It’s only taken two years, but the official YouTube app for Vision Pro is finally here. You can always visit YouTube using the Vision Pro web browser, but it’s not the same. And a popular third-party app, Juno, was quickly removed.
The official YouTube app isn’t quite an MVP (minimum viable product), but it is closed. It’s just a floating window that can play YouTube videos, including a rather meager selection of 3D 360 and VR 180 videos. As with most applications, you can watch using any of the built-in Vision Pro environments, as with most video applications. If you have the newer Vision Pro based on the M5, you can even watch 8K videos.
YouTube
There are no user experiences like Disney+. There aren’t even fun custom ways to watch, as some of the first third-party local video playback apps added, like watching on a virtual TV (modern or vintage) or in a classic movie theater. At least you get full opt-in options, so your playlists and ad-free YouTube subscription will work.
YouTube
The real problem, aside from the fact that this is the version of the app that YouTube could and should have had when Vision Pro was released two years ago, is that no one cares anymore. Apple Vision Pro is almost dead.
Two years after the launch of the Vision Pro, no one seems to be buying anymore. Its presence in Apple Stores has been greatly limited, and Apple seems to have turned its attention to the latest buzzword: AI.
YouTube
Remember when Mark Zuckerberg renamed his entire company Meta and spent unlimited billions chasing the “Metaverse?” Just a few years later, all the money is wasted: The company is now fully equipped with generative AI, the Quest line of VR headsets is not very popular, and we are no closer to the dream of glasses-based augmented reality than we were in 2021.
Although Apple would never use the word “metaverse” and preferred its own brand of “spatial computing” for mixed reality, it followed the same trajectory. Sure, research on the spatial computing project at Apple continues, and one day we might get a real wearable consumer product. But Vision Pro’s plan was thwarted by the industry’s fast and voracious pursuit of AI.
After two years, Apple was able to deliver a minor update to the Vision Pro with only an improved processor and strap, still at an exorbitant price. The consumer-focused headset is still more than a year away. True augmented reality glasses are at least a few years away… and the latest rumors suggest that Apple has decided to create a simple “heads-up display” version of the smart glasses similar to the Meta Ray-Bans. These urine we’ll ship this year, but if the constant delays and disappointments with Apple’s AI and related home products are any indication, I think 2027 or even 2028 is a safer bet.
Thank you YouTube for finally delivering Vision Pro. I wish this had happened two years ago and I wish people would care about it today. But Apple has an AI dragon to chase.