Juno for YouTube has been removed from the App Store

October 1, 2024

For those not aware, a few months ago after reaching out to me, YouTube contacted the App Store stating that Juno does not adhere to YouTube guidelines and modifies the website in a way they don’t approve of, and alludes to their trademarks and iconography.

I don’t personally agree with this, as Juno is just a web view, and acts as little more than a browser extension that modifies CSS to make the website and video player look more “visionOS” like. No logos are placed other than those already on the website, and the “for YouTube” suffix is permitted in their branding guidelines. Juno also doesn’t block ads in any capacity, for the curious.

I stated as much to YouTube, they wouldn’t really clarify or budge any, and as a result of both parties not being able to come to a conclusion I received an email a few minutes ago from Apple that Juno has been removed from the App Store.

Juno was a fun hobby project for me to build. As a developer I wanted to get some experience building for the Vision Pro, and as a user I wanted a nice way to watch YouTube on this cool new device. As a result I really enjoyed building Juno, but it was always something I saw as fundamentally an app I built for fun.

Because of that, I have zero desire to spin this into a massive fight (at least more than I’ve fought in emails over the last few months) akin to what happened with Reddit years ago. That’s kind of the opposite of fun. I hope that’s understandable.

For those who have Juno, to my knowledge it should continue to work fine until/unless the YouTube website updates in some fashion that breaks stuff. Sorry it had to end this way, I had some really cool stuff planned for it that I think would have been a lot of fun! It’s been genuinely awesome hearing all the kind words from Vision Pro users who have loved the app.

🫡