Paul Morris·

VideoPlayerXI Brings iOS 11 Video Player To iOS 10

There is definitely a lot to admire about Apple’s upcoming iOS 11 platform. It’s not only packed full of new features and functionality but also rife with interface and experience improvements which will promote user engagement and happiness.

One of those areas is a new video player system which introduces a clean and uncluttered interface focusing on maximum usability, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a plucky jailbreak developer has moved quickly to bring that experience to iOS 10 devices.

To the best of our knowledge, the new VideoPlayerXI tweak is the first of its kind which looks to replicate native iOS 11 video player experience on jailbroken Apple devices running iOS 10. This is the same video player experience that can be seen and interacted with when a video file or URL is invoked via Mobile Safari when running either a developer or public beta of iOS 11. The underlying functionality is still the same in that it simply exists to play media content, but it’s the presented interface which gives the positive experience.

Apple talked briefly about this at WWDC. The native iOS 11 video interface is designed to give more visual access to the actual media that’s playing by removing any unnecessary user-interface clutter which has previously detracted from the optimum viewing experience. As an example of this, rather than having a full toolbar spread across the bottom of the screen, the iOS 11 video interface has a streamlined smaller offering which still houses the necessary controls. This may not instantly seem like a huge space saver, but it’s definitely clawing back a few pixels of screen real estate.

The same theory has been applied to the volume functionality. Rather than having a huge overlay on the display when the volume is changed, there is now a more discrete visual representation of volume at the top of the interface. This means that the actual playing content is not obscured from view at any point in time.

Many developers building apps which handle video playback have already taken the opportunity to override the native volume experience and roll their own system, but Apple has now adopted a more streamlined version in iOS 11.

VideoPlayerXI is available as a free-of-charge download and installation from the BigBoss repository on the Cydia jailbreak store.

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