Juno, the popular app that brought YouTube videos to Apple's Vision Pro, is shutting down, its developer announced Tuesday. YouTube had not released its own app for Vision Pro, so Juno allows users to watch videos in an immersive environment and use gestures to interact with the player to resize windows, scrub videos, and more. By making it executable, we filled an important hole in the app ecosystem. .
Built by Christian Selig, an indie developer known for the now-shuttered Apollo app for Reddit, Juno was released shortly after Vision Pro arrived in February 2024. The app helped Selig familiarize himself with developing for Apple's latest platforms, while providing users with something fun.A wide range of apps designed specifically for the headset, not just compatibility. You need to do it on the device you booted without selecting.
But Selig said Google wasn't open to the idea of third-party apps for YouTube viewing. The company contacted the developer, and then Apple itself, alleging that Juno did not follow YouTube's guidelines and modified the website in an “unauthorized” manner, Selig explained in a blog post. I am doing it. The company cited its trademarks and iconography in the complaint, and Apple responded by removing the app from the App Store.
Selig claims the move was unnecessary. According to him, Juno is simply a web view of YouTube, changing the site and player to look more “visionOS-like.” Additionally, YouTube ads are not blocked.
Unfortunately for Vision Pro users, Selig said he would not contest the decision because Juno was more of a “fun hobby project.” Instead, he plans to continue focusing on Pixel Pals, an iOS app that evolved from features in the Apollo app.
If you already have Juno installed on your headset, the app should continue to work for now unless YouTube makes changes that break it.
“It's a shame it ended the way it did. We had some really great things planned and I think we had a lot of fun,” Selig said in a blog post about the app's closure. “It was great to hear such kind words from Vision Pro users who loved the app,” he added.