There’s no official Vision Pro YouTube app, as Google declined to create one, and also blocked the use of its iPad app, which could otherwise have been used.
But there’s now an unofficial YouTube app for Apple’s spatial computer, thanks to Christian Selig, best known as the creator of the now-dead Reddit client, Apollo …
A million Vision Pro apps, but some big holdouts
Apple announced that there are more than 600 dedicated Vision Pro apps available at launch, but if you could iPad apps – which can be run on the device by default – that brings the total to more than a million.
However, developers have the option of blocking the use of their iPad apps on Vision Pro, and some very big names have chosen to do just that. Apps you can’t run on the headset include:
- MLB
- Netflix
- NFL
- Roku
- Spotify
- The New York Times
- YouTube
We previously explained three likely reasons for this.
Unofficial Vision Pro YouTube app, Juno
But The Verge notes that all is not lost for YouTube, thanks to Juno.
Juno supports most of the features you’d expect out of a native YouTube app. You can watch videos (obviously), scrub and skip through them using pinch gestures, and it’ll even respect the videos’ aspect ratios. Browsing YouTube’s catalog is also supported (though you can’t see video comments).
Google may not be very happy about it, but Selig says that he’s not using any of the company’s private or internal APIs, and he’s also not blocking ads – so there’s at least a decent chance that Google may choose to quietly ignore it.
The app will block ads if you are a YouTube Premium subscriber, but this again replicates what should happen anyway.
Selig admits that the app doesn’t quite feel like a fully native one, as there is only so much he can do in an unofficial app, but he says “it’s a heck of a lot nicer than the website” and possibly as close as an official app would get, given Google’s track-record of favoring its own UI over system ones.
You can download the app from the Vision Pro App Store for a one-off cost of $4.99.
- Vision Pro apps: Why some big brands have actively opted out
- Hundreds of new Vision Pro apps available on launch day, says Apple
- Website helps you find new apps for your Apple Vision Pro
- Vision Pro won’t let you save web apps to your home screen
- Netflix says Vision Pro is too ‘subscale’ for it to care about
Image: 9to5Mac collage using images from Christian Zelig and Javier Miranda on Unsplash
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