VLC is Now a Universal App for Windows Phone and Windows

Good news for all folks using VLC Player. It’s turning itself into a universal app to work as one and same across all Windows Platform. The biggest advantage of this is they don’t have to update these apps individually for every platform, the same code works across and consumers like you and me, get update asap.

In a blog post, the lead developer of VLC Player shared:

Today we’re sharing ~80% of our XAML code and >95% of the C# code, and this will keep improving during the next couple of months. VLC will provide the same core experience on phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. We scale our user interface depending on the size of the screen, hence the responsive design with the help of XAML visual states.

The more available space we have, the more we’ll put buttons, actions and features accessible right with a single tap or click. Having the same experience on those Windows platforms will get users to familiarize with the interface.

This finally allows us to not only « code for two platforms », but also fix bugs on both platforms at the same time. This may be the best part for developers.

VLC today also released a true universal app on Windows 8.1 with the goal to release at least one update per week. Next update for Windows Phone will roll out universal app there as well.

New Features rolled out for Windows App

Creating a playlist, editing a playlist (early support though)
Your videos are displayed in three categories: videos, camera rolls and shows. We automatically detect if a video is an episode of a show.
You can see the upcoming shows of an artist
Social sharing (« #NowPlaying Shake It Off – Taylor Swift »)

There are two features that is being dropped for now though. DLNA and option to change the album cover manually. They should get back home at the right time.