Juno – A YouTube Client for Vision Pro

https://christianselig.com/2024/02/introducing-juno/

by axxl • 2 years ago

686 350 2 years ago

christianselig.com

user23445973• 2 years ago

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

shuckles• 2 years ago

The screenshots in the post are likely from the simulator.

axxl• 2 years 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.

user23445973• 2 years 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

ugh123• 2 years ago

well now those rooms look totally rendered! :)

basil-rash3• 2 years ago

There’s a screen record function, the same as the rest of iOS. MKBHD uses it extensively in his review video.

user23445973• 2 years ago

Thanks

mickle00• 2 years ago

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

p-e-w4• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

Seems like a lot of the motivation was just recouping lost revenue from his existing YouTube player integration code.

shiroiuma5• 2 years 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.

kccqzy• 2 years ago

If you had read the article you would find that this app doesn't really need YouTube API access. It's just an iframe. It's 1998 tech.

wahnfrieden3• 2 years ago

Nah this approach is solid. It’s web views not api. It’s basically a web browser. I imagine other iOS browsers like brave will come to vision and have YouTube etc video playback and demonstrate it’s tolerated even with Adblock probably. But maybe easier to get by if more clearly a multipurpose web browser.

po• 2 years ago

He's not selling it as a subscription so there's very little downside. Some people will send him $5 and if/when YouTube cuts it off (can they really?) he doesn't really owe anyone anything.

unobatbayar2• 2 years ago

It seems that he found a (momentary?) gap in the Vision Pro app market and promptly seized the opportunity.

zyang• 2 years ago

I have a feeling is going to be a speedrun of the reddit saga. Google obviously doesn't want a smooth youtube experience on vision pro.

spiderice• 2 years ago

Why is that? Obviously they don’t want a third party app to be that experience, but they make native apps for everything else.

Also, Christian can’t help himself but attach his apps to large companies that can cut him off overnight. Haha.

madeofpalk2• 2 years ago

Why do you say that?

I don't think the Youtube product managers really care enough about Vision Pro to prioritise making an app for it. That doesn't mean they strategically disgree with the product and actively wish to hamper it.

Indepedently of Vision Pro, I think they just might not be that enthusastic about third party youtube apps.

ewzimm3• 2 years 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.

drusepth2• 2 years 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.

ewzimm3• 2 years 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.

makeitdouble• 2 years ago

I might be missing it but I don't see any mention of actual VR videos (180 and 360).

It probably would require a huge dev effort to support, but that's definitely a miss compared to the offical Quest app.

zachrip• 2 years ago

AFAIK this is a webview that Christian is hijacking certain navigation events on. So the app itself isn't really native/probably wouldn't support this feature.

basil-rash3• 2 years 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.

shiroiuma5• 2 years 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-rash3• 2 years 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.

cityzen• 2 years ago

I miss Apollo every day :(

sssilverman• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

andsoitis2• 2 years ago

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

ubiquitysc• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

I'm not sure what your point is. Should they not charge anything?

huytersd3• 2 years ago

It’s a solo developer, a guy.

yakkityyak• 2 years ago

1.78 trillion dollar company could have made app, or even better, not disable the iPad version in contempt.

jazzyjackson5• 2 years ago

is it contempt or simply a negotiation tactic?

dubrocks• 2 years ago

They surely have their own business plan for AR/VR that you're not aware of.

p-e-w4• 2 years 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.

diebeforei485• 2 years ago

Does their Incognito Mode meet your needs?

p-e-w4• 2 years ago

No, because I don't trust them. Otherwise I wouldn't have to worry in the first place.

joemi2• 2 years 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.

newaccount742• 2 years ago

They track you whether you are logged in or not. I really don't think it is easy to escape their tracking.

simiones3• 2 years 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.

jdminhbg2• 2 years 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.

MengerSponge2• 2 years ago

FYI, Vinegar is well worth a couple of bucks. 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• 2 years 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 ...

isametry• 2 years 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.

thrdbndndn3• 2 years ago

which bizarrely uses the same tiny Material touch targets as on phones

I personally think iPad YouTube app's touch is not too bad; but in general (not limited to YouTube), I think the UI design of web video players are all too fixated on the existing design.

For example, when not in fullscreen mode, I don't see why all the controls need to be confined to the video frame and disappear when not hovering. While this design choice has its benefits, it also presents significant drawbacks: it obscures the actual content when you're interacting with the controls (a problem that's particularly acute on smaller screens), and performing quick, repetitive actions becomes difficult because the controls aren't visible until you hover over them, among other issues. This approach to web video player UI has been a pet peeve of mine for some time.

eurekin2• 2 years ago

Another one with a same pet peeve here.

It's especially "interesting", when the slider allows to navigate to the exact frame you want (that happens very rarely) and the information you want to see is in the subtitles burned into the video - the ones not shifting with UI controls. The UI obscures that and I have to make tens of attempts with increased sloppiness due to frustration to take it all in.

Most often it's something I keep mishearing and need subtitles to actually understand what's being talked about. For example, I keep hearing "Hello awful person" in Anton Petrov's videos. https://youtu.be/PyRf7B1Ji4A?si=bIA7S8qB_WLdLgVs&t=45

andrepd• 2 years ago

You just need to accept that "user interface design" has stopped being a thing in everything but niche/pro applications for at least the past 10 years. You have "follow the trend", yes, or "design it so it looks good on screenshots", but not "user interface design".

Accept it and you will be less frustrated.

edflsafoiewq• 2 years ago

It used to be like that.

https://www.versionmuseum.com/images/websites/youtube-websit...

bisRepetita2• 2 years ago

it obscures the actual content when you're interacting with the controls (a problem that's particularly acute on smaller screens)

What's the right trade-off here in your mind then? Leave the controls always-on/visible? On a small screen, it takes a lot of real estate (except in portrait mode), and small UI controls are a pain to use so you need to make them big enough. I struggle with this, I really don't know what is the right trade-off here.

pests3• 2 years ago

when not in fullscreen mode, I don't see why all the controls need to be confined to the video frame and disappear when not hovering

YouTube Premium offers Premium Controls which is a sidebox with the controls like you are asking for.

wodenokoto2• 2 years ago

And extra controls appear when pausing. I get that most of the time when you pause it’s because you are not watching, but it completely obscures the use case where you want to look at a still frame.

Worst though is YouTube shorts where you can’t rewind

yard20109• 2 years ago

It's on purpose though, YouTube app is designed to maximize time spent on app, not UX

danpalmer• 2 years ago

This strategy has changed now as far as I can remember. Google used to have a strategy of using material on iOS, but has decided to switch to a more native UIKit feel. I imagine that will be a long transition, but it's promising.

cbovis2• 2 years ago

The YouTube app on our Sony TV kills me. Out of a variety of apps installed (Netflix, HBO, Disney, Apple, Prime) it's the only one that we need to adjust volume for EVERY SINGLE TIME because they decided 15 should be loud vs 30 on all the other apps. Especially frustrating when a lot of the time the first play experience in YouTube is being blasted with some kind of rapid-fire ad sequence.

bj-rn• 2 years ago

Don't know about the volume difference. But haven't seen any yt ads in a long time thanks to SmartTube: https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

badgersnake• 2 years ago

Same on AppleTV, YouTube is louder than everything else except for Spotify which is even louder.

hapticmonkey• 2 years ago

The AppleTV YouTube app is so bad that I’m convinced nobody responsible for it owns a TV.

It even forces its own built in screensavers to run instead of the OS one if the app is left paused. Who approves that?!

What Steve Jobs said about Microsoft in the 90s applies to Google today: They have no taste.

deergomoo• 2 years ago

It even forces its own built in screensavers to run instead of the OS one if the app is left paused

Eh? YouTube is my most-used app on Apple TV by a country mile and I’ve never seen this, I get the tvOS screensavers. Is it because I have YouTube Premium maybe?

I agree though, it is a garbage app. Everything on a TV, from the built-in apps to Roku boxes to Apple TV use basically the same app (certainly the same layout) and it’s really quite bad.

heapoverflow2• 2 years ago

This is because of YouTube‘s obsession to build cross-platform, lowest-common-denominator apps, resulting in mediocre experiences across all the platforms they support, and rarely excellent on any single platform.

Their Apple TV app is basically a web view which doesn’t conform to any of AppleTV’s UI principles. Same as their YouTube TV app. It’s sad.

isatty2• 2 years ago

N=1 obviously but I use the YouTube app a lot on my Apple tv and think it works fine? I don’t get anything besides the native screensaver and they even added the option to browse comments natively.

Only bug seems to be a black screen for a second when I close the app (maybe a bug with suspend?).

rob74• 2 years ago

Don't get me started on the official YT app on ChromeOS... it's so bad (one example: the seek bar was barely usable with a touchscreen) that I eventually disabled it, using the website is much better.

freedomben2• 2 years ago

Same, with the added benefit that in the browser I have lots of knobs and dials I can turn with uMatrix and other Dev tools. Oh and of course, sponsor block. Youtube should be insanely grateful for sponsor block, because if not for that tool I would have canceled my premium membership because I hate seeing ads. I will simply find something else to watch if I have to watch ads.

LegitShady2• 2 years ago

all the youtube apps suck. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally clicked on another video while watching the one I actually am trying to watch. If you aren't full screen they fill up half the space with giant links to other videos and there's no confirmation or option for confirmation. I'm not sure anyone who works on them actually uses them in real life situations.

AuryGlenz• 2 years ago

The lack of attention for iPad apps is infuriating. Instagram, for instance, uses the damned phone app. That’s insane.

I get it for small time apps, but Meta is clearly big enough to give it the little amount of attention it needs.

ftio• 2 years 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.

dcchambers• 2 years ago

I basically just stopped using Reddit after that whole fiasco. I had already been drifting away for years. The site has changed. It was time to move on.

cookiesandmilk• 2 years ago

I started using Yesterday for Old Reddit. It’s a safari extension which makes old.reddit.com very mobile friendly!

yard20109• 2 years ago

Same here. Twitter as well

midasz2• 2 years ago

I still selfhost a libreddit instance for search results but no more browsing

jjcm• 2 years ago

You can sideload Apollo. It's a bit sketchy, but it's been nice having it back.

slg2• 2 years ago

Seriously, what percentage of people who just spent at least $3,500 on the hardware would quibble over an extra $5 when it comes to as essential a native app as Youtube?

sammy2255• 2 years ago

Not everyone is greedy and profiteering

blagie2• 2 years ago

I didn't buy the hardware, but if I had, I would quibble over the extra $5.

No, seriously. I would.

Here's the basic problem:

* I wouldn't mind spending $10 on something which I know I'm using.

* Most apps sit on my phone unused. Most are horrible. I have no idea before I buy whether it's good or horrible for me.

* I often don't mind spending a buck or two on something to see if I'll use it. $10 is right above that threshold.

* No apps do a decent free trial. I'm busy, so one of the 30-day things doesn't work for me. I'll install it, and when / if I get around to using it, the trial is already done. My life doesn't revolve around the app. Likewise, many apps will limit functionality to where the free trial is basically an advertisement, and I don't see if it's something I'd use.

I think what would work for me (n=1) is:

* The app is free for the first 40 hours of actual use. Or perhaps some annual quota.

* Continuing using it beyond that costs e.g. $20 for something simple like a video player and e.g. $100 for something complex like a video editor.

That aligns incentives right too.

For a video player, I don't think I'd use one without the option for an ad blocker. I'm not getting Youtube Premium no matter how cheap or expensive it is, since I don't think it'd be unethical for me to do so (it's a bit of a broken social contract by Google). That's another story (and I'm not trying to push my values on anyone else).

spacedcowboy2• 2 years ago

Well, I don't really use Youtube, so ...

monkeywork• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

iOS has Narwhal 2, as well. It’s got its own subscription to defray the API costs but it’s a reasonable price.

pantulis2• 2 years 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.

BlindEyeHalo• 2 years ago

In general I would agree but charging $10 for something that can be shut down tomorrow just because google doesn't like it seems a bit much.

sbarre4• 2 years ago

He admits it uses the official embed API, doesn't block or skip ads and generally plays nice with their systems. He's not trying to circumvent anything, he's just filling a gap left by Google themselves.

It would be quite the precedent for Google to shut someone down who is technically playing by all their rules.

(Yes I'm sure the ToS allows them to do this if they want to - but it would be a bad look).

palla89• 2 years ago

You can sideload without jailbreak, it perfectly works!

snalty• 2 years ago

I'm quite liking Winston for Reddit.

https://testflight.apple.com/join/3UF8bAUN

m3kw9• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

jdoss4• 2 years 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.

imiric10• 2 years 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• 2 years 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?

charcircuit3• 2 years ago

No ads is not sustainable. It's not like the alternative is youtube remaining ad free. The alternative is youtube shutting down.

joemi2• 2 years ago

Something like youtube (streaming _huge_ amounts of videos with with no monetization) was bound to either get ads or die. The corporation didn't kill it. In fact, quite the opposite: they made it so it could keep living.

jdoss4• 2 years ago

I said kill me now at the end of my post and that I am part of the problem and you yet think I am happy about it? Ok you got me bud. Yep 100% Stockholm syndrome. No, I am not happy about it, but what else is there? Do you block YouTube on your network so you don't see content from that platform? I'd wager you don't.

Also, do you really think that any platform as big as YouTube can remain free forever? I will pay for things that bring value to my life. YouTube Premium brings value almost every day. I am pretty sure you pay for things that bring value or make thing easier for you in life, so maybe don't post these kinds of responses in the future as they are cynical and bring no value to the conversation.

manquer4• 2 years ago

it is $13.99 / month in the US now. $150/year is a lot of money - for a product you can choose not to pay and still mostly use.

stevenwliao• 2 years ago

I'm skipping 2 hours of ads per month for $15. IMO it's a pretty good deal.

(Assumptions: I watch 10 hours of YouTube videos per week, YouTube shows 30 seconds of ads per 10 minutes of video)

turquoisevar2• 2 years ago

Yeah, $2.99/mo would be a great value.

$13.99/mo is at streamer levels who spend millions on production on top of infrastructure cost and allow you to share (within same household).

$23/mo for family is just plain robbery.

orangepanda• 2 years ago

But does it block the ads that are still shown with youtube premium?

xyst• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

pjmlp2• 2 years ago

Google already did this before, to Microsoft on Windows Phone.

reportgunner2• 2 years ago

So kind of like adblock works

rvz• 2 years ago

No idea why this comment was downvoted. YouTube (Google) can easily get Apple to ban unauthorized third party apps.

Once YouTube releases support for the Vision Pro, either Google will get Juno banned as an unauthorized third party app or make the API expensive to use even if Juno becomes popular.

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.

Precisely. Unfortunately the creator of Apollo has not learned anything about what happened to his reddit client and the same will certainly happen with this YouTube client.

pjmlp2• 2 years ago

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

simiones3• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

Let’s ask some of the people who made a fortune out of doing it. Entrepreneurial, maybe?

jazzyjackson5• 2 years ago

marketshareophelia

hiddencost2• 2 years ago

Capitalism

graphe4• 2 years ago

Fetishes are sexually derrived or worship of an idol. Are you calling them losers for not scraping?

derefr• 2 years ago

Masochists, more like.

newaccount742• 2 years 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.

manquer4• 2 years 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 ?

notso4112• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

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

nntwozz• 2 years ago

If you're into self-hosting there is https://github.com/iv-org/invidious which works great with 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• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

There aren’t recommendations like youd see on the YouTube front page. There are “next video” recommendations like YouTube though

toastercat2• 2 years 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.

toastercat2• 2 years ago

Also in this realm, for Roku there is https://github.com/iBicha/playlet which works great when hooked up to my self-hosted Invidious instance.

lancesells2• 2 years 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?

piyuv• 2 years ago

They recommend self hosting

iseanstevens• 2 years ago

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

Zenul_Abidin• 2 years ago

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

consumer4512• 2 years 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

poochkoishi7282• 2 years ago

All I see is a picture of a dick-shaped 9/11 memorial..

poochkoishi7282• 2 years ago

I must admit, this is much more creative and entertaining than being rick-rolled

Sutanreyu• 2 years ago

Needs VR video support. :)

KhalPanda2• 2 years ago

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

graphe4• 2 years ago

With that logic every app that is free on an iPhone pro max must be unfair.

spiderfarmer• 2 years ago

If you think that for every fact in life, the inverse is also true, then you're bad at logic.

KhalPanda2• 2 years ago

For apps that run exclusively on brand new iPhone pro max's, sure.

...but seeing as that isn't the case.

londons_explore• 2 years ago

If developers could price apps differently for the cheap Vs expensive iPhones, they would.

simiones3• 2 years ago

Conversely, if I spent $3.5k on a device, I'm not paying a cent more to watch YouTube on it.

dubcanada• 2 years 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.

Aissen3• 2 years ago

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

whatsthatabout• 2 years ago

He answers this on the website: "...There’s no API keys, or limits to how many times a day you can call it..."

Aissen3• 2 years 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 ?

yard20109• 2 years 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

rixrax• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

I think the MKBHD video is on a normal consumer one

whywhywhywhy2• 2 years ago

They’re the same thing you’ll get at retail

julienreszka• 2 years ago

Very cool

danjc2• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

I wouldn't necessarily call it a new ecosystem. It's mostly the same walled garden that runs iOS/iPadOS.

password543212• 2 years ago

"Google layoffs x percent of its employees". HN: Fckin Google!

"Here is an option to support a platform you use without watching ads". HN: Go fck yourself!

krapp2• 2 years ago

Do you think Google pays their employees directly from Youtube ad revenue?

Nullabillity• 2 years ago

Right, won't someone please think of the poor little underpaid corporate behemoth.

mromanuk• 2 years ago

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

hhh• 2 years ago

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

CivBase• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

It’s $5. Can you imagine it remaining supported in 5 years?

jdminhbg2• 2 years ago

He's probably hoping to get more than 20 purchases.

LeSaucy• 2 years 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.

grashalm3• 2 years ago

I don't understand what reasonable alternative there could be. Develop your own YouTube?

krapp2• 2 years 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

thih93• 2 years ago

Alternative to what?

Most devs work on projects that don’t actively compete with large companies on their own ground.

Or do you mean alternative to watching video on Vision - I suppose youtube still works via safari, is that not the case?

unshavedyak• 2 years ago

I think the idea was that they would develop apps that don't require the giants. Which sure, could be your own YouTube, but more often it's a smaller in scope project because you're a solo dev. If i understand them correctly, they're just acknowledging the risk.

Ie work in a way that doesn't require the giants shadow, as the giant may move unexpectedly. The shade can be quite lucrative though, if you're nimble.

jimbokun• 2 years ago

I'm assuming this developer is aware of that, and will move on to the next thing as soon as Google develops their own Youtube Vision OS app.

turtlebits• 2 years ago

Or they might just find the user experience lacking and want to improve on it.

I make all sorts of small apps and utilities because to improve usability of services i consume. It doest mean I'm some lackey to big corp.

alexsereno2• 2 years ago

That’s more of a statement of the monopolization of hardware access the App Store gives than it is him “piggy backing”. It’s not like you have a real choice without Apple being forced to allow software downloads via a web browser globally.

mynameisvlad• 2 years ago

I think they meant more about being beholden to Youtube's current implementation.

PaulHoule• 2 years ago

Here's an almost trivial bit of "permissionless innovation" thanks to Silicon Valley giants:

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/111049822586450100

30 years ago somebody who wanted to develop a "new object you can use to distribute music" had to spend $100 million on some project like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Compact_Cassette

today it is very simple because almost everyone has a player in their pocket that connects the card to software which runs in the cloud. It wouldn't be technically difficult at all for me to host the music file in S3, R2 or Azure storage and the storage and network costs are insignificant so far as I expect these cards to be distributed. If I did that I could get in trouble over copyright, so a link to YouTube is a safe and easy solution w/ the disadvantage that people in many geographies can't view licensed music videos.

Fortunately that QR code is a redirect and I can send it to another service. I demoed the cards with quite a few people and found that they usually felt it was a letdown to go to YouTube (maybe because they go to YouTube all the time and there is nothing special about it) but that there was more satisfaction with a link to SongWhip which might send them to YouTUbe in the end but gives them a feeling of agency at the expense of another click.

dbtc• 2 years ago

I've been imagining making song/album cards for a long time now! Just like that! Very nice.

rchaud2• 2 years ago

I'm confused, what is the innovation here? A QR code that points to a Youtube URL and doesn't work without Internet?

From the 1960s-80s magazines came with "flexidiscs" which could play entire songs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexi_disc

mlsu• 2 years ago

Making something like youtube would be much easier technically than it would have been in 2006 or so. A solo dev could create a small scale streaming service for HTML5 video pretty reasonably.

It's the copyright that's the problem. You would be annihilated, not by YouTube's lawyers, but by UMG and Sony's lawyers, immediately after getting even a small amount of traction.

rchaud2• 2 years ago

That's because people upload copyrighted content.

Nobody would care about Youtube if it wasn't seeded with millions of movie clips and music videos years before the copyright holders got their act together.

dharma1• 2 years ago

What other choice you have?

Anyway YouTube aren’t going to disable embeds. So don’t see it being turned off

diggan• 2 years ago

What other choice you have?

Anything that isn't a client to proprietary platforms?

Moto7451• 2 years ago

He probably had fun with this one and expects (or hopes!) it to become irrelevant after YouTube for VisionOS comes out. We’ll see.

theklr• 2 years ago

At the rate of his quality, hope google does right and just buys his app out instead.

qarl• 2 years ago

Yeah. That makes me respect him more. He's signing himself up for pain and disappointment, but will make supremely useful tools regardless.

throw10920• 2 years ago

This is off-topic flamebait and I've flagged it.

ipshii• 2 years ago

This look very very cool!

AISnakeOil• 2 years ago

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

Shank• 2 years 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

1231232131231• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

LegitShady2• 2 years 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.

thih93• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years 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• 2 years 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?

Juno – A YouTube Client for Vision Pro

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