The company that ported the popular VLC media player to the Apple iPad has now submitted a universal version which will also run on the iPhone and iPod touch to Apple for review. Since the iPad version has already been approved, there’s no reason to think it will take all that long for Apple to approve the new version, which means that it should show up in the App Store any day now.
The desktop version of VLC is known as a Swiss Army Knife of media players, handling pretty much any audio or video file in almost any format with ease. Unfortunately, the iOS version isn’t quite as versatile, due to the limitations of the ARM-based processors in Apple’s iDevices. But while VLC for the iPad can’t handle MKV files, VOB files, or some HD video files, it does support a number of codecs that the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch don’t natively support, including Xvid and DivX.
Applidium, the company behind the VLC port says the new version will run on the iPhone 3G and up, as well as the equivalent iPod touch models. It looks like older iPhone users are out of luck.