VLC 3.1 brings back Android Auto support, adds OTG device support, app shortcuts, and more

VLC has been one of my favorite media players for years. It’s great on every platform: computers, phones… and not just because of its ability of “playing whatever you throw at it,” but also because it’s straightforward to use and it includes no fluff or unnecessary stuff on it. The Android version lives up to its PC counterpart’s hype, mostly because it brings most of the stuff you know and love to your phone’s compact factor. And while it may not be as good and reliable as the PC version, there’s still a lot to love about it, and you’ll find very few media players as good as VLC nowadays.

Stable version 3.1 launched a few days ago, brings several improvements and changes that you’ll notice right away, despite it being a minor version bump. The biggest of these changes? Android Auto is back! Thanks to SDK changes and updates as well as huge refactoring work and overall reworking of the app, Android Auto support has been brought back, and possibly for good now, allowing users to listen to their music with VLC on-the-go.

VLC in Android Auto

The newest version of VLC also includes app shortcuts. Thus, users of Android 7.1 Nougat onwards will be able to access shortcuts for playlists and directories without going into the app. You now also have the ability to group videos into folders, allowing you to get yourself as comfortable as you may like inside the app.

Support for USB OTG devices has also been added, so you can insert a flash drive or plug-in an external hard drive to view content stored on storage media with much higher capacities.

The bad news? Android 2.x support has been removed. This new update is only compatible with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean onwards in order to allow for optimization as well as bringing Android Auto support. We don’t really think this is a bad thing as Android 4.1 and lower are long deprecated platforms.

Other Changes

Application:

• Refactored subtitles downloader
• Sorting preferences are now saved
• A-B repeat
• Manual orientation lock in video player
• Podcast detection has been improved
• Bottomsheet style for context menus
• Playback notification is now persistent, even when app is closed by Android

TV:

• Sort media
• group videos by name

VLC:

• AV1 software decoding.
• SMB 2/3

You can check out the newest version of VLC on the Google Play Store right now.

VLC for Android (Free, Google Play) →

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Source: VLC Blog

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