Google reportedly plans to develop a YouTube app for the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. The Verge says a YouTube spokesperson confirmed the corporate’s plans to make a local Imaginative and prescient Professional app, whereas it optimizes YouTube for Safari as a stopgap. The U-turn comes after developer Christian Selig (creator of the favored Apollo app that Reddit killed in 2023) launched an unofficial YouTube app for Apple’s $3,500 headset.
“We’re excited to see Vision Pro launch and we’re supporting it by ensuring YouTube users have a great experience in Safari,” YouTube spokesperson Jessica Gibby reportedly wrote in an e mail to The Verge’s Nilay Patel. “We do not have any specific plans to share at this time, but can confirm that a Vision Pro app is on our roadmap.”
Regardless of Imaginative and prescient Professional launching with over 600 native apps, YouTube mentioned as just lately as January 19 that it had no plans for a Imaginative and prescient Professional app. (Netflix is one other high-profile holdout.) As well as, a YouTube firm spokesperson advised Engadget on the time it additionally had no plans to make its iPad app accessible on the visionOS App Retailer. Porting iPad apps is the (comparatively) fast and simple approach for builders to get their software program onto Apple’s “spatial computing” gadget.
One thing modified the corporate’s thoughts within the final two-and-a-half weeks. One principle is, regardless of its staggering $3,500 worth, Apple’s combined actuality headset seems to be off to a robust begin as the corporate’s most loyal and deep-pocketed followers shortly scooped up pre-orders. Nicely-sourced analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimated Apple bought someplace between 160,000 and 180,000 headsets throughout its opening weekend.
One other principle is that YouTube seen an unbiased developer choosing up its slack. Christian Selig, the maker of the now-defunct Apollo for Reddit app, launched an unofficial third-party YouTube app known as Juno that was accessible at launch. Selig has vital belief and stature amongst Apple gadget customers: He’s a former Apple developer and creator of one in every of iOS customers’ favourite Reddit apps (earlier than the corporate’s controversial API guidelines successfully killed most third-party Reddit apps).
“YouTube is probably one of the parts of the internet I consume the most, so I was more than a little sad when YouTube announced that they don’t have plans to build a visionOS app, and disabled the option to load the iPad app,” Selig defined final week in a weblog submit. “This leaves you with Safari, and the website is okay, but definitely doesn’t feel like a visionOS app.”
YouTube helps 3D and 360-degree movies, however neither presently works on Imaginative and prescient Professional. It isn’t but clear if the corporate plans to include these into its app.