Introducing Juno for Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional
February 1, 2024
YouTube might be one of many components of the web I devour probably the most, so I used to be greater than a little bit unhappy when YouTube introduced that they don’t have plans to construct a visionOS app, and disabled the choice to load the iPad app. This leaves you with Safari, and the web site is okay, however positively doesn’t really feel like a visionOS app. Couple that with visionOS not having the choice so as to add web sites to your Dwelling Display screen, and YouTube isn’t that handy on visionOS by default.
Then I remembered for years my previous app, Apollo, performed again YouTube movies submitted to Reddit fairly effectively, and I developed a reasonably good understanding of how YouTube labored. That sparked the thought to reuse a few of Apollo’s code there and construct a little bit YouTube shopper of my very own for visionOS, and after a mad week of coding “Juno for YouTube” is born.
How does it work… technically?
YouTube has a couple of completely different APIs.
They’ve a “Knowledge API” for fetching info (thumbnail, length, and many others.) for a video, that requires an API key, auditing, and you’ll solely name so many occasions a day. This API doesn’t truly get you the video to play or something, it’s purely for metadata, and for importing.
They’ve non-public/inner APIs that they get grumpy at you for utilizing as a result of you possibly can circumvent adverts. The aim with this app was to not make Google grumpy.
Lastly, they’ve an embed API that’s fairly highly effective, and is what I utilized in Apollo and now Juno. There’s no API keys, or limits to what number of occasions a day you possibly can name it, because it actually simply masses the video in a webview, and gives JavaScript strategies to work together with the video, corresponding to pause, play, pace up, and many others. It’s very nice, you possibly can play YouTube movies again, and YouTube nonetheless will get to indicate adverts (if the person doesn’t have YouTube Premium) and whatnot so nobody is grumpy.
This implies you possibly can construct a completely native visionOS UI that then utilizing JavaScript interacts with the underlying YouTube participant, so that you get the very best of each worlds. Juno even helps detecting facet ratios of the movies and can resize the window robotically, so ultra-wide 21:9 film trailers are revered, as are nostalgic 4:3 uploads.
The one draw back is that sometimes you’ll get a creator who disabled playback for YouTube embeds. That is uncommon, particularly with movies made in the previous few years, however for these Juno will auto-detect that and simply load up the conventional video web site web page relatively than the flowery participant.
At its core, Juno makes use of the YouTube web site itself. No, not scraped. It presents the web site as you’d load it, however just like how browser extensions work, it tweaks the theming of the positioning by means of CSS and JavaScript.
That leads to:
- Tweaking backgrounds so the gorgeous glassy look of visionOS reveals by means of. As the nice Serenity Caldwell once said, “Opaque home windows can really feel heavy and constricting, particularly at massive sizes. Each time attainable, choose the glass materials (which pulls gentle from individuals’s environment).”
- Growing distinction so objects are correctly seen
- Making buttons just like the button to view your subscriptions native UI, after which loading the related parts of the web site accordingly
- You get your full suggestions, subscriptions and whatnot, simply as you’d on the conventional YouTube website or app
It was loads of work tweaking the CSS to get the YouTube web site to one thing that felt snug and at dwelling on visionOS, however I’m actually pleased with the way it turned out. Does it really feel like a completely native visionOS app? Nicely no, but it surely’s a heck of loads nicer than the web site, and to be truthful Google apps usually do their very own factor relatively than use iOS system UI, so undecided we’ll ever absolutely see that. 🙂
It doesn’t, I don’t suppose Google would love that, however in case you have YouTube Premium you received’t see adverts, identical to the web site. Actually, YouTube Premium is like some of the important subscriptions for me, it’s so useful to by no means fear about adverts and it’s fairly cool in that it additionally helps the creators substantially more than in the event you watched adverts. So I dunno, in the event you can afford an costly Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, I’d actually contemplate treating your self to YouTube Premium!
- Lovely translucent visionOS interface
- Automated facet ratio detection
- Velocity up or decelerate video
- Native controls for video playback
- Pinch-drag anyplace to wash by means of video (an Apollo basic)
- Double-pinch both facet of the video to leap ahead or again 10 seconds in time
- Fast launch YouTube from Dwelling Display screen
- Dim your environment to deal with the video
- View your suggestions, subscriptions, playlists, and many others.
- Resizable (whereas sustaining appropriate facet ratio)
- Automated high quality choice, ought to scale up or down primarily based on the dimensions of your window all the best way to 4K
This was a little bit of a mad sprint to get completed in time for the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional launch, so I’m hoping so as to add some extra issues with time.
- Capability to see feedback (I imply, they’re helpful typically…)
- Perhaps choose high quality immediately if curiosity is there
- Caption controls (couldn’t fairly get this working in time for 1.0)
- Extra immersive environments
- Multiview for a number of movies
If there’s extra you’d prefer to see, let me know!
Sure please, I’d love that! I’ve solely been capable of develop this within the simulator, which clearly has its limitations, so as soon as I get my arms on a tool this Friday I’ll most likely have loads of ideas on issues I need to enhance as effectively. That additionally means there’ll most likely be some bugs right here and there too. However I’d love to listen to your expertise and suggestions with the app, so be happy to achieve out to me on Mastodon or Twitter!
It’s accessible on the App Retailer for $5! A enjoyable URL to search out it’s juno.vision No subscriptions or in-app purchases, only a one-time paid up entrance app prefer it’s 2008. I thought of making it free, or like a buck, but it surely’s a premium platform, and I feel paying a couple of dollars for a superb app is one thing we must always encourage if we would like extra builders constructing for this platform.
I feel the result’s a extremely cozy option to browse YouTube on visionOS, and having a option to shortly launch YouTube proper out of your Dwelling Display screen is tremendous handy.
I’m trying ahead to doing extra with it, and cheers to Matthew Skiles for designing the icon! He truly made some lovely alternate icons as effectively, however these apparently aren’t supported in visionOS 1.0.