Among the various companies that have snubbed Apple Vision Prothe first viewer from the Cupertino company available only for a few days and only in the USA, there is also Google. At the moment one of its most used apps ever, YouTubeis not available for the made-in-Cupertino device, but (surprisingly?) there has been a change of heart.
A few days after the presentation of a third-party app that fills this void, the announcement has arrived from the Mountain View tech giant. Jessica Gibby, spokesperson for YouTube, sent an email to the editorial team of The Verge to communicate what is a real about face. «We are excited about the launch of Apple Vision Pro, a device that we support by ensuring users have a great experience through Safari», we read in the note. «We currently have no specific plans to share, but we can confirm that an app for the Vision Pro is on our agenda».
The reasons are not known, but it is clear that something has changed in Google’s strategy. Until a few days ago the company seemed to have no intention of developing a YouTube app for visionOS, just like Netflix and Spotify. It is possible that the Big G offices were “struck” not only by the success of the Vision Pro but also by that of the aforementioned Juno app by Christian Selig, which is talked about a lot online.
The YouTube app for Apple Vision Pro is in the works, but there’s more to work on, too
In addition to an official client, the appeal 360° video support is also missing. Nilay Patel of The Verge asked Apple for clarification, and according to company spokesperson Jackie Roy, these videos are not that good in terms of quality and they fail to provide an adequate spatial experience. In fact, they could even bother you during movement.
In reality it turned out that even some types of VR videos are not displayed on the Vision Proand this is because there is currently no support for the standard WebXR. According to the spokesperson, the company is working on it but it will take some time. «WebXR is a relatively recent standard and as such does not fully exploit the power, performance and interaction capabilities of Apple Vision Pro and visionOS», said Roy.