So nice to see a YouTube client that makes sense on the platform it’s on. Compare to the official YT client for iPad, for example, which bizarrely uses the same tiny Material touch targets as on phones.
> which bizarrely uses the same tiny Material touch targets as on phones
I personally think iPad YouTube app's touch is not too bad;
but in general (not limited to YouTube), I think the UI design of web video players are all too fixated on the existing design.
For example, when not in fullscreen mode, I don't see why all the controls need to be confined to the video frame and disappear when not hovering. While this design choice has its benefits, it also presents significant drawbacks: it obscures the actual content when you're interacting with the controls (a problem that's particularly acute on smaller screens), and performing quick, repetitive actions becomes difficult because the controls aren't visible until you hover over them, among other issues. This approach to web video player UI has been a pet peeve of mine for some time.
Install it, and delete the janky "native" app. Now Youtube is a webpage that does everything it does on a regular browser. PiP? Audio with the screen locked or in the background? Yes and yes.
The YouTube app on our Sony TV kills me. Out of a variety of apps installed (Netflix, HBO, Disney, Apple, Prime) it's the only one that we need to adjust volume for EVERY SINGLE TIME because they decided 15 should be loud vs 30 on all the other apps. Especially frustrating when a lot of the time the first play experience in YouTube is being blasted with some kind of rapid-fire ad sequence.
Don't get me started on the official YT app on ChromeOS... it's so bad (one example: the seek bar was barely usable with a touchscreen) that I eventually disabled it, using the website is much better.
all the youtube apps suck. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally clicked on another video while watching the one I actually am trying to watch. If you aren't full screen they fill up half the space with giant links to other videos and there's no confirmation or option for confirmation. I'm not sure anyone who works on them actually uses them in real life situations.
This strategy has changed now as far as I can remember. Google used to have a strategy of using material on iOS, but has decided to switch to a more native UIKit feel. I imagine that will be a long transition, but it's promising.
Talented developer for sure, but has a knack for developing software that piggy backs of silicon valley giants that can turn off access at a moments notice.
today it is very simple because almost everyone has a player in their pocket that connects the card to software which runs in the cloud. It wouldn't be technically difficult at all for me to host the music file in S3, R2 or Azure storage and the storage and network costs are insignificant so far as I expect these cards to be distributed. If I did that I could get in trouble over copyright, so a link to YouTube is a safe and easy solution w/ the disadvantage that people in many geographies can't view licensed music videos.
Fortunately that QR code is a redirect and I can send it to another service. I demoed the cards with quite a few people and found that they usually felt it was a letdown to go to YouTube (maybe because they go to YouTube all the time and there is nothing special about it) but that there was more satisfaction with a link to SongWhip which might send them to YouTUbe in the end but gives them a feeling of agency at the expense of another click.
Making something like youtube would be much easier technically than it would have been in 2006 or so. A solo dev could create a small scale streaming service for HTML5 video pretty reasonably.
It's the copyright that's the problem. You would be annihilated, not by YouTube's lawyers, but by UMG and Sony's lawyers, immediately after getting even a small amount of traction.
That’s more of a statement of the monopolization of hardware access the App Store gives than it is him “piggy backing”. It’s not like you have a real choice without Apple being forced to allow software downloads via a web browser globally.
I'm amazed that someone who has been this badly burned by a corporation controlling their API access would even think about writing another app that uses third-party APIs, to be honest.
I basically just stopped using Reddit after that whole fiasco. I had already been drifting away for years. The site has changed. It was time to move on.
Seriously, what percentage of people who just spent at least $3,500 on the hardware would quibble over an extra $5 when it comes to as essential a native app as Youtube?
This looks beautiful. I think Alphabet just won a more premium app than they might have made by choosing not to play. I hope a Quest port might happen someday.
I like Christian. I was a Apollo (Reddit client) user. I supported him during the whole Reddit vs Devs fiasco of 2023.
I'm not sure this is a good idea. YouTube (Google) intentionally didn't want to put up their app on the AppStore. They had their reasons. Ignoring their reasons and creating an app using their APIs and putting up an app in the AppStore against their will, just doesn't seem like a good move here.
> Does it block ads? It doesn’t, I don’t think Google would like that
I suspect Google already doesn't like what you're doing. They chose to make their own app unavailable on the AVP even though it sounds like it would be trivial for them to do so. Whatever their reasons are, I doubt they're keen about a third party stepping in with an alternative.
I echo the author's praise of YouTube Premium. When it first came out I was like there is no way I would ever pay for such service. Being an early YouTube user, pre Google buyout, I still was in love with the platform that gave me content from real people.
Fast forward to 2020 the US election cycle broke me. I could not stand the amount of political ads that were being shoved down my throat. My kids were perma home due to COVID and we were running out of things to watch. I finally caved and got YouTube Premium. I told myself OK after this shit show of an election cycle ends I will cancel and yet here I am still paying for it. It is that good.
Yes I realize that I am part of the problem. I just got my first Amazon Prime ad tonight trying to catch up on the train wreck Wheel of Time show they are putting out... and I am going to upgrade to not have them because I simply DGAF about whatever bullshit that they are filling advertisement slots with.
So a corporation acquired the platform you enjoyed using, and corrupted the user experience so much that it forced you to pay them to get the old UX back, and... you're happy about it?
Sounds like Stockholm syndrome, to be honest, with Google laughing all the way to the bank.
Why do you think this is a flawed decision to do so ? In my opinion this is a conscious choice by Selig both times and a good one.
There are business models where venture funding is unsuitable as there will never be hockey stick growth or unit economics or competitive moats etc, traditionally companies usually small operate here, they are not startups, just SMB doing non flashy stuff.
Similarly also many business models unsuitable talented product teams to risk on , that are perfect for a highly talented freelancer such as Christian Selig - like third party API dependent ideas.
He is amongst the best indie developers in the Apple ecosystem and doesn't have to worry about competition quality too much in these ideas.
These are four main ways that I know of, to be a professional talented product developer -
1. Become a founder, raise funding, chase growth and do things you don't really like anymore
2. Freelance and do boring consulting work, trying to keep customer happy
3. Work in a big bureaucratic tech company and be frustrated constantly with everything from politics to red tape.
4. Pour your heart and soul into a early stage startup and watch it either outgrow you or crash and burn.
He instead gets to build products at a massive scale without having any overhead of an organization, and also making decent amount of money (upwards of few million/year with Apollo), what more can a developer aspire for ?
I assume that Christian Selig made enough money with Apollo before it was shut down to make it a worthwhile business, even if it was not forever. He seems to be doing just fine despite a big company shutting him down.
This looks awesome. Christian, you mention comments as a possible future feature -- I think the idea of a livestream off in the corner with comments as a separate spatial box might be nice. I don't like to leave streams on while I'm doing other things, but lots of younger folk I know do, and part of the stream consumption experience is the comments.
> So I dunno, if you can afford an expensive Apple Vision Pro, I’d really consider treating yourself to YouTube Premium!
The reason I don't have premium (and one of the reasons I block ads) is that I don't want YouTube tracking my viewing habits, which I cannot prevent if I'm forced to log in to access premium.
It has nothing to do with monetary cost. I'm always surprised when I see statements like this one that appear to be completely ignorant of this aspect.
I think most people log in to YouTube specifically so YouTube can see what they look at and show them more content like that and sync across their device, even when they don't have Premium. Yours is a tiny tiny niche use case, even among people who would pay for a YT app.
Stopping Google's tracking isn't as big a priority to most people as it seems to be to you (otherwise google would be out of business). So it shouldn't really be all that surprising when people make statements that aren't about stopping google's tracking.
I wish Google is the the Blockbuster of our time, making money off nefarious patterns just to be replaced completely by something more novel
...that ends up making money off nefarious patterns
I always kind of liked Apollo, but I never saw what was so exceptional about it. These days, I use Narwhal 2, and I can't say I miss any functionality from Apollo. For my use, Narwhal is just as good as Apollo on the iPhone, and vastly superior on the iPad.
I tried using the official client for a while but just couldn't stand it and switched back to Apollo about a month ago.
Sideloadly + ApolloPatcher was surprisingly easy to set up. Who knows how long it'll last, but it's basically set and forget once you create the Reddit+imgur API keys and enable wifi sync/auto refresh.
Having recently tried to watch Youtube on iPad without an adblocker, I discovered Youtube advertising. It's insufferable. Ads appear every few minutes, and they're not like the TV ads of yore. They're exclusively get-rich-quick schemes with people explaining how they're able to earn $10,000 a month doing nothing -- all one has to do is go to that website and subscribe to a shady course.
Fortunately Brave still blocks ads successfully, even on an iPad. Without it, it would be unusable. I wonder who puts up with this.
I think youtube ads are terrible and frequent because youtube decided they have no competition and if people want to watch videos, they'll either put up with that shit or pay for premium which is what youtube actually wants.
Why do this when YouTube would have one eventually? This isn’t like Reddit client, I’ve never heard of a 3rd party YouTube client. Is he doing it for fun or just to get the initial impatient $$ before YouTube shows up?
The worst part of being an early adopter (very first world problems) is that nothing exists yet. When 4k HDR was first being supported, a couple of Netflix shows were there and... not much else (some YouTube videos of dubious quality)
VisionOS is going to have a lot of new app developer excitement, and that's good! YouTube is one of the most used apps on my phone, $5 seems pretty reasonable.
There are plenty of cool 3rd party youtube clients. SmartTube, NewPipe and Invidious come to mind. Youtube Revanced could be considered as 3rd party youtube client as well.
These were recorded in the simulator as stated in the article by Christian. However there is a recording mode on the device itself as well, although as I don't have one I don't know the specifics.
To be fair, there were plenty of 3rd party YouTube clients on Windows Phone that they didn't block (I even payed for one). They only really didn't want an official YouTube app to exist on Windows Phone, and the same will likely be true for VisionPro (even assuming that Google wants to try to bury VisionOS like they did with Windows - which is not clear yet). And a payed YouTube app will obviously have a tiny install base on any platform, so they don't really care.
Is this true? I have never seen an ad on my embedded youtube player. Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was rendering.
>Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was rendering.
I'm sure they'd be happy to take direct donations. Many have Patreon accounts you can subscribe to. Those creators aren't getting any meaningful revenue from ads; that's why they all added those annoying sponsor segments.
I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about the Vision Pro and how much I want it to be everything it claims to be! Are there any info available from people who have received their headsets that are 'standard' production versions, and not Apple supplied early access versions? I want to hit that order button, but the rational me tells me to wait for some initial real life reviews to roll in.
Only a matter of time until G blocks access to whatever API he is using or throttles it. YT invests a shit ton of money to ensure you use the official YT app to make sure you view their stupid ads, pump their ad profits, or buy YoUtUbE PrEmIuM
looks good though! Won't be adopting the apple vision pro for awhile. but the developers pushing their apps to this ecosystem will definitely be awarded for early adoption until "native" apps are made available.
pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy ($5-$10). Rake in that easy money while the big companies take their time in building their own app. Big companies then throttle or block those apis used by indy developers or require fee to use them. Indy developers likely to halt development and thus people end up on the official apps.
No idea why this comment was downvoted. YouTube (Google) can easily get Apple to ban unauthorized third party apps.
Once YouTube releases support for the Vision Pro, either Google will get Juno banned as an unauthorized third party app or make the API expensive to use even if Juno becomes popular.
> pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy ($5-$10). Rake in that easy money while the big companies take their time in building their own app. Big companies then throttle or block those apis used by indy developers or require fee to use them. Indy developers likely to halt development and thus people end up on the official apps.
Precisely. Unfortunately the creator of Apollo has not learned anything about what happened to his reddit client and the same will certainly happen with this YouTube client.
> At its core, Juno uses the YouTube website itself. No, not scraped. It presents the website as you would load it, but similar to how browser extensions work, it tweaks the theming of the site through CSS and JavaScript.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
nntwozz|2 years ago
This combo is amazing, haven't looked back ever since I deployed it with docker.
Hopefully Yattee will make a native visionOS app in the future.
toastercat|2 years ago
smith7018|2 years ago
lancesells|2 years ago
jdminhbg|2 years ago
thrdbndndn|2 years ago
I personally think iPad YouTube app's touch is not too bad; but in general (not limited to YouTube), I think the UI design of web video players are all too fixated on the existing design.
For example, when not in fullscreen mode, I don't see why all the controls need to be confined to the video frame and disappear when not hovering. While this design choice has its benefits, it also presents significant drawbacks: it obscures the actual content when you're interacting with the controls (a problem that's particularly acute on smaller screens), and performing quick, repetitive actions becomes difficult because the controls aren't visible until you hover over them, among other issues. This approach to web video player UI has been a pet peeve of mine for some time.
hapticmonkey|2 years ago
It even forces its own built in screensavers to run instead of the OS one if the app is left paused. Who approves that?!
What Steve Jobs said about Microsoft in the 90s applies to Google today: They have no taste.
MengerSponge|2 years ago
Install it, and delete the janky "native" app. Now Youtube is a webpage that does everything it does on a regular browser. PiP? Audio with the screen locked or in the background? Yes and yes.
cbovis|2 years ago
rob74|2 years ago
yard2010|2 years ago
LegitShady|2 years ago
danpalmer|2 years ago
AuryGlenz|2 years ago
I get it for small time apps, but Meta is clearly big enough to give it the little amount of attention it needs.
LeSaucy|2 years ago
PaulHoule|2 years ago
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/111049822586450100
30 years ago somebody who wanted to develop a "new object you can use to distribute music" had to spend $100 million on some project like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Compact_Cassette
today it is very simple because almost everyone has a player in their pocket that connects the card to software which runs in the cloud. It wouldn't be technically difficult at all for me to host the music file in S3, R2 or Azure storage and the storage and network costs are insignificant so far as I expect these cards to be distributed. If I did that I could get in trouble over copyright, so a link to YouTube is a safe and easy solution w/ the disadvantage that people in many geographies can't view licensed music videos.
Fortunately that QR code is a redirect and I can send it to another service. I demoed the cards with quite a few people and found that they usually felt it was a letdown to go to YouTube (maybe because they go to YouTube all the time and there is nothing special about it) but that there was more satisfaction with a link to SongWhip which might send them to YouTUbe in the end but gives them a feeling of agency at the expense of another click.
turtlebits|2 years ago
I make all sorts of small apps and utilities because to improve usability of services i consume. It doest mean I'm some lackey to big corp.
mlsu|2 years ago
It's the copyright that's the problem. You would be annihilated, not by YouTube's lawyers, but by UMG and Sony's lawyers, immediately after getting even a small amount of traction.
qarl|2 years ago
grashalm|2 years ago
jimbokun|2 years ago
Moto7451|2 years ago
dharma1|2 years ago
Anyway YouTube aren’t going to disable embeds. So don’t see it being turned off
alexsereno|2 years ago
throw10920|2 years ago
mickle00|2 years ago
zyang|2 years ago
p-e-w|2 years ago
futtureboomr|2 years ago
[deleted]
ftio|2 years ago
I still grumble every time I use the Reddit app. RIP Apollo.
dcchambers|2 years ago
BlindEyeHalo|2 years ago
snalty|2 years ago
https://testflight.apple.com/join/3UF8bAUN
slg|2 years ago
monkeywork|2 years ago
palla89|2 years ago
bongripper|2 years ago
[deleted]
SeriousM|2 years ago
I just realised that a new product means new eco system, means less/no customization possibilities.
What a wonderful world...
reustle|2 years ago
password54321|2 years ago
"Here is an option to support a platform you use without watching ads". HN: Go fck yourself!
andsoitis|2 years ago
michaelhoney|2 years ago
ubiquitysc|2 years ago
yakkityyak|2 years ago
dubrocks|2 years ago
ewzimm|2 years ago
drusepth|2 years ago
makeitdouble|2 years ago
It probably would require a huge dev effort to support, but that's definitely a miss compared to the offical Quest app.
thallavajhula|2 years ago
I'm not sure this is a good idea. YouTube (Google) intentionally didn't want to put up their app on the AppStore. They had their reasons. Ignoring their reasons and creating an app using their APIs and putting up an app in the AppStore against their will, just doesn't seem like a good move here.
CivBase|2 years ago
I suspect Google already doesn't like what you're doing. They chose to make their own app unavailable on the AVP even though it sounds like it would be trivial for them to do so. Whatever their reasons are, I doubt they're keen about a third party stepping in with an alternative.
jdoss|2 years ago
Fast forward to 2020 the US election cycle broke me. I could not stand the amount of political ads that were being shoved down my throat. My kids were perma home due to COVID and we were running out of things to watch. I finally caved and got YouTube Premium. I told myself OK after this shit show of an election cycle ends I will cancel and yet here I am still paying for it. It is that good.
Yes I realize that I am part of the problem. I just got my first Amazon Prime ad tonight trying to catch up on the train wreck Wheel of Time show they are putting out... and I am going to upgrade to not have them because I simply DGAF about whatever bullshit that they are filling advertisement slots with.
$2.99 a month is worth it. Kill me now.
imiric|2 years ago
Sounds like Stockholm syndrome, to be honest, with Google laughing all the way to the bank.
manquer|2 years ago
orangepanda|2 years ago
tobiasbischoff|2 years ago
manquer|2 years ago
There are business models where venture funding is unsuitable as there will never be hockey stick growth or unit economics or competitive moats etc, traditionally companies usually small operate here, they are not startups, just SMB doing non flashy stuff.
Similarly also many business models unsuitable talented product teams to risk on , that are perfect for a highly talented freelancer such as Christian Selig - like third party API dependent ideas.
He is amongst the best indie developers in the Apple ecosystem and doesn't have to worry about competition quality too much in these ideas.
These are four main ways that I know of, to be a professional talented product developer -
1. Become a founder, raise funding, chase growth and do things you don't really like anymore
2. Freelance and do boring consulting work, trying to keep customer happy
3. Work in a big bureaucratic tech company and be frustrated constantly with everything from politics to red tape.
4. Pour your heart and soul into a early stage startup and watch it either outgrow you or crash and burn.
He instead gets to build products at a massive scale without having any overhead of an organization, and also making decent amount of money (upwards of few million/year with Apollo), what more can a developer aspire for ?
blowski|2 years ago
newaccount74|2 years ago
graphe|2 years ago
jazzyjackson|2 years ago
hiddencost|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
Aissen|2 years ago
whatsthatabout|2 years ago
vessenes|2 years ago
jerrygoyal|2 years ago
so if it's the official YT site with css customisation then why is there a need to embed video like it's an external site?
p-e-w|2 years ago
The reason I don't have premium (and one of the reasons I block ads) is that I don't want YouTube tracking my viewing habits, which I cannot prevent if I'm forced to log in to access premium.
It has nothing to do with monetary cost. I'm always surprised when I see statements like this one that appear to be completely ignorant of this aspect.
simiones|2 years ago
joemi|2 years ago
diebeforei485|2 years ago
newaccount74|2 years ago
mromanuk|2 years ago
KhalPanda|2 years ago
simiones|2 years ago
graphe|2 years ago
yard2010|2 years ago
cityzen|2 years ago
Oreb|2 years ago
sssilverman|2 years ago
Sideloadly + ApolloPatcher was surprisingly easy to set up. Who knows how long it'll last, but it's basically set and forget once you create the Reddit+imgur API keys and enable wifi sync/auto refresh.
Zenul_Abidin|2 years ago
consumer451|2 years ago
This is the impact that a single developer can have.
If that's not inspirational, then I don't know what is.
https://old.reddit.com/top/?sort=top&t=year
thatxliner|2 years ago
infinitecost|2 years ago
jdminhbg|2 years ago
danjc|2 years ago
bambax|2 years ago
Having recently tried to watch Youtube on iPad without an adblocker, I discovered Youtube advertising. It's insufferable. Ads appear every few minutes, and they're not like the TV ads of yore. They're exclusively get-rich-quick schemes with people explaining how they're able to earn $10,000 a month doing nothing -- all one has to do is go to that website and subscribe to a shady course.
Fortunately Brave still blocks ads successfully, even on an iPad. Without it, it would be unusable. I wonder who puts up with this.
LegitShady|2 years ago
hhh|2 years ago
m3kw9|2 years ago
wrsh07|2 years ago
hokumguru|2 years ago
neurostimulant|2 years ago
There are plenty of cool 3rd party youtube clients. SmartTube, NewPipe and Invidious come to mind. Youtube Revanced could be considered as 3rd party youtube client as well.
iseanstevens|2 years ago
user2344597|2 years ago
axxl|2 years ago
shuckles|2 years ago
basil-rash|2 years ago
Sutanreyu|2 years ago
ipshii|2 years ago
AISnakeOil|2 years ago
Shank|2 years ago
[0]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro
julienreszka|2 years ago
pjmlp|2 years ago
simiones|2 years ago
notso411|2 years ago
awsanswers|2 years ago
thih9|2 years ago
Yet. Just like with Apollo and Reddit API, at some point there weren’t any.
basil-rash|2 years ago
Is this true? I have never seen an ad on my embedded youtube player. Which I was honestly kind of bummed about, as I wanted some way to give back to the creators of the tutorials I was rendering.
shiroiuma|2 years ago
I'm sure they'd be happy to take direct donations. Many have Patreon accounts you can subscribe to. Those creators aren't getting any meaningful revenue from ads; that's why they all added those annoying sponsor segments.
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
rixrax|2 years ago
lfkdev|2 years ago
whywhywhywhy|2 years ago
xyst|2 years ago
looks good though! Won't be adopting the apple vision pro for awhile. but the developers pushing their apps to this ecosystem will definitely be awarded for early adoption until "native" apps are made available.
pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy ($5-$10). Rake in that easy money while the big companies take their time in building their own app. Big companies then throttle or block those apis used by indy developers or require fee to use them. Indy developers likely to halt development and thus people end up on the official apps.
rvz|2 years ago
Once YouTube releases support for the Vision Pro, either Google will get Juno banned as an unauthorized third party app or make the API expensive to use even if Juno becomes popular.
> pump out a AVP app. early adopters of AVP likely to buy ($5-$10). Rake in that easy money while the big companies take their time in building their own app. Big companies then throttle or block those apis used by indy developers or require fee to use them. Indy developers likely to halt development and thus people end up on the official apps.
Precisely. Unfortunately the creator of Apollo has not learned anything about what happened to his reddit client and the same will certainly happen with this YouTube client.
quic5|2 years ago