All they would have to do is follow the license's conditions to help keep the software free. Instead, Apple has decided that they prefer to impose Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and proprietary legal terms on all programs in the App Store, and they'd rather kick out GPLed software than change their own rules. Their obstinance prevents you from having this great software on Apple devices—not the GPL or the people enforcing it.
I don't think Apple is the only one being obstinate here. The App Store definitely defines strict terms about how an app can be distributed, but so does the GPL.
The GPLs rules are only about preserving end-user freedom (including the freedom to modify and redistribute software). Saying that the GPL has "strict rules" and is thus the same as the App Store is like saying that putting someone in jail for kidnapping is just as bad as kidnapping in the first place, because you're restricting someone's freedom. Yes, laws and jail for kidnappers restrict their freedom, but they only constrain you from taking someone else's freedom away.
Likewise, the GPL only restricts you from things you do that take away other people's freedom. If Apple just allowed its end users to have the freedom required by the GPL, there would be no conflict.
No, the GPL defines explicit restrictions about what the end user can and can't do with the software. In my book, that's less freedom.
Now, my tenet is just as flimsy as your tenet -- can't you see that your definition of "freedom" is flexible between people and that your freedom may not be another person's freedom? Because degrees of freedom are a subjective and relative interpretation all we can say objectively is that both the GPL and the App Store's EULA have restrictions and they both attempt to preserve an ecosystem that they see to be beneficial.
Distributing software is something you "do" with the software. If I meant restricting the use of the software I would have said restricting the use of the software.
The GPL doesn't restrict distributing software. Copyright does; without the GPL, you would not be allowed to copy the software at all, due to copyright laws that cover all creative works from the moment they are created, regardless of whether anyone opts in. The GPL grants you additional freedom to distribute the software, as long as you follow their rules.
Now, it doesn't grant as much additional freedom as, say, the MIT license, but the only freedoms it fails to grant you are the freedom to take someone else's freedom away. You can do anything you want with the software, as long as you don't do something that limits someone else's freedom to do the same.
Why can't VLC change their license to something that works with Apple's App Store license agreement. Clearly the VLC developers wanted Apple to distribute their Application because why was it otherwise created and put up on the App Store in the first place?
In theory, they could. I suspect that, practically, that's not going to be possible. I don't know all the details, but I imagine it'd mean going to every contributor and getting some kind of statement that they are allowing their code to be relicensed under a new license. That'd be pretty nasty. I believe Squeak Smalltalk went through something like this and it took years.
I don't think Apple is the only one being obstinate here. The App Store definitely defines strict terms about how an app can be distributed, but so does the GPL.