YouTube app finally arrives on Apple Vision Pro

With Apple, Meta and Google all holding back apps on their rivals' platforms, Google blinked first. The YouTube app is now available on visionOS.

Last November, FlatpanelsHD highlighted how VR/AR/XR has become the latest front in the platform war, after the tech giants largely buried the hatchet on mobile and TV.

The Apple TV app, for example, is still missing on Meta's Horizon OS and Android XR, while YouTube has long been absent from Apple's visionOS. Disney+ initially partnered exclusively with Apple before expanding to Meta's Horizon OS, albeit without support for 3D movies.


YouTube comes to visionOS
Two years after the launch of Apple Vision Pro, Google has now officially brought the YouTube app to Apple's visionOS platform. It can be downloaded here.

The app supports standard video as well as 180-degree and 360-degree content. YouTube's user-generated 'immersive' videos are no match for the Apple Immersive Video titles, but they can still be impressive when transported to far away lands or worlds.


Apple Vision Pro with M5 can even decode YouTube's 8K videos, although playback is still limited to roughly 4K per eye.

 Also read: First look at Apple Vision Pro: A video revolution

In 2024, an unofficial app called Juno provided access to YouTube on visionOS, but it was later removed from the App Store.

Next step, an Apple TV app for Android XR? Netflix is also still missing on all three XR platforms.