Google is reportedly planning to develop a YouTube app for the Apple Vision Pro. The edge says A YouTube spokesperson confirmed the company's plans to create a native Vision Pro app, while optimizing YouTube for Safari as an interim solution. The U-turn comes after developer Christian Selig (creator of the popular Apollo app that Reddit removed in 2023) released an unofficial YouTube app for Apple's $3,500 headphones.
“We're excited to see the launch of Vision Pro and support it by ensuring YouTube users have a great experience in Safari,” YouTube spokesperson Jessica Gibby wrote in an email to The edgeIt's Nilay Patel. “We don't have any specific plans to share at this time, but we can confirm that a Vision Pro app is on our roadmap.”
Despite Vision Pro launching with more than 600 native apps, YouTube said on Jan. 19 that it had no plans for a Vision Pro app. (Netflix is another high-profile hurdle.) Additionally, a YouTube company spokesperson told Engadget at the time that it also had no plans to make its iPad app available in the visionOS App Store. Porting iPad apps is the (relatively) quick and easy way for developers to install their software on Apple's “spatial computing” device.
Something changed the company's opinion in the last two and a half weeks. One theory is that, despite its eye-popping $3,500 price tag, Apple's mixed reality headset appears to be off to a good start, as the company's most loyal and wealthy fans quickly placed pre-orders. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimated that Apple sold between 160,000 and 180,000 headphones during their first weekend.
Another theory is that YouTube noticed an independent developer taking over. Christian Selig, the creator of the now-defunct Apollo app for Reddit, released a unofficial third party YouTube app called Juno that was available at launch. Selig has great trust and stature among Apple device users: he's a former Apple developer and creator of one of iOS users' favorite Reddit apps (before the company's controversial API rules effectively wiped out most of them). from third-party Reddit apps).
“YouTube is probably one of the parts of the Internet that I consume the most, so I was a little sad when YouTube announced that they had no plans to create an app for VisionOS and disabled the option to load the iPad app. Selig explained last week in a blog entry. “This leaves you with Safari and the website is fine, but it definitely doesn't look like a VisionOS app.”
YouTube supports 3D and 360-degree videos, but none of them currently work on Vision Pro. It's not yet clear if the company plans to incorporate them into its app.
