Huawei devices can no longer download VLC media player from Google Play

Huawei devices can no longer download VLC media player from Google Play

Huawei makes some great smartphones, but the company’s software has been an issue for a while. Especially for developers, these devices have caused a lot of headaches. This week, popular app VLC media player has decided to blacklist Huawei smartphones due to how those devices affect the app.

VLC media player is one of the most widely used apps on the market, on multiple platforms, for viewing local media. It works great, and the Android app has only been getting better over the years. However, Huawei’s devices haven’t played very nicely with it.

Announced on Twitter (via FrAndroid), VideoLAN has decided to blacklist Huawei smartphones from downloading VLC from Google Play. This decision was made due to the “ridiculous” way that Huawei’s software handles background apps. As VideoLAN states, these devices are very aggressive with killing background activities from apps that are not from Huawei itself.

This causes a problem with VLC, as background play cannot work when the phone is killing the app. VideoLAN’s forums show users who have run into these issues on a regular basis, and a quick filter placed on Play Store reviews show other Huawei owners seeing the same problem.

The VLC app can still be loaded as an APK on affected devices, but until Huawei changes how it treats background activities, users likely won’t be able to download it from Google Play anymore. VideoLAN also notes that this only affects “recent” Huawei devices.

PSA: @HuaweiMobile phones are now blacklisted and cannot get VLC on the Play Store.
Their ridiculous policy of killing all background apps (except their own) breaks VLC audio background playback (of course).
See https://t.co/QzDW7KbV4I and many other reports...@HuaweiFr

— VideoLAN (@videolan) July 25, 2018