VLC for iOS 4.0 — first public beta | Felix Paul Kühne

The first public beta of VLC for iOS 4.0 is here, and it’s the largest update the app has seen in years. It spans iOS, iPadOS and tvOS.

A new engine underneath#

The headline change is invisible at first glance: the whole app now sits on a pre-release build of libVLC 4 . That means a new clock implementation, a rewritten player and a new playlist core. This is the foundation for most of the user-facing features below.

Two platform notes up front: VLC for iOS now requires iOS 12 or later , and 32-bit devices are no longer supported. On the Apple TV side, tvOS 13 or later is required.

Playback#

HDR playback , multi-channel and spatial audio , and Picture-in-Picture on iOS.

Dual subtitles

A redesigned audio player on iOS

Seek with the number keys on an external keyboard, use your gamepad to control VLC, and an option to force the video orientation lock.

Major accessibility improvements throughout the playback interface.

Codecs, formats and protocols#

libVLC 4 brings a fresh batch of demuxers and decoders:

New decoders: IMM4, CEA-708, AGM, VP4 .

New format support: HEIF images, DASH WebM , DVBSUB in MKV , chapters in MP3 files, and DMX audio.

New protocols: RIST , AMT and Gopher , plus improved proxy handling.

The Real player dialect of RTSP has been removed.

Interface and library#

iPadOS gains sidebar navigation , and the whole app starts to adopt the iOS 26 “Liquid Glass” appearance

A home-screen widget showing the last played audio and an App Intent to start playback (iOS 16.4 and later) for Siri and Shortcuts.

“Kids Mode” — parental control that prevents accidental deletions and modifications — plus passcodes with four or six digits.

Media library additions: pagination while browsing, “Mark as Played”/“Mark as Unplayed”, section indexes and headers in song lists, video previews, and import straight from the Photos library.

iCloud Drive and local files are now unified into a single browsing section, and Open Network Stream as well as the Downloads section got a redesigned interface.

Cloud services: pCloud integration, folder downloads and favorites, and thumbnails for Dropbox and Box.

The web interface has been redesigned.

tvOS#

The Apple TV port shares all the lower-level libVLC 4 work and gets its own redesign: the player now matches the current appearance of the OS, with a play queue, shuffle/repeat controls, secondary subtitle selection, granular speed control and an inline info panel. tvOS also gains the local media library . The discontinued S/PDIF option has been removed.

Known issues#

This is an early test build — it is not finished and not feature-complete. Two things to watch for:

Picture-in-Picture is currently offered on some devices where it isn’t actually supported.

Google Drive streaming is broken.

Install it via TestFlight, try it on your own library, and tell us what breaks:

Join the VLC for iOS 4.0 beta on TestFlight