YouTube Says a VisionOS App Is ‘On the Roadmap’, but I’m Not Sure I Care
Nilay Patel, writing at The Verge:
Here’s a little bit of an about-face: YouTube now says it has a
Vision Pro app on its roadmap. I mean this literally, as YouTube
spokesperson Jessica Gibby just emailed me the following
statement: “We’re excited to see Vision Pro launch and we’re
supporting it by ensuring YouTube users have a great experience in
Safari. We do not have any specific plans to share at this time,
but can confirm that a Vision Pro app is on our roadmap.”
This of course follows YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix all
declining to allow their iPad apps to run on the Vision Pro
before launch — and the last time we asked, there was no mention
of a proper visionOS YouTube app coming in the future, so
something’s changed in Mountain View. (One theory: the immediate
popularity of Christian Selig’s Juno app for YouTube on the
Vision Pro.)
Is Juno so good that it might have altered Google’s development plans for supporting YouTube with a native app? I suppose that’s possible. But given the design quality and adherence to platform design idioms of Google’s iOS apps (poor), I’m not sure they’re even capable of making a Juno-quality app.
I’m also unsure whether Google cares, ultimately, that Juno is and will remain the premier client for YouTube on VisionOS for the near future. Because Juno is mostly just a redesigned presentation of youtube.com, it doesn’t block ads. If you don’t like YouTube ads you should sign up for YouTube Premium (which of course works great in Juno) — one of the best bang-for-your-buck values in all of media.
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Nilay Patel, writing at The Verge:
Here’s a little bit of an about-face: YouTube now says it has a
Vision Pro app on its roadmap. I mean this literally, as YouTube
spokesperson Jessica Gibby just emailed me the following
statement: “We’re excited to see Vision Pro launch and we’re
supporting it by ensuring YouTube users have a great experience in
Safari. We do not have any specific plans to share at this time,
but can confirm that a Vision Pro app is on our roadmap.”
This of course follows YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix all
declining to allow their iPad apps to run on the Vision Pro
before launch — and the last time we asked, there was no mention
of a proper visionOS YouTube app coming in the future, so
something’s changed in Mountain View. (One theory: the immediate
popularity of Christian Selig’s Juno app for YouTube on the
Vision Pro.)
Is Juno so good that it might have altered Google’s development plans for supporting YouTube with a native app? I suppose that’s possible. But given the design quality and adherence to platform design idioms of Google’s iOS apps (poor), I’m not sure they’re even capable of making a Juno-quality app.
I’m also unsure whether Google cares, ultimately, that Juno is and will remain the premier client for YouTube on VisionOS for the near future. Because Juno is mostly just a redesigned presentation of youtube.com, it doesn’t block ads. If you don’t like YouTube ads you should sign up for YouTube Premium (which of course works great in Juno) — one of the best bang-for-your-buck values in all of media.