Google Forces Apple Vision Pro YouTube App Juno Off App Store

YouTube convinced Apple to remove third-party Vision Pro app Juno from the visionOS App Store.

Though it claims it has one “on its roadmap”, Google-owned YouTube currently doesn’t have a visionOS app. And while iPad apps are available on the App Store on Vision Pro by default, YouTube opted out from making its available.

In contrast, YouTube has a native app on Meta’s Horizon OS for Quest headsets, and Meta says it’s launching a cowatching beta this week.

Since Apple Vision Pro’s launch, a $5 third-party YouTube app had been available called Juno. It was developed by the same developer as the Apollo phone app for Reddit, another app recently killed by the platform owner.

Juno provided a standard visionOS side menu interface for YouTube’s key pages and standard visionOS video player controls, loading each page as a webview with custom CSS to style it to match visionOS’s native theme. It even supported system-level features like Siri.

Back in April YouTube emailed Juno’s developer, Christian Selig, claiming “you have violated and continue to violate the YouTube Terms of Service and the YouTube API Services Terms of Service” by modifying the YouTube web interface, as well as saying that Juno “strongly alludes to YouTube’s trademarks and iconography”. The email demanded that Selig update Juno such that it has “ceased to modify the YouTube Service”.

Selig said he found YouTube’s requests “very puzzling”. Juno is effectively a web view under the hood, and doesn’t use any YouTube APIs, he says. He also points out that Google’s own Chrome browser allows extensions to change the style and theme of websites including YouTube, and YouTube’s own iOS sample suggests using the embed player technique Juno originally used. Further, he says Juno does not use any YouTube iconography, bar the YouTube logo from the company’s own page that Juno loads.

Selig says he promptly responded to YouTube with these rebuttals, and in June released an update to make the app use YouTube’s player, styled, instead of the embed player technique. He also made Juno hide the YouTube logo and added the word “unofficial” to the subtitle and description of Juno on the App Store.

These changes weren’t enough, though. Selig says a few months ago YouTube contacted Apple making the same claims as the original email. Apple seems to have taken YouTube at its word, and Juno is no longer available on the App Store.

Here’s Juno developer Christian Selig’s full statement:

For those not aware, a few months ago after reaching out to me, YouTube contacted the App Store stating that Juno does not adhere to YouTube guidelines and modifies the website in a way they don’t approve of, and alludes to their trademarks and iconography.

I don’t personally agree with this, as Juno is just a web view, and acts as little more than a browser extension that modifies CSS to make the website and video player look more “visionOS” like. No logos are placed other than those already on the website, and the “for YouTube” suffix is permitted in their branding guidelines. Juno also doesn’t block ads in any capacity, for the curious.

I stated as much to YouTube, they wouldn’t really clarify or budge any, and as a result of both parties not being able to come to a conclusion I received an email a few minutes ago from Apple that Juno has been removed from the App Store.

Juno was a fun hobby project for me to build. As a developer I wanted to get some experience building for the Vision Pro, and as a user I wanted a nice way to watch YouTube on this cool new device. As a result I really enjoyed building Juno, but it was always something I saw as fundamentally an app I built for fun.

Because of that, I have zero desire to spin this into a massive fight (at least more than I’ve fought in emails over the last few months) akin to what happened with Reddit years ago. That’s kind of the opposite of fun. I hope that’s understandable.

For those who have Juno, to my knowledge it should continue to work fine until/unless the YouTube website updates in some fashion that breaks stuff. Sorry it had to end this way, I had some really cool stuff planned for it that I think would have been a lot of fun! It’s been genuinely awesome hearing all the kind words from Vision Pro users who have loved the app.

🫡