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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The official YouTube app is now available on VisionOS.
- It’ll sync your subscriptions, playlists, watch history, and more.
- This removes the need for third-party YouTube app alternatives.
I always wondered what would come first: smart cars that can communicate with each other via 5G, or the official YouTube app for VisionOS. The answer has finally arrived, with Apple today announcing the latter.
No longer will users have to go through third-party apps or unoptimized Safari tabs to consume their usual media content; instead, they can tap into the official YouTube app, available for free in the App Store, and watch videos just like how they would on their iPhones, Macs, TVs, and other devices.
Also: I tried Apple’s most ambitious Vision Pro feature yet, and it let me down in the best way
That includes accessing subscriptions, playlists, watch history, and more. While I haven’t tried the app yet, I’d imagine that watching videos on floating spaces is a core part of the new YouTube-on-Vision-Pro experience.
What’s new?
While there aren’t any VisionOS-exclusive features in the app, as far as I can tell, Apple is encouraging users to take advantage of the Vision Pro’s wider field of view by watching the plethora of existing 3D, 360-degree, and VR180 videos on YouTube.
Earlier this year, I did just that on the Samsung Galaxy XR headset — which runs Google’s Android XR OS and therefore had earlier access to native YouTube — and found the content much more enjoyable on the larger, virtual screen.
You can, of course, simulate VisionOS Environments over the YouTube app for a more immersive experience. Watching travel vlogs about Joshua Tree while being surrounded by that exact desert landscape is the kind of black magic that sold me on the Vision Pro in the first place.
The time has finally come
There’s no telling why this release took as long as it did, especially with Apple pitching the Vision Pro as the ultimate content consumption device close to three years ago. Was it a lack of developers? Was Google gatekeeping its services in hopes of building up its own XR project at the time?
Also: Apple just fixed one of my biggest pain points with Vision Pro – what’s new with the M5 model
What’s certain is that the day has finally come when I no longer have to dig through Reddit for YouTube loopholes; I can finally watch videos the way they were meant to be seen.
