VLC Adds Windows Phone 8 Support To Kickstarter Campaign

Late last month, VideoLAN launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring its popular media player, VLC, to Windows 8 and Windows RT in app form. Since the project will more herculean than past projects, the team has taken to Kickstarter to raise money in order to bring the apps to users for free. Today, the company posted an update, announcing that they're also planning to work on a Windows Phone 8 app, and they're also getting support directly from Microsoft.

VideoLAN said that developing a VLC Windows Phone 8 app "appears to be easier than expected." Since the Windows Phone 8 APIs are similar to Windows 8, the team shouldn't have a problem porting the Windows 8 app over to the Windows Phone 8 platform. So now, when you donate to the project, you'll also be supporting the Windows Phone 8 version, on top of the Windows 8 and Windows RT apps.

Furthermore, VideoLAN has been in contact with Microsoft, and both companies have agreed to collaborate on the VLC project. VideoLAN notes that Microsoft's support will be "non-financial", and that they'll mostly help out with the hardware, technical, and design side of things. It seems that both companies are ecstatic about the partnership, and with good reason.

However, the biggest challenge so far for the VideoLAN team seems to be getting the app into the Windows Store. The app will obviously need to stick to Microsofts rules and pass a check test in order to be admitted, but VideoLAN notes that the Windows Store terms and conditions "seem to be compatible with the GNU GPL." The team is working extremely hard in order to make it into the store, but there's no guarantee as of yet.