17 ms·

Juno – A YouTube Client for Vision Pro

686 points by axxl 3y ago

yard2010 3y ago
I wish Google is the the Blockbuster of our time, making money off nefarious patterns just to be replaced completely by something more novel ...that ends up making money off nefarious patterns
basil-rash 3y ago
> and YouTube still gets to show ads Is this true? I have never seen an ad on my embedded youtube player. Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was rendering.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  >Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was rendering. I'm sure they'd be happy to take direct donations. Many have Patreon accounts you can subscribe to. Those creators aren't getting any meaningful revenue from ads; that's why they all added those annoying sponsor segments.
  - basil-rash 3y ago
    If I had any revenue, I’d be happy to share it. In reality I bear the full cost of all the resources required to host the site at the benefit of the community with no ads or anything else to offset it, and despite having several thousand active users nobody has interacted with the prominent “tip {channel name}” buttons I added. I’d love if folks could use my site as a 0-guilt alternative to watching the same videos on youtube (plus lots of AI-enhanced goodness), but with the ads stripped away its not quite the same.
user2344597 3y ago
How do you record the POV from the Vision Pro goggles?
- basil-rash 3y ago
  There’s a screen record function, the same as the rest of iOS. MKBHD uses it extensively in his review video.
  - user2344597 3y ago
    Thanks
- axxl 3y ago
  These were recorded in the simulator as stated in the article by Christian. However there is a recording mode on the device itself as well, although as I don't have one I don't know the specifics.
  - user2344597 3y ago
    I see, thank you. I was watching MKBHD and Brian Tong on YT and they were using extensive actual POV recording: https://youtu.be/GkPw6ScHyb4 https://youtu.be/GkPw6ScHyb4
    - ryankrage77 3y ago
      In those reviews it looks like a mix of screen recording (what the user sees), and you can also record and take pictures from the onboard cameras (headset PoV). Thanks to the passthrough, screen recording will often also capture the room and the users hands.
  - ugh123 3y ago
    well now those rooms look totally rendered! :)
- shuckles 3y ago
  The screenshots in the post are likely from the simulator.
mickle00 3y ago
love that this was built from the Apollo developer. Obviously incredibly talented.
- futtureboomr 3y ago
  [dead]
- p-e-w 3y ago
  I'm amazed that someone who has been this badly burned by a corporation controlling their API access would even think about writing another app that uses third-party APIs, to be honest.
  - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
    Seems like a lot of the motivation was just recouping lost revenue from his existing YouTube player integration code.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    You don't need third-party APIs to make a YouTube viewer. There's a bunch of 3rd-party YouTube viewers like SmartTube, ReVanced, etc. that bypass ads and don't use the official API, plus of course the yt-dlp downloader. I'd say the lesson here is NOT to rely on official APIs. However, upon reading this blog post, it does seem he's using the official API so I guess he thinks he'll be fine as long as he doesn't block ads. Time will tell.
    - qt31415926 3y ago
      A lot of the internet would break if YouTube removed/tweaked their embedded video player so I doubt he has to worry.
      - yard2010 3y ago
        Keep in mind that this didn't prevent Facebook and Twitter doing the same, Google is just behind with these patterns, just like with everything else
ewzimm 3y ago
This looks beautiful. I think Alphabet just won a more premium app than they might have made by choosing not to play. I hope a Quest port might happen someday.
- drusepth 3y ago
  There might be less incentive for a Quest port because there's already an official YouTube app that works quite well on the platform.
  - ewzimm 3y ago
    It's not meant for MR like this. An immersive app for YouTube that let you have a window management experiece closer to the Vision Pro would be welcome.
    - drusepth 3y ago
      For the record, both the YouTube app and YouTube in the built-in browser seem to work just fine in mixed reality / passthrough (at least on my Quest 3), but the big feature they're both missing from Juno's feature list is resizable MR windows. Would love to see a Juno port at some point if it includes this too! Edit: According to the Internet, apparently there is actually a way to resize the MR windows (their "switch view" button lets you resize them); I'm apparently just blind. Would still love to see a Juno port though; more options is always good.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        You can resize windows by clicking and dragging the corner of the window.
      - ewzimm 3y ago
        I would just like to see people copy some of Apple's UI functionality inside Quest apps. The official YouTube app can do the standard flat panels that any Quest app can do, but it's limited to living inside the 1x3 app row that all flat Quest apps are bound to. The thing I like best about the Vision Pro is that it's MR-first and apps can be placed and anchored anywhere without being locked to each other. That's not implemented in the base UI of Quest yet, but it could be implemented inside an app like YouTube, allowing either virtual screens or various levels of immersive 3D to be anchored to spots in a room. With the v62 update, the Quest can now bring up its 1x3 app row while running an immersive app and also save multiple rooms. My dream YouTube app would be something that could play videos anchored to spots in various rooms while also running regular 2d apps through the standard Quest interface. For example, imagine that you had your favorite news program attached to your refrigerator and a night sky view attached to your bedroom ceiling and a 3D jungle instead of the brick wall outside your apartment if you have an unlucky view. This is obviously beyond the scope of this app right now, but I think there will be interest among Quest owners to run apps that copy some of the MR-focused features of the Vision Pro interface and expand upon them. Using something like an embedded web view with a nice interface and then incorporating some anchoring abilities would be enough to expand the usability of something like a video player. And although this app doesn't run 3D videos, I think that's more of a limitation of the Safari APIs right now. Something using the Quest browser's native ability to run 3D video should theoretically work.
cityzen 3y ago
I miss Apollo every day :(
- sssilverman 3y ago
  I tried using the official client for a while but just couldn't stand it and switched back to Apollo about a month ago. Sideloadly + ApolloPatcher was surprisingly easy to set up. Who knows how long it'll last, but it's basically set and forget once you create the Reddit+imgur API keys and enable wifi sync/auto refresh.
- Oreb 3y ago
  I always kind of liked Apollo, but I never saw what was so exceptional about it. These days, I use Narwhal 2, and I can't say I miss any functionality from Apollo. For my use, Narwhal is just as good as Apollo on the iPhone, and vastly superior on the iPad.
andsoitis 3y ago
Indy developer charges $5 for app to access 1.78 trillion dollar company’s ad-driven video sharing platform.
- dubrocks 3y ago
  They surely have their own business plan for AR/VR that you're not aware of.
- ubiquitysc 3y ago
  That seems pretty fair given the work put in to make what appears to be a much better experience than having to use it in the browser in VisionOS
- michaelhoney 3y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. Should they not charge anything?
  - huytersd 3y ago
    It’s a solo developer, a guy.
    - jazzyjackson 3y ago
      'they' is a great pronoun for ambiguous cases of sex & plurality
      - theshrike79 3y ago
        My native language doesn't have gendered pronouns, so I make an explicit point of using "they" for a pronoun every time I can.
      - danjc 3y ago
        It's a terrible pronoun since that usage is a retrofit of a word intended to be used as a plural.
p-e-w 3y ago
> So I dunno, if you can afford an expensive Apple Vision Pro, I’d really consider treating yourself to YouTube Premium! The reason I don't have premium (and one of the reasons I block ads) is that I don't want YouTube tracking my viewing habits, which I cannot prevent if I'm forced to log in to access premium. It has nothing to do with monetary cost. I'm always surprised when I see statements like this one that appear to be completely ignorant of this aspect.
- newaccount74 3y ago
  They track you whether you are logged in or not. I really don't think it is easy to escape their tracking.
- diebeforei485 3y ago
  Does their Incognito Mode meet your needs?
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    No, because I don't trust them. Otherwise I wouldn't have to worry in the first place.
    - eurekin 3y ago
      I love this comic on-topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/11gxpcu/our_little_secret/ https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/11gxpcu/our_little_...
- joemi 3y ago
  Stopping Google's tracking isn't as big a priority to most people as it seems to be to you (otherwise google would be out of business). So it shouldn't really be all that surprising when people make statements that aren't about stopping google's tracking.
- simiones 3y ago
  I think most people log in to YouTube specifically so YouTube can see what they look at and show them more content like that and sync across their device, even when they don't have Premium. Yours is a tiny tiny niche use case, even among people who would pay for a YT app.
jdminhbg 3y ago
So nice to see a YouTube client that makes sense on the platform it’s on. Compare to the official YT client for iPad, for example, which bizarrely uses the same tiny Material touch targets as on phones.
- MengerSponge 3y ago
  FYI, Vinegar is well worth a couple of bucks. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303229 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303... Install it, and delete the janky "native" app. Now Youtube is a webpage that does everything it does on a regular browser. PiP? Audio with the screen locked or in the background? Yes and yes.
  - rjzzleep 3y ago
    I've been using vinegar forever(Orion browser supports PiP without extension by the way) But it's bizarre to me how bad the PiP experience on iOS is. When you press play on your bluetooth headset it will pause the video you're playing instead play whatever was on your Music app. If you lock your screen, it will stop playing the youtube video and then you have press play again on the lock screen to resume. Contrast that to either third party youtube clients on Android or (Re)vanced, and it's not even close. And it seems every app has its own PiP issues. Every iOS I'm secretly hoping that Apple will address this issue, but it never happens ...
    - callalex 3y ago
      The first problem you describe (wanting to play both music and a video?) is just weird, and I’m glad the default pehavior doesn’t do that. Your second problem is jank intentionally introduced by YouTube.
  - isametry 3y ago
    Does it still block ads? I happily used Vinegar before, but it lost that functionality when YouTube’s crusade against ad blockers began (I don’t recall if it just let the ads through, or if it triggered the “Ad Blocker Detected” pop-up). With that, YouTube single-handedly forced me to move browsers on all my devices – from Safari to Orion, where I get to use uBlock Origin. uBlock seems to have stayed a step ahead of YT since.
ftio 3y ago
Christian isn’t charging enough! This could easily be $10 or more. I still grumble every time I use the Reddit app. RIP Apollo.
- monkeywork 3y ago
  While not as good as Apollo the "Dystopia for reddit" (iOS) or the "Red Reader" (android) are both better than the official reddit app.
  - geoelectric 3y ago
    iOS has Narwhal 2, as well. It’s got its own subscription to defray the API costs but it’s a reasonable price.
  - pantulis 3y ago
    Dystopia is excellent not only because it's free but because it is great for people with poor eyesight like myself, allowing for pretty big fonts that are broken on the official iOS Reddit App. The only alternative way I've found to achieve this is to browse Reddit with Safari and use page zoom. I'm still missing Apollo quite a lot. Narwhal2 is good and comes close but it's not exactly there.
    - jazzyjackson 3y ago
      thanks for reminding me to double check my stylesheets for big text compatibility.
      - pantulis 3y ago
        I always used to think that accessibility is for blind people, text readers and all that shit. Turns out that over the years accessibility ends up catching you one way or the other.
    - yard2010 3y ago
      Yo just for this incident reddit should be fined, but not peanuts, like 10-20% their revenue. Any business that discriminates disabled people mustn't be a business IMHO Don't worry. The EU will teach them a lesson when they're done with everyone else. Thank god we have the EU to balance US.
m3kw9 3y ago
Why do this when YouTube would have one eventually? This isn’t like Reddit client, I’ve never heard of a 3rd party YouTube client. Is he doing it for fun or just to get the initial impatient $$ before YouTube shows up?
- hokumguru 3y ago
  You didn’t use an iPhone before iOS6? Hate to break it to you but they took quite a few years with the last platform!
- wrsh07 3y ago
  The worst part of being an early adopter (very first world problems) is that nothing exists yet. When 4k HDR was first being supported, a couple of Netflix shows were there and... not much else (some YouTube videos of dubious quality) VisionOS is going to have a lot of new app developer excitement, and that's good! YouTube is one of the most used apps on my phone, $5 seems pretty reasonable.
- neurostimulant 3y ago
  > I’ve never heard of a 3rd party YouTube client. There are plenty of cool 3rd party youtube clients. SmartTube, NewPipe and Invidious come to mind. Youtube Revanced could be considered as 3rd party youtube client as well.
jdoss 3y ago
I echo the author's praise of YouTube Premium. When it first came out I was like there is no way I would ever pay for such service. Being an early YouTube user, pre Google buyout, I still was in love with the platform that gave me content from real people. Fast forward to 2020 the US election cycle broke me. I could not stand the amount of political ads that were being shoved down my throat. My kids were perma home due to COVID and we were running out of things to watch. I finally caved and got YouTube Premium. I told myself OK after this shit show of an election cycle ends I will cancel and yet here I am still paying for it. It is that good. Yes I realize that I am part of the problem. I just got my first Amazon Prime ad tonight trying to catch up on the train wreck Wheel of Time show they are putting out... and I am going to upgrade to not have them because I simply DGAF about whatever bullshit that they are filling advertisement slots with. $2.99 a month is worth it. Kill me now.
- imiric 3y ago
  So a corporation acquired the platform you enjoyed using, and corrupted the user experience so much that it forced you to pay them to get the old UX back, and... you're happy about it? Sounds like Stockholm syndrome, to be honest, with Google laughing all the way to the bank.
  - brabel 3y ago
    I think running the biggest video platform on the planet entirely for free is not realistic. Why are you so against Google charging a minimum fee for doing that while still giving you the opportunity to watch for free in exchange for being shown a few ads? Do you think they should be run as a charity?
    - imiric 3y ago
      > Why are you so against Google charging a minimum fee for doing that while still giving you the opportunity to watch for free in exchange for being shown a few ads? I'm against it because advertising is not the only business model that works at scale. Google effectively introduced itself as a middleman between content creators and consumers, which they continue to do whether you pay with your attention/data or cash. I happily support content creators who don't rely on advertising or Google itself. I just refuse to be forced into a corrupt business model.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xyst 3y ago
Only a matter of time until G blocks access to whatever API he is using or throttles it. YT invests a shit ton of money to ensure you use the official YT app to make sure you view their stupid ads, pump their ad profits, or buy YoUtUbE PrEmIuM looks good though! Won't be adopting the apple vision pro for awhile. but the developers pushing their apps to this ecosystem will definitely be awarded for early adoption until "native" apps are made available. pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy ($5-$10). Rake in that easy money while the big companies take their time in building their own app. Big companies then throttle or block those apis used by indy developers or require fee to use them. Indy developers likely to halt development and thus people end up on the official apps.
- quic5 3y ago
  > At its core, Juno uses the YouTube website itself. No, not scraped. It presents the website as you would load it, but similar to how browser extensions work, it tweaks the theming of the site through CSS and JavaScript.
  - serf 3y ago
    I don't know why it matters much, there is a near limitless plethora of tools one can use to do agent profiling, meaning that if Google cared enough they could still engage in hostile behavior to break the product in various ways.
    - Moldoteck 3y ago
      they could, but on the other hand there are a lot of apps like vanced/newpipe that still exist, so... Not just that, if under the hood the dev is using webkit+some extension-like blocking, it'll again be pretty hard to block and I'm not sure google is willing to invest effort/money in investigating this, esp considering that afaik juno doesn't even block ads
    - agos 3y ago
      they can probably go at it with just lawyers
pjmlp 3y ago
Just wait until Google blocks Juno, just like they did to Microsoft on Windows Phone when they created their own client.
- simiones 3y ago
  To be fair, there were plenty of 3rd party YouTube clients on Windows Phone that they didn't block (I even payed for one). They only really didn't want an official YouTube app to exist on Windows Phone, and the same will likely be true for VisionPro (even assuming that Google wants to try to bury VisionOS like they did with Windows - which is not clear yet). And a payed YouTube app will obviously have a tiny install base on any platform, so they don't really care.
tobiasbischoff 3y ago
Is there already a word for this fetish of putting your fate in the hands of big companies not shutting you down from their APIs?
- blowski 3y ago
  Let’s ask some of the people who made a fortune out of doing it. Entrepreneurial, maybe?
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  marketshareophelia
- hiddencost 3y ago
  Capitalism
- graphe 3y ago
  Fetishes are sexually derrived or worship of an idol. Are you calling them losers for not scraping?
  - derefr 3y ago
    Masochists, more like.
    - graphe 3y ago
      Does scraping ever cause an app to stop working?
- newaccount74 3y ago
  I assume that Christian Selig made enough money with Apollo before it was shut down to make it a worthwhile business, even if it was not forever. He seems to be doing just fine despite a big company shutting him down.
- manquer 3y ago
  Why do you think this is a flawed decision to do so ? In my opinion this is a conscious choice by Selig both times and a good one. There are business models where venture funding is unsuitable as there will never be hockey stick growth or unit economics or competitive moats etc, traditionally companies usually small operate here, they are not startups, just SMB doing non flashy stuff. Similarly also many business models unsuitable talented product teams to risk on , that are perfect for a highly talented freelancer such as Christian Selig - like third party API dependent ideas. He is amongst the best indie developers in the Apple ecosystem and doesn't have to worry about competition quality too much in these ideas. These are four main ways that I know of, to be a professional talented product developer - 1. Become a founder, raise funding, chase growth and do things you don't really like anymore 2. Freelance and do boring consulting work, trying to keep customer happy 3. Work in a big bureaucratic tech company and be frustrated constantly with everything from politics to red tape. 4. Pour your heart and soul into a early stage startup and watch it either outgrow you or crash and burn. He instead gets to build products at a massive scale without having any overhead of an organization, and also making decent amount of money (upwards of few million/year with Apollo), what more can a developer aspire for ?
notso411 3y ago
What is the point? Just load up youtube.com press a video full screen it then drag the window around your vision UI
awsanswers 3y ago
Great moves, great write up. This is simple world class software decision making
nntwozz 3y ago
If you're into self-hosting there is https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious which works great with https://github.com/yattee/yattee https://github.com/yattee/yattee for macOS/iOS/tvOS. This combo is amazing, haven't looked back ever since I deployed it with docker. Hopefully Yattee will make a native visionOS app in the future.
- smith7018 3y ago
  Does this system provide the same level of content recommendations as the Youtube homepage? If so then I'll set it up tonight!
  - ozarker 3y ago
    There aren’t recommendations like youd see on the YouTube front page. There are “next video” recommendations like YouTube though
  - toastercat 3y ago
    Part of the appeal for these privacy front-ends is the zero tracking, so you don't get the hyper-aware recommendations of normal YouTube. I'd say if that's a major selling point to you, you probably wouldn't enjoy Invidious. Though, I'd recommend people try self curating a list of subscriptions and discover new videos a more organic way (friends making recommendations, or seeing videos on HN or Reddit). I personally have found my YouTube experience to be less distracting when I started using Invidious.
- toastercat 3y ago
  Also in this realm, for Roku there is https://github.com/iBicha/playlet https://github.com/iBicha/playlet which works great when hooked up to my self-hosted Invidious instance.
- lancesells 3y ago
  I use Yattee on tvOS but lots of invidious and piped servers seem to all be very slow to load. Any server you recommend?
iseanstevens 3y ago
Such a good read. This Apollo dev has a good worldview
Zenul_Abidin 3y ago
Brought to you by the man who created Apollo for Reddit.
- consumer451 3y ago
  For reference, please see the #2 top post on Reddit in the last year. This is the impact that a single developer can have. If that's not inspirational, then I don't know what is. https://old.reddit.com/top/?sort=top&t=year https://old.reddit.com/top/?sort=top&t=year
  - poochkoishi728 3y ago
    All I see is a picture of a dick-shaped 9/11 memorial..
  - poochkoishi728 3y ago
    I must admit, this is much more creative and entertaining than being rick-rolled
Sutanreyu 3y ago
Needs VR video support. :)
KhalPanda 3y ago
I think $5 is _beyond_ fair, considering every user will have dropped >$3k on hardware.
- graphe 3y ago
  With that logic every app that is free on an iPhone pro max must be unfair.
  - spiderfarmer 3y ago
    If you think that for every fact in life, the inverse is also true, then you're bad at logic.
  - KhalPanda 3y ago
    For apps that run exclusively on brand new iPhone pro max's, sure. ...but seeing as that isn't the case.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    If developers could price apps differently for the cheap Vs expensive iPhones, they would.
    - graphe 3y ago
      They do. Death stranding only works on the newest iphone. You're free to buy a non functional app but it happens as for ipad only.
- simiones 3y ago
  Conversely, if I spent $3.5k on a device, I'm not paying a cent more to watch YouTube on it.
  - dubcanada 3y ago
    You would certainly be in the minority, Apple profits alone state that people are more then willing to pay an excessively large sum of money for products and then buy $1000 stands.
Aissen 3y ago
Question for Christian: doesn't YouTube limit the player when using the embed API (max resolution for example) ?
- whatsthatabout 3y ago
  He answers this on the website: "...There’s no API keys, or limits to how many times a day you can call it..."
  - Aissen 3y ago
    Have you never had an issue while using an embedded video on a website ? Whether a message "it cannot be played, go to YouTube", or trying to select a high-resolution, or subtitles and failing ?
    - criddell 3y ago
      He addresses this: > The one downside is that occasionally you’ll get a creator who disabled playback for YouTube embeds. This is rare, especially with videos made in the last few years, but for those Juno will auto-detect that and just load up the normal video website page rather than the fancy player.
      - Aissen 3y ago
        That answers my question about the embeds not playing at all (thank you, that's what I get for speed reading), but I'm curious if there are other limitations.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
rixrax 3y ago
I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about the Vision Pro and how much I want it to be everything it claims to be! Are there any info available from people who have received their headsets that are 'standard' production versions, and not Apple supplied early access versions? I want to hit that order button, but the rational me tells me to wait for some initial real life reviews to roll in.
- lfkdev 3y ago
  I think the MKBHD video is on a normal consumer one
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago
  They’re the same thing you’ll get at retail
julienreszka 3y ago
Very cool
danjc 3y ago
A little off topic but absence of a first party app like YouTube is notable and will really hurt AVP - as intended of course.
SeriousM 3y ago
> Does it block ads? It doesn’t, I don’t think Google would like that, but if you have YouTube Premium you won’t see ads, just like the website. I just realised that a new product means new eco system, means less/no customization possibilities. What a wonderful world...
- reustle 3y ago
  I wouldn't necessarily call it a new ecosystem. It's mostly the same walled garden that runs iOS/iPadOS.
  - Terretta 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Would you mind explaining your position a little more? Are you saying that walled gardens keep evil away, or are you saying that they can hurt the user?
      - jameshart 3y ago
        Maybe they’re just complaining that AMC is t making an app for Vision Pro. Actually I think The Walking Dead is available via AppleTV so they’re already inside the walls.
      - samstave 3y ago
        Walled gardens keep attention-span-harvesting profits on the inside.
        Terretta 3y ago
        > Walled gardens keep attention-span-harvesting profits on the inside. A few different counters: 1. Steam is on an "open" platform and charges the same 30% for the marketplace access value as the rest of the industry, whether open or appliance/console, including Apple. So it is memetic but incorrect to argue that Apple being "walled garden" is causing Apple to take more from devs than other places devs can market their wares. 2. Apple's "ingredient labeling" telling users what personal data is being harvested and resold has changed a variety of apps' practices so the data is not, in fact, exfiltrating. In general, big tech is mad about this labeling, and wants out of it, since "profits" associated with secret resale of personal data are being prevented .. not kept inside. For what happens elsewhere, one need look no further than the $5B settlement from Chrome "Incognito" mode: - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/google-agrees-to-settle-in-chrome-incognito-mode-class-action-lawsuit/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/google-agrees-to... 3. If the argument is "attention span harvesting" means "ads" that package and sell users to advertisers, and that that is what Apple is gate keeping, on the contrary, the adtech ecosystem profits are not being kept "on the inside": - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722057?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722057?hl=en - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10384955?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10384955?hl=en 4. Coincidentally, Juno (what this HN post is about) is a one-time purchase. Nothing about attention-span harvesting from the garden or wall. It's app makers who are choosing the user-hostile attention-span harvesting, which causes them to be misaligned with users and Apple.
mromanuk 3y ago
I like how Christian Selig find big tech problematic UI/Ux products and fix that with an app.
hhh 3y ago
This feels like an early iPhone app launch in the best of ways.
CivBase 3y ago
> Does it block ads? It doesn’t, I don’t think Google would like that I suspect Google already doesn't like what you're doing. They chose to make their own app unavailable on the AVP even though it sounds like it would be trivial for them to do so. Whatever their reasons are, I doubt they're keen about a third party stepping in with an alternative.
thatxliner 3y ago
Just wondering, how does the logistics of pricing it at a one time purchase work? Isn’t there a $99/year Apple developer program?
- infinitecost 3y ago
  It’s $5. Can you imagine it remaining supported in 5 years?
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  He's probably hoping to get more than 20 purchases.
LeSaucy 3y ago
Talented developer for sure, but has a knack for developing software that piggy backs of silicon valley giants that can turn off access at a moments notice.
- grashalm 3y ago
  I don't understand what reasonable alternative there could be. Develop your own YouTube?
  - krapp 3y ago
    For certain values of "reasonable": Peertube is one distributed option[0]. Many content creators have started hosting videos on other services like Patreon because of Youtube's censorship and demonetization policies. Which doesn't entirely avoid the centralization problem but it's better not to put all of your eggs in one basket. It's also possible (although obviously not always feasible) to self-host or torrent. [0]https://joinpeertube.org/en_US https://joinpeertube.org/en_US
    - grashalm 3y ago
      Thanks for the link. I didn't know Peertube, yet. I can't see how you can avoid the centralization problem and also have decent monetization for the videos. But I want to certainly become convinced that it can work. Crypto made me a decentralization skeptic.
    - docmars 3y ago
      Worth mentioning that Rumble, Odysee, and Bitchute are all excellent alternative platforms to host videos at, without the concerns YouTube has introduced. Although, I can't speak to monetization for any of these — which is where Patreon excels here. X.com is also trying to enter the space by hosting longer videos and allowing accounts to earn ad revenue as well as building a subscriber base who can support creators directly. It's not half bad. Full disclaimer: I think it might be implied, but there's certainly a lot of political distaste around these platforms since they finally freed themselves from the shackles of government-aided censorship, and takedowns that are heavily biased towards promoting progressive views (especially radical). With that said, everyone please refrain from attacking this reply for merely mentioning these platforms as options, as they are equally valid ways to build a following and/or monetize your content, even if they support creators who run against your own views. As they say, diversity is our strength!
ipshii 3y ago
This look very very cool!
AISnakeOil 3y ago
Why do you need an app when you can watch it on the web browser?
- Shank 3y ago
  > but YouTube.com stinks — it’s a minefield of UI targets that are too small for eye-tracking’s precision [0] [0]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro
  - 1231232131231 3y ago
    Maybe we were never meant to aim for buttons and controls with our eyes. Maybe there's a reason why devices like mobile phones want you to use your hands instead of tracking your eyes like the Vision Pro does.
bambax 3y ago
> Does it block ads? It doesn’t Having recently tried to watch Youtube on iPad without an adblocker, I discovered Youtube advertising. It's insufferable. Ads appear every few minutes, and they're not like the TV ads of yore. They're exclusively get-rich-quick schemes with people explaining how they're able to earn $10,000 a month doing nothing -- all one has to do is go to that website and subscribe to a shady course. Fortunately Brave still blocks ads successfully, even on an iPad. Without it, it would be unusable. I wonder who puts up with this.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  I think youtube ads are terrible and frequent because youtube decided they have no competition and if people want to watch videos, they'll either put up with that shit or pay for premium which is what youtube actually wants.
thih9 3y ago
> There’s no API keys, or limits to how many times a day you can call it Yet. Just like with Apollo and Reddit API, at some point there weren’t any.
vessenes 3y ago
This looks awesome. Christian, you mention comments as a possible future feature -- I think the idea of a livestream off in the corner with comments as a separate spatial box might be nice. I don't like to leave streams on while I'm doing other things, but lots of younger folk I know do, and part of the stream consumption experience is the comments.
thallavajhula 3y ago
I like Christian. I was a Apollo (Reddit client) user. I supported him during the whole Reddit vs Devs fiasco of 2023. I'm not sure this is a good idea. YouTube (Google) intentionally didn't want to put up their app on the AppStore. They had their reasons. Ignoring their reasons and creating an app using their APIs and putting up an app in the AppStore against their will, just doesn't seem like a good move here.
jerrygoyal 3y ago
> At its core, Juno uses the YouTube website itself. so if it's the official YT site with css customisation then why is there a need to embed video like it's an external site?

686 points by axxl 3y ago

yard2010 3y ago

I wish Google is the the Blockbuster of our time, making money off nefarious patterns just to be replaced completely by something more novel ...that ends up making money off nefarious patterns

basil-rash 3y ago

> and YouTube still gets to show ads Is this true? I have never seen an ad on my embedded youtube player. Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was rendering.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
shiroiuma 3y ago
>Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was rendering. I'm sure they'd be happy to take direct donations. Many have Patreon accounts you can subscribe to. Those creators aren't getting any meaningful revenue from ads; that's why they all added those annoying sponsor segments.
- basil-rash 3y ago
  If I had any revenue, I’d be happy to share it. In reality I bear the full cost of all the resources required to host the site at the benefit of the community with no ads or anything else to offset it, and despite having several thousand active users nobody has interacted with the prominent “tip {channel name}” buttons I added. I’d love if folks could use my site as a 0-guilt alternative to watching the same videos on youtube (plus lots of AI-enhanced goodness), but with the ads stripped away its not quite the same.

user2344597 3y ago

How do you record the POV from the Vision Pro goggles?

basil-rash 3y ago
There’s a screen record function, the same as the rest of iOS. MKBHD uses it extensively in his review video.
- user2344597 3y ago
  Thanks
axxl 3y ago
These were recorded in the simulator as stated in the article by Christian. However there is a recording mode on the device itself as well, although as I don't have one I don't know the specifics.
- user2344597 3y ago
  I see, thank you. I was watching MKBHD and Brian Tong on YT and they were using extensive actual POV recording: https://youtu.be/GkPw6ScHyb4 https://youtu.be/GkPw6ScHyb4
  - ryankrage77 3y ago
    In those reviews it looks like a mix of screen recording (what the user sees), and you can also record and take pictures from the onboard cameras (headset PoV). Thanks to the passthrough, screen recording will often also capture the room and the users hands.
- ugh123 3y ago
  well now those rooms look totally rendered! :)
shuckles 3y ago
The screenshots in the post are likely from the simulator.

mickle00 3y ago

love that this was built from the Apollo developer. Obviously incredibly talented.

futtureboomr 3y ago
[dead]
p-e-w 3y ago
I'm amazed that someone who has been this badly burned by a corporation controlling their API access would even think about writing another app that uses third-party APIs, to be honest.
- dumbo-octopus 3y ago
  Seems like a lot of the motivation was just recouping lost revenue from his existing YouTube player integration code.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  You don't need third-party APIs to make a YouTube viewer. There's a bunch of 3rd-party YouTube viewers like SmartTube, ReVanced, etc. that bypass ads and don't use the official API, plus of course the yt-dlp downloader. I'd say the lesson here is NOT to rely on official APIs. However, upon reading this blog post, it does seem he's using the official API so I guess he thinks he'll be fine as long as he doesn't block ads. Time will tell.
  - qt31415926 3y ago
    A lot of the internet would break if YouTube removed/tweaked their embedded video player so I doubt he has to worry.
    - yard2010 3y ago
      Keep in mind that this didn't prevent Facebook and Twitter doing the same, Google is just behind with these patterns, just like with everything else

ewzimm 3y ago

This looks beautiful. I think Alphabet just won a more premium app than they might have made by choosing not to play. I hope a Quest port might happen someday.

drusepth 3y ago
There might be less incentive for a Quest port because there's already an official YouTube app that works quite well on the platform.
- ewzimm 3y ago
  It's not meant for MR like this. An immersive app for YouTube that let you have a window management experiece closer to the Vision Pro would be welcome.
  - drusepth 3y ago
    For the record, both the YouTube app and YouTube in the built-in browser seem to work just fine in mixed reality / passthrough (at least on my Quest 3), but the big feature they're both missing from Juno's feature list is resizable MR windows. Would love to see a Juno port at some point if it includes this too! Edit: According to the Internet, apparently there is actually a way to resize the MR windows (their "switch view" button lets you resize them); I'm apparently just blind. Would still love to see a Juno port though; more options is always good.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      You can resize windows by clicking and dragging the corner of the window.
    - ewzimm 3y ago
      I would just like to see people copy some of Apple's UI functionality inside Quest apps. The official YouTube app can do the standard flat panels that any Quest app can do, but it's limited to living inside the 1x3 app row that all flat Quest apps are bound to. The thing I like best about the Vision Pro is that it's MR-first and apps can be placed and anchored anywhere without being locked to each other. That's not implemented in the base UI of Quest yet, but it could be implemented inside an app like YouTube, allowing either virtual screens or various levels of immersive 3D to be anchored to spots in a room. With the v62 update, the Quest can now bring up its 1x3 app row while running an immersive app and also save multiple rooms. My dream YouTube app would be something that could play videos anchored to spots in various rooms while also running regular 2d apps through the standard Quest interface. For example, imagine that you had your favorite news program attached to your refrigerator and a night sky view attached to your bedroom ceiling and a 3D jungle instead of the brick wall outside your apartment if you have an unlucky view. This is obviously beyond the scope of this app right now, but I think there will be interest among Quest owners to run apps that copy some of the MR-focused features of the Vision Pro interface and expand upon them. Using something like an embedded web view with a nice interface and then incorporating some anchoring abilities would be enough to expand the usability of something like a video player. And although this app doesn't run 3D videos, I think that's more of a limitation of the Safari APIs right now. Something using the Quest browser's native ability to run 3D video should theoretically work.

cityzen 3y ago

I miss Apollo every day :(

sssilverman 3y ago
I tried using the official client for a while but just couldn't stand it and switched back to Apollo about a month ago. Sideloadly + ApolloPatcher was surprisingly easy to set up. Who knows how long it'll last, but it's basically set and forget once you create the Reddit+imgur API keys and enable wifi sync/auto refresh.
Oreb 3y ago
I always kind of liked Apollo, but I never saw what was so exceptional about it. These days, I use Narwhal 2, and I can't say I miss any functionality from Apollo. For my use, Narwhal is just as good as Apollo on the iPhone, and vastly superior on the iPad.

andsoitis 3y ago

Indy developer charges $5 for app to access 1.78 trillion dollar company’s ad-driven video sharing platform.

dubrocks 3y ago
They surely have their own business plan for AR/VR that you're not aware of.
ubiquitysc 3y ago
That seems pretty fair given the work put in to make what appears to be a much better experience than having to use it in the browser in VisionOS
michaelhoney 3y ago
I'm not sure what your point is. Should they not charge anything?
- huytersd 3y ago
  It’s a solo developer, a guy.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    'they' is a great pronoun for ambiguous cases of sex & plurality
    - theshrike79 3y ago
      My native language doesn't have gendered pronouns, so I make an explicit point of using "they" for a pronoun every time I can.
    - danjc 3y ago
      It's a terrible pronoun since that usage is a retrofit of a word intended to be used as a plural.

p-e-w 3y ago

> So I dunno, if you can afford an expensive Apple Vision Pro, I’d really consider treating yourself to YouTube Premium! The reason I don't have premium (and one of the reasons I block ads) is that I don't want YouTube tracking my viewing habits, which I cannot prevent if I'm forced to log in to access premium. It has nothing to do with monetary cost. I'm always surprised when I see statements like this one that appear to be completely ignorant of this aspect.

newaccount74 3y ago
They track you whether you are logged in or not. I really don't think it is easy to escape their tracking.
diebeforei485 3y ago
Does their Incognito Mode meet your needs?
- p-e-w 3y ago
  No, because I don't trust them. Otherwise I wouldn't have to worry in the first place.
  - eurekin 3y ago
    I love this comic on-topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/11gxpcu/our_little_secret/ https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/11gxpcu/our_little_...
joemi 3y ago
Stopping Google's tracking isn't as big a priority to most people as it seems to be to you (otherwise google would be out of business). So it shouldn't really be all that surprising when people make statements that aren't about stopping google's tracking.
simiones 3y ago
I think most people log in to YouTube specifically so YouTube can see what they look at and show them more content like that and sync across their device, even when they don't have Premium. Yours is a tiny tiny niche use case, even among people who would pay for a YT app.

jdminhbg 3y ago

So nice to see a YouTube client that makes sense on the platform it’s on. Compare to the official YT client for iPad, for example, which bizarrely uses the same tiny Material touch targets as on phones.

MengerSponge 3y ago
FYI, Vinegar is well worth a couple of bucks. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303229 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303... Install it, and delete the janky "native" app. Now Youtube is a webpage that does everything it does on a regular browser. PiP? Audio with the screen locked or in the background? Yes and yes.
- rjzzleep 3y ago
  I've been using vinegar forever(Orion browser supports PiP without extension by the way) But it's bizarre to me how bad the PiP experience on iOS is. When you press play on your bluetooth headset it will pause the video you're playing instead play whatever was on your Music app. If you lock your screen, it will stop playing the youtube video and then you have press play again on the lock screen to resume. Contrast that to either third party youtube clients on Android or (Re)vanced, and it's not even close. And it seems every app has its own PiP issues. Every iOS I'm secretly hoping that Apple will address this issue, but it never happens ...
  - callalex 3y ago
    The first problem you describe (wanting to play both music and a video?) is just weird, and I’m glad the default pehavior doesn’t do that. Your second problem is jank intentionally introduced by YouTube.
- isametry 3y ago
  Does it still block ads? I happily used Vinegar before, but it lost that functionality when YouTube’s crusade against ad blockers began (I don’t recall if it just let the ads through, or if it triggered the “Ad Blocker Detected” pop-up). With that, YouTube single-handedly forced me to move browsers on all my devices – from Safari to Orion, where I get to use uBlock Origin. uBlock seems to have stayed a step ahead of YT since.

ftio 3y ago

Christian isn’t charging enough! This could easily be $10 or more. I still grumble every time I use the Reddit app. RIP Apollo.

monkeywork 3y ago
While not as good as Apollo the "Dystopia for reddit" (iOS) or the "Red Reader" (android) are both better than the official reddit app.
- geoelectric 3y ago
  iOS has Narwhal 2, as well. It’s got its own subscription to defray the API costs but it’s a reasonable price.
- pantulis 3y ago
  Dystopia is excellent not only because it's free but because it is great for people with poor eyesight like myself, allowing for pretty big fonts that are broken on the official iOS Reddit App. The only alternative way I've found to achieve this is to browse Reddit with Safari and use page zoom. I'm still missing Apollo quite a lot. Narwhal2 is good and comes close but it's not exactly there.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    thanks for reminding me to double check my stylesheets for big text compatibility.
    - pantulis 3y ago
      I always used to think that accessibility is for blind people, text readers and all that shit. Turns out that over the years accessibility ends up catching you one way or the other.
  - yard2010 3y ago
    Yo just for this incident reddit should be fined, but not peanuts, like 10-20% their revenue. Any business that discriminates disabled people mustn't be a business IMHO Don't worry. The EU will teach them a lesson when they're done with everyone else. Thank god we have the EU to balance US.

m3kw9 3y ago

Why do this when YouTube would have one eventually? This isn’t like Reddit client, I’ve never heard of a 3rd party YouTube client. Is he doing it for fun or just to get the initial impatient $$ before YouTube shows up?

hokumguru 3y ago
You didn’t use an iPhone before iOS6? Hate to break it to you but they took quite a few years with the last platform!
wrsh07 3y ago
The worst part of being an early adopter (very first world problems) is that nothing exists yet. When 4k HDR was first being supported, a couple of Netflix shows were there and... not much else (some YouTube videos of dubious quality) VisionOS is going to have a lot of new app developer excitement, and that's good! YouTube is one of the most used apps on my phone, $5 seems pretty reasonable.
neurostimulant 3y ago
> I’ve never heard of a 3rd party YouTube client. There are plenty of cool 3rd party youtube clients. SmartTube, NewPipe and Invidious come to mind. Youtube Revanced could be considered as 3rd party youtube client as well.

jdoss 3y ago

I echo the author's praise of YouTube Premium. When it first came out I was like there is no way I would ever pay for such service. Being an early YouTube user, pre Google buyout, I still was in love with the platform that gave me content from real people. Fast forward to 2020 the US election cycle broke me. I could not stand the amount of political ads that were being shoved down my throat. My kids were perma home due to COVID and we were running out of things to watch. I finally caved and got YouTube Premium. I told myself OK after this shit show of an election cycle ends I will cancel and yet here I am still paying for it. It is that good. Yes I realize that I am part of the problem. I just got my first Amazon Prime ad tonight trying to catch up on the train wreck Wheel of Time show they are putting out... and I am going to upgrade to not have them because I simply DGAF about whatever bullshit that they are filling advertisement slots with. $2.99 a month is worth it. Kill me now.

imiric 3y ago
So a corporation acquired the platform you enjoyed using, and corrupted the user experience so much that it forced you to pay them to get the old UX back, and... you're happy about it? Sounds like Stockholm syndrome, to be honest, with Google laughing all the way to the bank.
- brabel 3y ago
  I think running the biggest video platform on the planet entirely for free is not realistic. Why are you so against Google charging a minimum fee for doing that while still giving you the opportunity to watch for free in exchange for being shown a few ads? Do you think they should be run as a charity?
  - imiric 3y ago
    > Why are you so against Google charging a minimum fee for doing that while still giving you the opportunity to watch for free in exchange for being shown a few ads? I'm against it because advertising is not the only business model that works at scale. Google effectively introduced itself as a middleman between content creators and consumers, which they continue to do whether you pay with your attention/data or cash. I happily support content creators who don't rely on advertising or Google itself. I just refuse to be forced into a corrupt business model.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

xyst 3y ago

Only a matter of time until G blocks access to whatever API he is using or throttles it. YT invests a shit ton of money to ensure you use the official YT app to make sure you view their stupid ads, pump their ad profits, or buy YoUtUbE PrEmIuM looks good though! Won't be adopting the apple vision pro for awhile. but the developers pushing their apps to this ecosystem will definitely be awarded for early adoption until "native" apps are made available. pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy ($5-$10). Rake in that easy money while the big companies take their time in building their own app. Big companies then throttle or block those apis used by indy developers or require fee to use them. Indy developers likely to halt development and thus people end up on the official apps.

quic5 3y ago
> At its core, Juno uses the YouTube website itself. No, not scraped. It presents the website as you would load it, but similar to how browser extensions work, it tweaks the theming of the site through CSS and JavaScript.
- serf 3y ago
  I don't know why it matters much, there is a near limitless plethora of tools one can use to do agent profiling, meaning that if Google cared enough they could still engage in hostile behavior to break the product in various ways.
  - Moldoteck 3y ago
    they could, but on the other hand there are a lot of apps like vanced/newpipe that still exist, so... Not just that, if under the hood the dev is using webkit+some extension-like blocking, it'll again be pretty hard to block and I'm not sure google is willing to invest effort/money in investigating this, esp considering that afaik juno doesn't even block ads
  - agos 3y ago
    they can probably go at it with just lawyers

pjmlp 3y ago

Just wait until Google blocks Juno, just like they did to Microsoft on Windows Phone when they created their own client.

simiones 3y ago
To be fair, there were plenty of 3rd party YouTube clients on Windows Phone that they didn't block (I even payed for one). They only really didn't want an official YouTube app to exist on Windows Phone, and the same will likely be true for VisionPro (even assuming that Google wants to try to bury VisionOS like they did with Windows - which is not clear yet). And a payed YouTube app will obviously have a tiny install base on any platform, so they don't really care.

tobiasbischoff 3y ago

Is there already a word for this fetish of putting your fate in the hands of big companies not shutting you down from their APIs?

blowski 3y ago
Let’s ask some of the people who made a fortune out of doing it. Entrepreneurial, maybe?
jazzyjackson 3y ago
marketshareophelia
hiddencost 3y ago
Capitalism
graphe 3y ago
Fetishes are sexually derrived or worship of an idol. Are you calling them losers for not scraping?
- derefr 3y ago
  Masochists, more like.
  - graphe 3y ago
    Does scraping ever cause an app to stop working?
newaccount74 3y ago
I assume that Christian Selig made enough money with Apollo before it was shut down to make it a worthwhile business, even if it was not forever. He seems to be doing just fine despite a big company shutting him down.
manquer 3y ago
Why do you think this is a flawed decision to do so ? In my opinion this is a conscious choice by Selig both times and a good one. There are business models where venture funding is unsuitable as there will never be hockey stick growth or unit economics or competitive moats etc, traditionally companies usually small operate here, they are not startups, just SMB doing non flashy stuff. Similarly also many business models unsuitable talented product teams to risk on , that are perfect for a highly talented freelancer such as Christian Selig - like third party API dependent ideas. He is amongst the best indie developers in the Apple ecosystem and doesn't have to worry about competition quality too much in these ideas. These are four main ways that I know of, to be a professional talented product developer - 1. Become a founder, raise funding, chase growth and do things you don't really like anymore 2. Freelance and do boring consulting work, trying to keep customer happy 3. Work in a big bureaucratic tech company and be frustrated constantly with everything from politics to red tape. 4. Pour your heart and soul into a early stage startup and watch it either outgrow you or crash and burn. He instead gets to build products at a massive scale without having any overhead of an organization, and also making decent amount of money (upwards of few million/year with Apollo), what more can a developer aspire for ?

notso411 3y ago

What is the point? Just load up youtube.com press a video full screen it then drag the window around your vision UI

awsanswers 3y ago

Great moves, great write up. This is simple world class software decision making

nntwozz 3y ago

If you're into self-hosting there is https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious which works great with https://github.com/yattee/yattee https://github.com/yattee/yattee for macOS/iOS/tvOS. This combo is amazing, haven't looked back ever since I deployed it with docker. Hopefully Yattee will make a native visionOS app in the future.

smith7018 3y ago
Does this system provide the same level of content recommendations as the Youtube homepage? If so then I'll set it up tonight!
- ozarker 3y ago
  There aren’t recommendations like youd see on the YouTube front page. There are “next video” recommendations like YouTube though
- toastercat 3y ago
  Part of the appeal for these privacy front-ends is the zero tracking, so you don't get the hyper-aware recommendations of normal YouTube. I'd say if that's a major selling point to you, you probably wouldn't enjoy Invidious. Though, I'd recommend people try self curating a list of subscriptions and discover new videos a more organic way (friends making recommendations, or seeing videos on HN or Reddit). I personally have found my YouTube experience to be less distracting when I started using Invidious.
toastercat 3y ago
Also in this realm, for Roku there is https://github.com/iBicha/playlet https://github.com/iBicha/playlet which works great when hooked up to my self-hosted Invidious instance.
lancesells 3y ago
I use Yattee on tvOS but lots of invidious and piped servers seem to all be very slow to load. Any server you recommend?

iseanstevens 3y ago

Such a good read. This Apollo dev has a good worldview

Zenul_Abidin 3y ago

Brought to you by the man who created Apollo for Reddit.

consumer451 3y ago
For reference, please see the #2 top post on Reddit in the last year. This is the impact that a single developer can have. If that's not inspirational, then I don't know what is. https://old.reddit.com/top/?sort=top&t=year https://old.reddit.com/top/?sort=top&t=year
- poochkoishi728 3y ago
  All I see is a picture of a dick-shaped 9/11 memorial..
- poochkoishi728 3y ago
  I must admit, this is much more creative and entertaining than being rick-rolled

Sutanreyu 3y ago

Needs VR video support. :)

KhalPanda 3y ago

I think $5 is _beyond_ fair, considering every user will have dropped >$3k on hardware.

graphe 3y ago
With that logic every app that is free on an iPhone pro max must be unfair.
- spiderfarmer 3y ago
  If you think that for every fact in life, the inverse is also true, then you're bad at logic.
- KhalPanda 3y ago
  For apps that run exclusively on brand new iPhone pro max's, sure. ...but seeing as that isn't the case.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  If developers could price apps differently for the cheap Vs expensive iPhones, they would.
  - graphe 3y ago
    They do. Death stranding only works on the newest iphone. You're free to buy a non functional app but it happens as for ipad only.
simiones 3y ago
Conversely, if I spent $3.5k on a device, I'm not paying a cent more to watch YouTube on it.
- dubcanada 3y ago
  You would certainly be in the minority, Apple profits alone state that people are more then willing to pay an excessively large sum of money for products and then buy $1000 stands.

Aissen 3y ago

Question for Christian: doesn't YouTube limit the player when using the embed API (max resolution for example) ?

whatsthatabout 3y ago
He answers this on the website: "...There’s no API keys, or limits to how many times a day you can call it..."
- Aissen 3y ago
  Have you never had an issue while using an embedded video on a website ? Whether a message "it cannot be played, go to YouTube", or trying to select a high-resolution, or subtitles and failing ?
  - criddell 3y ago
    He addresses this: > The one downside is that occasionally you’ll get a creator who disabled playback for YouTube embeds. This is rare, especially with videos made in the last few years, but for those Juno will auto-detect that and just load up the normal video website page rather than the fancy player.
    - Aissen 3y ago
      That answers my question about the embeds not playing at all (thank you, that's what I get for speed reading), but I'm curious if there are other limitations.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

rixrax 3y ago

I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about the Vision Pro and how much I want it to be everything it claims to be! Are there any info available from people who have received their headsets that are 'standard' production versions, and not Apple supplied early access versions? I want to hit that order button, but the rational me tells me to wait for some initial real life reviews to roll in.

lfkdev 3y ago
I think the MKBHD video is on a normal consumer one
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
They’re the same thing you’ll get at retail

julienreszka 3y ago

Very cool

danjc 3y ago

A little off topic but absence of a first party app like YouTube is notable and will really hurt AVP - as intended of course.

SeriousM 3y ago

> Does it block ads? It doesn’t, I don’t think Google would like that, but if you have YouTube Premium you won’t see ads, just like the website. I just realised that a new product means new eco system, means less/no customization possibilities. What a wonderful world...

reustle 3y ago
I wouldn't necessarily call it a new ecosystem. It's mostly the same walled garden that runs iOS/iPadOS.
- Terretta 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Would you mind explaining your position a little more? Are you saying that walled gardens keep evil away, or are you saying that they can hurt the user?
    - jameshart 3y ago
      Maybe they’re just complaining that AMC is t making an app for Vision Pro. Actually I think The Walking Dead is available via AppleTV so they’re already inside the walls.
    - samstave 3y ago
      Walled gardens keep attention-span-harvesting profits on the inside.
      - Terretta 3y ago
        > Walled gardens keep attention-span-harvesting profits on the inside. A few different counters: 1. Steam is on an "open" platform and charges the same 30% for the marketplace access value as the rest of the industry, whether open or appliance/console, including Apple. So it is memetic but incorrect to argue that Apple being "walled garden" is causing Apple to take more from devs than other places devs can market their wares. 2. Apple's "ingredient labeling" telling users what personal data is being harvested and resold has changed a variety of apps' practices so the data is not, in fact, exfiltrating. In general, big tech is mad about this labeling, and wants out of it, since "profits" associated with secret resale of personal data are being prevented .. not kept inside. For what happens elsewhere, one need look no further than the $5B settlement from Chrome "Incognito" mode: - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/google-agrees-to-settle-in-chrome-incognito-mode-class-action-lawsuit/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/google-agrees-to... 3. If the argument is "attention span harvesting" means "ads" that package and sell users to advertisers, and that that is what Apple is gate keeping, on the contrary, the adtech ecosystem profits are not being kept "on the inside": - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722057?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722057?hl=en - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10384955?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10384955?hl=en 4. Coincidentally, Juno (what this HN post is about) is a one-time purchase. Nothing about attention-span harvesting from the garden or wall. It's app makers who are choosing the user-hostile attention-span harvesting, which causes them to be misaligned with users and Apple.

mromanuk 3y ago

I like how Christian Selig find big tech problematic UI/Ux products and fix that with an app.

hhh 3y ago

This feels like an early iPhone app launch in the best of ways.

CivBase 3y ago

> Does it block ads? It doesn’t, I don’t think Google would like that I suspect Google already doesn't like what you're doing. They chose to make their own app unavailable on the AVP even though it sounds like it would be trivial for them to do so. Whatever their reasons are, I doubt they're keen about a third party stepping in with an alternative.

thatxliner 3y ago

Just wondering, how does the logistics of pricing it at a one time purchase work? Isn’t there a $99/year Apple developer program?

infinitecost 3y ago
It’s $5. Can you imagine it remaining supported in 5 years?
jdminhbg 3y ago
He's probably hoping to get more than 20 purchases.

LeSaucy 3y ago

Talented developer for sure, but has a knack for developing software that piggy backs of silicon valley giants that can turn off access at a moments notice.

grashalm 3y ago
I don't understand what reasonable alternative there could be. Develop your own YouTube?
- krapp 3y ago
  For certain values of "reasonable": Peertube is one distributed option[0]. Many content creators have started hosting videos on other services like Patreon because of Youtube's censorship and demonetization policies. Which doesn't entirely avoid the centralization problem but it's better not to put all of your eggs in one basket. It's also possible (although obviously not always feasible) to self-host or torrent. [0]https://joinpeertube.org/en_US https://joinpeertube.org/en_US
  - grashalm 3y ago
    Thanks for the link. I didn't know Peertube, yet. I can't see how you can avoid the centralization problem and also have decent monetization for the videos. But I want to certainly become convinced that it can work. Crypto made me a decentralization skeptic.
  - docmars 3y ago
    Worth mentioning that Rumble, Odysee, and Bitchute are all excellent alternative platforms to host videos at, without the concerns YouTube has introduced. Although, I can't speak to monetization for any of these — which is where Patreon excels here. X.com is also trying to enter the space by hosting longer videos and allowing accounts to earn ad revenue as well as building a subscriber base who can support creators directly. It's not half bad. Full disclaimer: I think it might be implied, but there's certainly a lot of political distaste around these platforms since they finally freed themselves from the shackles of government-aided censorship, and takedowns that are heavily biased towards promoting progressive views (especially radical). With that said, everyone please refrain from attacking this reply for merely mentioning these platforms as options, as they are equally valid ways to build a following and/or monetize your content, even if they support creators who run against your own views. As they say, diversity is our strength!

ipshii 3y ago

This look very very cool!

AISnakeOil 3y ago

Why do you need an app when you can watch it on the web browser?

Shank 3y ago
> but YouTube.com stinks — it’s a minefield of UI targets that are too small for eye-tracking’s precision [0] [0]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro
- 1231232131231 3y ago
  Maybe we were never meant to aim for buttons and controls with our eyes. Maybe there's a reason why devices like mobile phones want you to use your hands instead of tracking your eyes like the Vision Pro does.

bambax 3y ago

> Does it block ads? It doesn’t Having recently tried to watch Youtube on iPad without an adblocker, I discovered Youtube advertising. It's insufferable. Ads appear every few minutes, and they're not like the TV ads of yore. They're exclusively get-rich-quick schemes with people explaining how they're able to earn $10,000 a month doing nothing -- all one has to do is go to that website and subscribe to a shady course. Fortunately Brave still blocks ads successfully, even on an iPad. Without it, it would be unusable. I wonder who puts up with this.

LegitShady 3y ago
I think youtube ads are terrible and frequent because youtube decided they have no competition and if people want to watch videos, they'll either put up with that shit or pay for premium which is what youtube actually wants.

thih9 3y ago

> There’s no API keys, or limits to how many times a day you can call it Yet. Just like with Apollo and Reddit API, at some point there weren’t any.

vessenes 3y ago

This looks awesome. Christian, you mention comments as a possible future feature -- I think the idea of a livestream off in the corner with comments as a separate spatial box might be nice. I don't like to leave streams on while I'm doing other things, but lots of younger folk I know do, and part of the stream consumption experience is the comments.

thallavajhula 3y ago

I like Christian. I was a Apollo (Reddit client) user. I supported him during the whole Reddit vs Devs fiasco of 2023. I'm not sure this is a good idea. YouTube (Google) intentionally didn't want to put up their app on the AppStore. They had their reasons. Ignoring their reasons and creating an app using their APIs and putting up an app in the AppStore against their will, just doesn't seem like a good move here.

jerrygoyal 3y ago

> At its core, Juno uses the YouTube website itself. so if it's the official YT site with css customisation then why is there a need to embed video like it's an external site?