YouTube and Spotify won't launch Apple Vision Pro apps, joining Netflix

Considering most of these companies are in the middle of budget cuts and layoffs (including specifically in the YouTube division), it should be obvious that they aren’t going to be rushing to staff up teams to build an app for an untested device that will probably be in the hands of a few thousand people at launch. “Wait and see” is the best approach right now.

This is interesting as a symbol of how times have changed because YouTube was one of the handful of built-in apps on the original iPhone, before the App Store.<p>(For some reason the iPhone YouTube app&#x27;s icon was an image of a retro cream-and-brown 1940s TV. I guess Steve Jobs just liked that design because it certainly didn&#x27;t have anything to do with YouTube&#x27;s branding and didn&#x27;t look like anything Google would have picked for any product.)<p>When Microsoft shipped the revamped Windows Phone a few years later, the &quot;app gap&quot; was one of the main problems. High-profile apps like YouTube never became available on the platform because by then Google was busy promoting their own mobile OS.

Most comments here seem to be convinced that this is because these companies don&#x27;t want to put in the engineering hours to build and support an app on a niche platform.<p>Is it possible that this is actually a coordinated message to Apple that these large media companies are done paying the 30% Apple tax? Especially if this thing has a fully-featured, desktop-like web browser. The blocking of the existing iPad apps tells me it&#x27;s the later.

&gt; YouTube said in a statement Thursday that it isn’t planning to launch a new app for the Apple Vision Pro, nor will it allow its longstanding iPad application to work on the device. YouTube, like Netflix, is recommending that customers use a web browser if they want to see its content: <i>“YouTube users will be able to use YouTube in Safari on the Vision Pro at launch.”</i><p>&gt; Spotify also isn’t planning a new app for visionOS — the Vision Pro’s operating system — and doesn’t expect to enable its iPad app to run on the device, according to a person familiar with matter. <i>But the music service will still likely work from a web browser.</i> Bloomberg News reported on Netflix’s decision Wednesday.<p>Emphasis mine. No need for Apple loyalists to convince themselves that they never liked these services anyway.

I’ve had a Quest 2 since the covid shut-in era, and I now only ever use it to watch the Netflix and Prime Video apps — both of which are basic and haven’t been updated for years. Which is weird, b&#x2F;c right now, the home theater experience is one of the only things that VR indisputably (for the most part) does better than non-VR platforms. Right now the main flaw is that these basic apps stream at a low resolution (480p in Netflix’s case)<p>It makes no sense why Netflix&#x2F;Amazon would neglect apps for a 20m userbase. The most rational explanation is that the VR userbase still has a very low active&#x2F;attach rate. Maybe Netflix&#x2F;Amazon aren’t excited to help Meta, but it’s not like they’re making their own VR headsets yet.

I&#x27;m sure Google is a little terrified of the Vision Pro actually working out, so they&#x27;ll do what they can to make it less enticing. Just like they did with Windows Phone. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;8&#x2F;16&#x2F;4627342&#x2F;microsoft-google-battle-over-youtube-windows-phone" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;8&#x2F;16&#x2F;4627342&#x2F;microsoft-google-...</a>

Considering the quality of YouTube&#x27;s Apple TV app[1], this should come as no surprise, and frankly it&#x27;s probably for the best. This type of thing is better off starting small with applications that actually work well, instead of bolting on some well-known names that are just going to phone it in and disappoint users in the long run.<p>[1] Anecdotal, but: it recently added its own screensaver that plays instead of the system one, and never <i>stops</i> playing, meaning if I accidentally leave YouTube open, my TV never switches off. The VLC app can&#x27;t discover UPNP services on my network as long as YouTube is in the recent apps list. It decides to be in French sometimes. (Our system language is not French). And, not <i>entirely</i> Google&#x27;s fault, but there are about three different ways to cast a YouTube video from the iOS YouTube app to the same gorramn TV, and which one is actually going to work today is completely random.<p>The indifference YouTube gets away with on Apple TV tells me, if that team made an app for Vision Pro, it would provide guaranteed headaches. Apple is dodging a bullet here.

I remember the era when third party clients for online services were quite common. Now consumers get stuck in the middle of various corporate pissing matches instead.

That shouldn&#x27;t prevent apple from requiring a fair 30% cut to allow access to their websites

Probably waiting to see if enough people will tolerate a sweaty headset for long hours. Not to mention the weight.<p>Steve Jobs had approved several dumb Apple products, but I don&#x27;t think he&#x27;d have sold Vision Pro to the general public.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;4kfYI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;4kfYI</a>

I&#x27;m actually a little excited by the prospect of a large company (in this case Apple) having a battle with other big tech firms that might revolve around User-Agent, or at least the concept of identifying users and treating them differently based on the software&#x2F;technology they are using to connect to your services.<p>I genuinely prefer the user experience of linux and firefox -- I&#x27;m not religiously opposed to Windows^, Chrome, MacOS, etc. I also don&#x27;t generally complain when websites don&#x27;t work well for me, or the experience isn&#x27;t perfect, I know that kinda comes as a package deal.<p>But, I often know that package deal is unnecessary. Netflix might not want me to watch 4K because of requirements from copyright holders, or some website might not have tested on Firefox so they throw up an error page (even though standards are standards...). But if I lie about who I am sometimes things work perfectly -- and those are the moments when I feel the unfairness sitting just adjacent to me, resting it&#x27;s hand on my arm.<p>In this case, I wonder how well Apple can make the web.spotify (and netflix etc) sites work on their hardware, and how much they will have to lie about who they are when they&#x27;re connecting to those services. I&#x27;m absolutely confident that the hardware and software will be capable of correctly and capably displaying movies, playing music, etc. It&#x27;s more a question of trust, truth, and power.<p>For me, in my little home on my little street, while I don&#x27;t usually fight that battle I&#x27;m still aware of the potential injustice. But when the big dogs fight over it? I feel it&#x27;s good for me, shining a light on these kinds of issue. Netflix doesn&#x27;t want to spend money and put dev work in to making things work perfectly on Apple&#x27;s headset? That makes perfect sense, no problem. But attempting to block it, if Apple has spent the time and money to make it work? That strikes me as unfair.<p>You might argue it&#x27;s not a 100% clear cut issue - should platforms have some say in how their content is presented? - but I feel very comfortable disagreeing when a website says &quot;must be viewed using ACME OS™&quot;, or even worse, &quot;can be viewed everywhere except COMPETITOR OS™&quot;.

Even if they did, based on past performance of VR headsets, I don&#x27;t envision this being an iPhone like jackpot for Apple.<p>It will outsell during the first years due to people with deep pockets eager to own one, and then it will wither and die, like most of the other attempts.

What’s the actual impact of this, if you can just use the website? I understand that future versions of apps might have more features to make the experience more immersive, but in the early days wouldn’t it be pretty much the same as using the website?

What about pornhub and onlyfans?<p>This is traditionnally the porno industry that leads in term of new tech adoption.

Oh when monopolies clash the result is hilarity!<p>If Apple would stop boning people over app payments, stop using MFI as a weapon, and implement RCS some people would probably come over and play.<p>I 100% would steer very clear of any new Apple marketplace. The once friendly and open platform literally considers things you buy from them ‘theirs’ (Tim Cook’s words).

Presumably a wait-and-see approach? No one buying an Apple Vision Pro doesn&#x27;t already use these apps, so it&#x27;s not like they&#x27;re missing out on a huge new user base.

Damn. Gonna really boost Apple Music and Apple TV+ then over time if Apple Vision Pro works out. Already both great products. Especially with the more recent improvements made to Apple Music.

PORN will drive answers to all your technology market questions<p>What will the PORN industry decide?<p>Does this new platform drive new, exclusive revenue sources for immersive PORN?<p>If the answer is yes, then the technology and commercial infrastructure will follow. I suspect the answer sounds like an out-of-context Carl Sagan quote, &quot;...Billions and Billions...&quot;<p>Whoever drives that content through those goggles will be rich beyond measure... unfortunately.

I assumed Apple will be running these apps in a container that it thinks is an iPhone, and then project it onto a virtual screen in augmented space. I guess maybe resolution maybe an issue — so maybe it will be the web version or a AppleTV container that allows 4k etc (phones downsample maybe?)

They won&#x27;t need apps, just use the browser. Sure you won&#x27;t get native level features, but at least users can still access the web-app versions. Something is better than nothing.

Im definitely not going to defend Apple here but I think this could drive people even more into the ecosystem. With new purchases Apple grants access to Apple Music and TV+ for some time and I think some people might stay afterwards.<p>As far as YouTube goes, I only use it in the browser due to my adblock working there.<p>Maybe I’m wrong but this could turn out as a win for Apple.

I was excited in June about Vision Pro now after buying the latest meta Ray bans, wearing them pretty frequently and enjoying them I&#x27;m perplexed why Apple didn&#x27;t go in the same direction? That crazy heavy looking expensive storm trooper looking helmet (vision pro) is where they chose to start in the AR space ..weird?!

In time Spotify will back down just like they did with native Apple Watch support. Pretty easy for them to take this stance when very few customers will own the first gen, but give it a decade for a cheaper version that’s mass adopted and we will see them bending over to please their customers.

It’s a new platform that isn’t proven, I would be surprised if large companies invest early on in new apps

I would guess most Apple Vision Pro users are using Apple Music anyways? Though I’m not even sure how relevant audio apps are to a VR headset? I guess they do music videos, but hardly seems like core application to headset.

Funny because YouTube and Netflix <i>are</i> present in the competing meta quest ecosystem.<p>I don&#x27;t really understand why they don&#x27;t go for this especially because it&#x27;s not a terrible lot of work to port their iOS apps.

<i>&quot;Out of the 46 most popular apps on the App Store, none of them will have a native visionOS app at launch, according to findings from MacStories. This list could always change — and some of the apps will still offer Vision Pro support through their existing apps on iPhone and iPad — but the lack of native apps just weeks away from the Vision Pro launch isn&#x27;t particularly encouraging.&quot;</i>

I was excited initially about these but I am loathe to admit I have kind of lost interest. Perhaps I am getting old.

They didn&#x27;t agree on the price. When Vision Pro becomes popular so then they will come

I’m on the opinion of boycotting visionOS as a protest on their link tax decisions, green bubble shenanigans and other non competitive moves. The future should be innovative and inclusive with fair competition and equal opportunity. Enough is enough.

They want to be able to steal your data

iMessage on Android in exchange for youtube app on this platform. It&#x27;s only logical.

I dont even use the youtube android app any more, its become hot garbage.<p>infinitely better experience on android vivaldi browser.<p>Really looking forward to apple vision tbh. my last windows laptop became a macbook air, very very satisfied.<p>And like they say, apple has decent competing products anyway, so not kike device users are going to miss them.<p>They will need a tictok app tho.

Considering that the main purpose of YouTube seems to be forcing me to see as many ads as physically possible, I would say good riddance. I will keep using the website, where I have some degree of control over what is being done and what I end up seeing.<p>I don’t care about Netflix or Spotify, so meh.

I can&#x27;t think of a worse thing than having YouTube ads beamed into my eyes, but you&#x27;d imagine the ROI on that would be pretty decent as a company that&#x27;s mainly built around selling ads.

Apple can buy Netflix for 10% of their market cap. It&#x27;d be worth it just to watch the total freakout of Amazon and Google.