Juno, the widely praised (unofficial) YouTube app for Vision Pro, has been removed from Apple’s App Store after complaints from Google. From Juno developer Christian Selig. Selig says Google has suggested that his app infringes on its trademark.
It is the latest setback for Selig, who has closed his popular Apollo last year after the company changed its developer policies to charge for API usage. It ignited the shutdown of Apollo and other similar programs From Reddit users and moderators.
This time around, Selig says he doesn’t want drama, noting that the $5 app was a “hobby project” for him to do development for visionOS. “I had a lot of fun building Juno, but it was always something I saw as a little program I made for fun,” Selig wrote on his website. “So I have no desire to turn this into a massive battle like what happened with Reddit years ago.”
It is not clear which aspect of Juno is the issue. Selig says that in a message to Apple, Google cited its “trademarks and iconography” in an impermissible way that “Juno did not follow YouTube’s rules and altered the website.” “I personally disagree with this because Juno is just a web view and acts as a browser extension that modifies the CSS to make the website and video player look more ‘visionOS,'” Selig explains. “No logos other than those on the website are posted, and their branding guidelines allow the suffix ‘for YouTube.'”
Google has not created its own YouTube app for Vision Pro, though the company said such a program was “on our road map”. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Selig says that people who have already paid for the app should continue using it for now, though it’s possible that a future YouTube update could remove it.
