Vision Pro still lacks some popular apps in the entertainment sector. Despite the corresponding announcement, Alphabet has still not published any official YouTube client. The manufacturer Apple also now notices the problem and is enabling video playback with VisionOS 2 Beautify in Safari browserwhich is also helpful for Netflix users who have to make do without its own app. If you don’t want to rely on using Safari, you can now use indie developer Christian Selig’s app for YouTube. It has now been significantly improved and version 2 has been released.
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180 and 360 degree videos
Juno 2 Comes with an improved interface that is optimized more closely to the Vision Pro style. There is a new tab bar that allows you to jump between areas more quickly. The app now plays 180 and 360 degree YouTube videos in immersive mode for the first time. Since YouTube is one of the largest providers of such movies, this opens up a huge repository of content.
Using the Metal engine and AI, movies in the Juno 2 can be upscaled to 6K, making playback sharper on the high-resolution Vision Pro display. However, according to Selig, 8K is probably not possible due to the lack of an AV1 hardware decoder in the Vision Pro’s M2 SoC. Also new is synchronization of playback history, control via Siri, endcard links, support for streams and live video, and an optimized search.
The tricky way
Selig had to overcome several obstacles while developing Juno 2. Since Alphabet does not provide direct access to videos, the developer uses the YouTube website. “Juno essentially takes a series of quick snapshots of the web browser and stitches them together into a video feed, passes each frame through Apple’s MetalFX machine learning upscaling engine and then projects them onto a 3D sphere around the user.” This is possible because the Vision Pro has such fast graphics cores. The refresh rate is a maximum of 30 fps.
Juno 2 has arrived VisionOS App Store Available. The app costs just under $5 and doesn’t force users to subscribe. Alphabet hasn’t yet provided any information on when the official YouTube client for Vision Pro will arrive.
(B.Sc.)
