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Speaking for myself here, I can't really get into iOS devices like this new iPad mini anymore in part because I have grown accustomed to being able to: a) roll

Speaking for myself here, I can't really get into iOS devices like this new iPad mini anymore in part because I have grown accustomed to being able to: a) roll back apps if a new version is broken/undesirable. b) sideload apps if an app is not available on the app store because they fell out of grace (eg. fortnite). c) choose a web browser, on iOS you can have any skin you want, as long as the engine is Safari. d) choose a media player, no hardware decoding on iOS if it is not an Apple-blessed codec and last time I looked, Apple did not allow mkv and I fail to understand why I need to transcode or remux just to please them otherwise it is software decoding. e) no emulation of other systems allowed or environments that can run code. Android still allows all of these things.

tompazourek 5y ago
Can you please elaborate a bit more on the video decoding? It's sounds interesting. I have played all kinds of formats including mkv in VLC on iOS. What could be improved in that area?
- ragazzina 5y ago
  How do you watch webms on iOS/ipadOS?
  - jbk 5y ago
    VLC on iOS
- Sunspark 5y ago
  On the newest iPhone 13 for example these are the video formats supported: "Video formats supported: HEVC, H.264, MPEG‑4 Part 2, and Motion JPEG" If your video is not one of these formats, you're going to be using software decoding which will be done on the CPU and will drain battery more as a consequence. So that means no .MKV decoding in hardware.
  - extra88 5y ago
    .mkv is a container format, not a video codec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska
    - Sunspark 5y ago
      Still not going to be decoded in hardware on iOS.
      - realityking 5y ago
        You‘re spreading FUD. iOS (and other Apple platforms) had low level APIs to decode videos on hardware for years. Of course the video codec needs to be supported (AFAIK right now just H.264 and HEVC) but the container format doesn‘t matter, you just need to unpack it yourself. Here‘s a - 6 year old - guide on how to set it up: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29525000/how-to-use-videotoolbox-to-decompress-h-264-video-stream https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29525000/how-to-use-vide...

tompazourek 5y ago

Can you please elaborate a bit more on the video decoding? It's sounds interesting. I have played all kinds of formats including mkv in VLC on iOS. What could be improved in that area?

ragazzina 5y ago
How do you watch webms on iOS/ipadOS?
- jbk 5y ago
  VLC on iOS
Sunspark 5y ago
On the newest iPhone 13 for example these are the video formats supported: "Video formats supported: HEVC, H.264, MPEG‑4 Part 2, and Motion JPEG" If your video is not one of these formats, you're going to be using software decoding which will be done on the CPU and will drain battery more as a consequence. So that means no .MKV decoding in hardware.
- extra88 5y ago
  .mkv is a container format, not a video codec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska
  - Sunspark 5y ago
    Still not going to be decoded in hardware on iOS.
    - realityking 5y ago
      You‘re spreading FUD. iOS (and other Apple platforms) had low level APIs to decode videos on hardware for years. Of course the video codec needs to be supported (AFAIK right now just H.264 and HEVC) but the container format doesn‘t matter, you just need to unpack it yourself. Here‘s a - 6 year old - guide on how to set it up: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29525000/how-to-use-videotoolbox-to-decompress-h-264-video-stream https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29525000/how-to-use-vide...