After Two Years, the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional Lastly Has a YouTube App

At this time is a momentous day for anybody who spent $3,500 on Apple’s “spatial laptop.” The Vision Pro, two years after its preliminary launch, now has an official YouTube app. It could seem to be a kind of issues that occurred one million years in the past, however for numerous causes, it really occurred in the present day.

Based on the official description of the YouTube app within the App Retailer, you’ll have the ability to watch the complete gamut of YouTube content material, together with normal movies in addition to 3D, 360, and VR180 movies. You’ll additionally have the ability to watch at 8K decision, however that’s solely out there on the M5 version of the Apple Vision Pro. To make clear, you can beforehand watch YouTube movies on the Imaginative and prescient Professional, however not by way of an formally licensed app.

As a substitute of an official YouTube app, a third-party app referred to as Juno allowed Imaginative and prescient Professional customers to observe YouTube content material by way of a workaround. Juno was eventually removed by Apple in October of 2024, about 8 months after the discharge of each the Imaginative and prescient Professional and the app.

Why on earth did it take this lengthy to get an official YouTube app, you ask? Effectively, for a similar causes that lots of large companies don’t have native Imaginative and prescient Professional apps, most definitely. The Imaginative and prescient Professional, nevertheless spectacular it could be from a {hardware} standpoint, continues to be a distinct segment system. Apple hasn’t precisely offered plenty of items of its wildly costly spatial laptop, which signifies that there’s simply not lots of incentive for YouTube to construct a Imaginative and prescient Professional-specific app. Similar to there’s not lots of incentive for Spotify to do this.

Whereas YouTube has mentioned beforehand {that a} YouTube app was “on the roadmap” for the Imaginative and prescient Professional, I believe I communicate for most individuals after I say that I by no means thought it might take this lengthy. Whereas we’re speaking in regards to the lengthy highway to a YouTube app on the Imaginative and prescient Professional, it’s additionally price noting that different apparent companies nonetheless don’t have a local app in visionOS both. Chief amongst these apps is Netflix. You may nonetheless watch Netflix by way of the Imaginative and prescient Professional’s Safari net browser, for positive, however that methodology clearly lacks the prospers and refinement {that a} native app would.

Fortunately, third-party apps have picked up a few of the items for the dearth of app growth on the Imaginative and prescient Professional, however these nonetheless aren’t an excellent state of affairs for most individuals anticipating a cultured visionOS expertise. Supercut, as an example, a preferred third-party app for watching Netflix with out the Safari browser on the Imaginative and prescient Professional, prices $4.99, whereas the Netflix app is technically free. If nothing else, a really late-to-the-party YouTube app is a reminder that Imaginative and prescient Professional nonetheless has a protracted option to go earlier than changing into the XR revolution Apple had hoped.