Hi all,
With a lot of help from Brion (thanks :), I've now changed the way that videos are handled on Commons on iOS devices (when browsing from the desktop site). The change will go live on July 15th.
Previously, you clicked play, not much happened. There was a small easily ignored pop-up linking you to a help page, and a play button which in theory linked to the src video file (but in practice was possibly unclickable due to having too low a z-index).
Now, you are directed to install the vlc-for-iOS app. If you have the app already installed, the video will automatically open in the app upon pressing play.
This change will only affect the desktop site, as TimedMediaHandler is totally not loaded at all on the mobile site (However, if you have the vlc app installed, you can download the video from the mobile site, and it should play).
For reference, iOS users represent roughly 11% of our user base. Its unclear how many of those browse the desktop site vs mobile site, although I imagine most use mobile and are not affected by this change :( . Nonetheless, every bit helps.
Cheers, Bawolff
p.s. For reference, relavent links are https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61095 and https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/144349/