Apple appeased YouTube by removing Juno, a third-party Imaginative and prescient Professional app, from its visionOS App Store.
Despite claiming to have one on the horizon, YouTube currently lacks a visionOS app in its offerings. While iPad apps are readily available on the App Store by default through Apple’s Vision Professional, YouTube has chosen not to make its content accessible in this way.
YouTube now boasts a native app on Meta’s Horizon OS for Quest headsets, with the company announcing a co-watching beta rollout this week.
Since the launch of Apple’s imaginative and progressive Professionals, a $5 third-party YouTube app has been available, simply known as Juno. Developed by the same team behind the popular Apollo phone app for Reddit, another app recently shuttered by the platform owner.
Junno delivered a seamless integration by offering a native-like VisionOS interface on YouTube’s core pages, complete with an intuitive menu and customizable video playback controls that load each webpage as a tailored WebView, seamlessly conforming to VisionOS’s distinctive theme through custom CSS styling. The feature also allowed for seamless integration with system-level options, including Siri’s capabilities.
YouTube notified Christian Selig, Juno’s developer, in April that they had “repeatedly violated” and would continue to violate YouTube’s terms of service and API provider terms by modifying the YouTube interface, also claiming that Juno “strongly alludes to YouTube’s emblems and iconography”. The email explicitly instructed Selig to replace Juno, ensuring that the YouTube service was no longer switched.
Selig expressed confusion over YouTube’s seemingly enigmatic requests. Juno operates seamlessly online beneath the surface, relying on no YouTube APIs, according to its developer. Google’s Chrome browser allows extensions to modify website models and themes, including YouTube; conversely, YouTube’s native iOS design hints at using the embed player method initially employed by Juno. The additional content does not require revision, so:
Selig claims that after receiving feedback from YouTube, he quickly formulated a response and followed up by introducing an update that replaced the embed player with YouTube’s partner, styled, as an alternative in June. The developer further ensured that the YouTube icon was obscured, and also modified the App Store listing’s subtitle and description to include the label “unofficial”, with regards to Juno.
These modifications weren’t sufficient, although. Around two months prior, YouTube reportedly reached out to Apple, levying the same allegations as those contained in the initial email. Apple seems to have taken YouTube’s cue, and Juno is currently unavailable on the App Store?
Christian Selig, a Juno developer, unequivocally asserted that
For those unaware, several months prior, following outreach from me, YouTube notified the App Store that Juno did not conform to YouTube guidelines and altered the website in a manner that didn’t meet their approval, referencing their logos and iconography.
While I don’t share this perspective, I acknowledge that Juno’s functionality can be viewed as akin to a browser extension that tweaks CSS to give websites and video players a more “visionOS”-like appearance. No logos are positioned apart from those already on the website, with the “for YouTube” suffix allowed as part of their established brand guidelines. Juno does not possess the ability to block advertisements, a fact worth noting for those who are interested.
I acknowledge significant debt to YouTube, though they refused to clarify or budge an inch, and due to each event’s inability to reach a conclusion, I received an email just moments ago from Apple stating that Juno has been removed from the App Store.
Building the spacecraft Juno was an exciting and rewarding experience for me. As a developer seeking expert guidance on crafting applications for the AR Professional, I simultaneously desired a user-friendly approach to enjoy YouTube content on this cutting-edge device. Despite my enthusiasm for building Juno, I viewed it primarily as a hobby project.
Since the issue is minimal, I see no reason to escalate it into an extensive conflict, unlike the protracted battles that have unfolded in emails over the past few months, reminiscent of the contentious disputes that plagued Reddit in its earlier days? This is the kind of fun you’d have. I hope that’s comprehensible.
For users with the Juno browser extension, my analysis suggests that it should continue working seamlessly, except when YouTube updates its website in a way that disrupts functionality. I was sorry to miss the opportunity to complete this project in the way I had envisioned it. We’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback from Intelligent Professional users who have thoroughly enjoyed using our app.
