious.

I hope this makes sense – you can email me from within the app if you have any comments, or you can post at the forum or on facebook.

VLC Remote 6.00 is a major new release with lots of new features. It just went live in the App Store.

It does require VLC 2.00 to work, and it requires a device running iOS 4.00 or higher.

With such a major update, there will probably be some minor issues that need to be fixed despite a lot of beta testing – hold tight for 6.01 if you don’t want to take any chances.

Major features include
-Completely redesigned beautiful new interface
-Album art support (make sure you set VLC to automatically download album art)
-Graphical equaliser
-Lots more

I hope you enjoy it!