I'd imagine speed would mostly be dictated by ffmpeg as that's what everyone is using.

I haven't checked with this version of VLC, but can it do hardware h264 inside an MKV container ? That's where some players have put in a lot of work to hardware decode MKV (when it's h264) as iOS requires some crazy workarounds in that area. So if VLC is doing MKV in software, it's still going to appear slower to the user.

Also, I'd say Open Source isn't really a relevant feature on the app store.

> I'd imagine speed would mostly be dictated by ffmpeg as that's what everyone is using.

No. A significant issue of speed is in the video output.

> Also, I'd say Open Source isn't really a relevant feature on the app store.

I'd disagree...

> I'd disagree...

Why ? You're running on a "closed" device with a closed OS where software can only be installed from one place. How can OSS be important here ?

I would think free is important for the end users...but OSS ? Neah..

Quite a few of us are running jailbroken devices, and can run just about anything we please.

Additionally, it costs a one time $100 charge to become an Apple developer (assuming you already have a mac), and then you can deploy everything even without a jailbreak. Given that a new device costs upward of $650 (let's ignore "subsidies" here), another $100 to get locally "open" the device is, for some of us, a reasonable expense.

> it costs a one time $100 charge to become an Apple developer

Just a nitpick, $100 per year last I checked, hardly a 'one time charge.'

You can submit patches to get a feature you want.