I thought it was pulled because one VLC contributor, holding authorship and copyright on parts of the code (and also happened to be a Nokia employee, hmmm...),

I thought it was pulled because one VLC contributor, holding authorship and copyright on parts of the code (and also happened to be a Nokia employee, hmmm...), had an axe to grind and demanded the takedown? Also, if you own the full copyright on a given app, there shouldn't be anything stopping you from releasing it as gpl on github while also licensing it for free download on the appstore - you get to pick the terms of redistribution as you like for each individual distribution point.