[HN Gopher] Juno for YouTube has been removed from the App Store
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Juno for YouTube has been removed from the App Store
Author : MaximilianEmel
Score : 133 points
Date : 2024-10-01 21:18 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (christianselig.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (christianselig.com)
| HorizonXP wrote:
| Bah! Humbug!
|
| I use this all the time. Thanks for making it.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| More justification for anti trust action against Google. You
| can't modify your browser's view of your own client side data?
| They have absolutely no right to encroach on that, and they know
| it. This is just them throwing their weight around because no one
| can do anything about their bullying.
| afavour wrote:
| > You can't modify your browser's view of your own client side
| data? They have absolutely no right to encroach on that
|
| Is that true? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe we
| _should_ have that right but is it actually specified anywhere?
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| You're questioning whether it's your right to run the code
| you want to, instead of the code they want you to?
| DannyBee wrote:
| Yes.
|
| If you separate out "how should things be" from "how things
| are", then from duke-nukem levels to you name it, caselaw
| is very clear that they can control this through fairly
| simple copyright law principles (derivative works, etc),
| without even having to resort to more complex theories.
|
| Your best argument is fair use, but it's not a particularly
| good fair use argument in this case.
|
| This isn't even a close case.
|
| Your only secondary argument is antitrust but it seems like
| a really weak one in this case as well.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| Not that you're under any obligation to suffer the peanut
| gallery, but I'm curious as to how it is that _Micro Star
| v. FormGen_ (which I assume is your Duke Nukem reference)
| obviously applies more readily here than _Galoob v.
| Nintendo_ and _Sega v. Accolade_. As far as I can tell,
| the key distinctions are in how permanent the derivative
| works are and to what extent the erstwhile infringement
| is forced by the platform owner as a condition of
| interoperability, which seem like they 're debatable
| questions for third-party client apps.
|
| Granted, maybe the DMCA makes these distinctions
| practically moot because a service can get away with just
| applying arbitrary restrictions via a "technological
| measure" now.
| andyferris wrote:
| It's a fair question IMO. The YouTube APIs presumable come
| with "terms of service" for use, or some such. What
| exactly, legally speaking, can they specify? Can it be
| enforced (by Google lawyers and courts) to the point where
| Apple would be compelled to do things to force users to
| comply, like removing this App?
|
| I think the answer _should_ be no, but that's different to
| asking what is your actual rights on your device vs their
| "right" to control use of their system.
| hbn wrote:
| He isn't even using YouTube's APIs. From the dev himself:
|
| > I've said from the initial launch, Juno is built as a
| web-wrapper for YouTube, akin to a browser extension, and
| purposefully built with full respect for the YouTube
| website and experience, and as a result does not block
| ads in any capacity, nor does it introduce extra
| functionality like downloading videos offline that could
| facilitate that. Further, Juno doesn't even use any
| YouTube APIs, as it has no need to: it just wraps the
| website, and uses CSS and JavaScript to style the website
| and functionality more in line with visionOS. This is in
| contrast to other third-party tools that for instance
| scrape the YouTube website for applicable video URLs and
| use those directly, or those that integrate ad-blocking
| functionality.
|
| https://christianselig.com/2024/06/announcing-
| juno-2/#lastly...
| asveikau wrote:
| Seems like a criticism of apple too. Why does this developer
| need permission from Apple to change some css?
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Putting ethical concerns aside (I'm definitely not on Big
| Tech's side on this), it just makes business sense to not
| piss off one of your biggest app developers in favor of
| someone making an unofficial client.
|
| We absolutely need more regulation for these big platforms,
| but until then it's difficult to blame Apple for acting
| rationally business-wise.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Why do I need permission from my city council to build a
| bakery in a residential neighborhood? I shouldn't need it,
| it's all red tape like Apple's policies.
| asveikau wrote:
| This is such whataboutism. You might as well have asked why
| the state doesn't allow you to kill people. Why is there
| any rule at all ever?
|
| Clearly apple has a divine right to prevent you from
| changing CSS and it has equal legitimacy to the state.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| My analogy is poor but we're arguing for the same thing.
| Apple's App Store policies are arbitrary red tape1 and we
| should be able to choose different stores.
|
| 1 like zoning laws :p
| DannyBee wrote:
| "More justification for anti trust action against Google."
|
| Antitrust is the RICO of HN, as far as i can tell.
|
| "They have absolutely no right to encroach on that, and they
| know it."
|
| Based on what, exactly? Other than your assertion, can you
| actually cite any cases/law that says this?
|
| Most caselaw i'm aware of says the exact opposite - they can in
| fact control it, legally.
|
| At a very base level, it's a derivative work - they have the
| literal right to decide which derivative works they approve of
| and don't.
|
| Caselaw has been clear on this since the days of duke nukem
| levels.
|
| Heck, even time-shifting (IE not even changing the content or
| presentation) only survives under fair use - it is otherwise a
| copyright violation. Courts really haven't accepted
| presentation or content changes except when being done for
| parody or satire reasons, and are very careful not to destroy
| the derivative work and public performance rights.
|
| Courts are in fact, much more accepting of very transformative
| use than this kind of use.
|
| You may not _like this_ - I don 't actually like it, mind you,
| but that's different from "are they within their rights".
|
| I assume next you will discover you also can't just take
| signals going through the air around you (satellite TV,
| cellular, etc) and just do whatever you want with them either.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| If third-party clients are derivative works then Google
| should have to negotiate a license with royalties for every
| search result they provide.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Third party clients that exist solely to display a certain
| site in a slightly different way are _definitely_
| derivative works of that site. That 's not really an "if"
| question. I'm not aware of any disagreement by any court on
| this front, but feel free to cite cases if you've got them.
|
| This was even settled back in the days of iframing/etc.
|
| As for the rest, it turns out this particular argument has
| also already played out many times and reached what appears
| to be a fixed point - there is actually lots of caselaw on
| the snippets they use and how far they can/can't go, and
| for what purposes, before they would have to license them.
|
| This is also, to be quite honest, not a great legal
| argument. It helps a lot to realize the law is not logical,
| it just is. Particularly when it comes to copyright, which
| is a very weird bundle of rights applied in sometimes very
| specific and odd ways to different mediums. Things like
| copyright and how it applies end up very much the sum of
| the n thousand cases that apply it.
|
| While sometimes you get principles out of appeals courts or
| the supreme court, it's relatively rare in the scheme of
| things (IE happens once every 10000 cases or whatever), and
| it's even more rare that you get generally applicable
| principles that you can easily apply to a new situation.
|
| This is very different than lots of other areas of law.
|
| Some of this is an artifact of the fact that current
| copyright law was still mostly built for literary works and
| music, and concepts don't always have an easy/obvious
| translation to other kinds of works (so it took hundreds of
| cases for courts to reach a fixed point)
| makeitdouble wrote:
| That's exactly the battle they fought with news publishers.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > Antitrust is the RICO of HN, as far as i can tell.
|
| Not sure what you mean. But I'll be specific - big companies
| are abusive because they have too much capital, too many
| resources (like legal teams), too much protection from
| competition - basically too much power. YouTube would not
| need to be the only place for online video content except
| that it benefits from network effects (creators and users are
| stuck), bundling (with Google's ad business), and other anti
| competitive aspects. I'm sure you can construct the antitrust
| arguments against the iOS-Android duopoly trivially as well.
|
| So yes, the need for fairness and competition is plenty of
| justification for antitrust action against Google (and Apple
| and Amazon and Microsoft). I hope that takes the form of new
| legislation to make it much easier to do something to fix
| these problems, unlike current antitrust law which just
| results in performative lawsuits that drag out for years only
| to result in a minor fine that achieves nothing.
|
| > Based on what, exactly? Other than your assertion, can you
| actually cite any cases/law that says this?
|
| I said they have no right in the casual sense, which has a
| broader meaning to most people. It's obvious they shouldn't
| have a right to control what you do client side. I don't care
| what the law says, or what the technicalities are. There's
| absolutely no reason to limit discourse on HN, or the outrage
| this deserves, to only what the law _currently_ is.
|
| > At a very base level, it's a derivative work - they have
| the literal right to decide which derivative works they
| approve of and don't.
|
| Is me tuning the color balance on my TV a "derivative work"?
| Obviously changing client side code is not a derivative work.
|
| > I assume next you will discover you also can't just take
| signals going through the air around you (satellite TV,
| cellular, etc) and just do whatever you want with them
| either.
|
| Why not? I'm allowed to collect information from the air and
| do whatever I want with it, since it is just data, which I'm
| allowed to record in public spaces, and data is speech.
| angoragoats wrote:
| The bigger problem here is Apple and the App Store. Google is
| run by user-hostile goons, but if there was a way to sideload
| apps on iOS/iPadOS/VisionOS/EIEIOS there'd still be a way for
| power users to use the app.
|
| Case in point: I use FreeTube on all my computers, which works
| just fine regardless of what Apple or Google would prefer.
| mholt wrote:
| Christian, you really don't get a break do you :( Thanks for the
| great apps you have made.
| sonofhans wrote:
| This is the same developer whose Apollo app got screwed by
| Reddit. They seem to have a talent for finding simple ways to
| improve things in new contexts. Unfortunately, their improvements
| are typically of benefit to _actual users_, and the services in
| question would rather treat users as grist for the mill.
|
| It's unjust, and I believe it's short-sighted.
| minimaxir wrote:
| A similar sequence of events happened to Jase Morrissey, who
| developed Alien Blue for Reddit in 2010, although in that case
| Reddit was more gracious and acquired the app in before killing
| it in favor of their own:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Blue
|
| He then made Jasmine, a YouTube client which was an order of
| magnitude better than the official YouTube app...which was then
| killed for the same reasons as Juno.
| 3abiton wrote:
| I am sensing a pattern.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| The history of Apple store abuse goes back far as well. For
| their own gain and others.
| m463 wrote:
| The pattern is that companies make APIs so they can control
| things. (never at the start)
|
| Web scraping types of apps are more democratic.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Tech's really shifted from the days where an idea like Juno
| would get your app acquired, and possibly get you hired under
| their wing to help improve the base product. That's when you
| can really tell the hacker mentality left big tech.
| randomdata wrote:
| When the zero interest rates left, at least.
| namlem wrote:
| And Lina Kahn came in
| fhdsgbbcaA wrote:
| Are you suggesting Lina is on the side of big Tech?
| s17n wrote:
| He's suggesting that acquisitions aren't happening
| because of antitrust enforcement. I'm pretty sure that
| has no bearing on the type of tiny acquisition we're
| talking about here but then again I don't actually know
| what I'm talking about.
| kyrra wrote:
| May I recommend watching:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWcoZVSx1T8, by Thomas
| Laffont who runs an investment fund.
|
| The FTC is blocking acquisitions, which is one major exit
| strategy for startups.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| It's been said before on here that the MBAs have won in big
| tech and I think that's fair.
| Alupis wrote:
| I still don't understand the Apollo collapse. The creator
| seemed to have convinced themselves that their users would not
| be willing to pay to continue using the app - despite the
| outpouring of love Apollo enjoyed. It all seemed very short
| sighted and emotional.
| keyle wrote:
| When things turn sour, sometimes you have to see the writing
| on the wall and think years in the future. It may not be
| something you signed up for.
|
| There is also a limit to which people are willing to put
| themselves through.
| Alupis wrote:
| Ok, but it was inevitable Reddit wouldn't offer free
| services to businesses making profit off of their content
| forever. The creator must have wondered at some point how
| long the free gravy was going to continue flowing? Why no
| exit plan of any kind, or even an attempt?
| djxfade wrote:
| I never understood why Reddit couldn't just have kept the
| API free, and embedded ads in the feed directly. They
| would get their ad revenue, and third party developers
| would actually help them make money.
| Alupis wrote:
| Probably because it would be easy to filter those ads
| from the feeds.
|
| The facts were businesses like Apollo built themselves
| upon Reddit's value-proposition. The content is what the
| users wanted - and Reddit had the content. Apollo's
| value-add was making that content more accessible to
| users - at Reddit's expense.
|
| We can debate how Reddit handled the rollout - but the
| facts are businesses like Apollo offered little to Reddit
| in exchange for Reddit's content.
|
| People operating businesses based on someone else's data
| (moat) should have an exit plan for when the free ride
| ends.
| fckgw wrote:
| Apollo had a yearly subscription while switching over to the
| new Reddit API structure would require a monthly fee. That
| puts you in a spot where you may have users that are still on
| a yearly plan and not paying in while incurring massive
| monthly API costs. It was the sudden short notice of API
| costs increases that caused the whole thing to collapse
|
| "One option many have suggested is to simply increase the
| price of Apollo to offset costs. The issue here is that
| Apollo has approximately 50,000 yearly subscribers at the
| moment. On average they paid $10/year many months ago, a
| price I chose based on operating costs I had at the time
| (server fees, icon design, having a part-time server
| engineer). Those users are owed service as they already
| prepaid for a year, but starting July 1st will (in the best
| case scenario) cost an additional $1/month each in Reddit
| fees. That's $50,000 in sudden monthly fee that will start
| incurring in 30 days.
|
| So you see, even if I increase the price for new subscribers,
| I still have those many users to contend with. If I wait
| until their subscription expires, slowly month after month
| there will be less of them. First month $50,000, second month
| maybe $45,000, then $40,000, etc. until everything has
| expired, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It
| would be cheaper to simply refund users."
|
| From: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apo
| llo_w...
| Alupis wrote:
| Refund at a pro-rated rate, be frank with users and tell
| them the situation and why you have to raise prices - then
| raise prices.
|
| I doubt users would have revolted had the subscription gone
| up to $19.95 or even $29.95 a year. Heck, my hiking app is
| more than that annually, and I barely use it.
|
| I remain convinced Apollo had options, but the creator was
| convinced it was an impossible situation. It was not. There
| was an outpouring of support and people willing to spend
| money on an app they saw immense personal value in.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > Refund at a pro-rated rate, be frank with users and
| tell them the situation and why you have to raise prices
| - then raise prices.
|
| I don't think the app store provides a mechanism to do
| this.
| Alupis wrote:
| So refund in full and do the rest? That's what happened
| anyway, isn't it (the refund)?
|
| The point was there were options, but the creator didn't
| seek them. So many people wanted that app to continue
| living - I find it impossible to believe the creator
| couldn't get an extra $1 a month (or even a lot more!)
| from those users.
|
| How many apps can boast they have 50,000 paying
| customers? People need to appreciate _just how difficult_
| of an accomplishment that already is. The paying users
| loved the app, and would have paid more to continue using
| it - especially in light of the available information at
| the time.
| hightrix wrote:
| > I doubt users would have revolted had the subscription
| gone up
|
| I don't doubt this, actually. I was a user of Apollo. I
| purchased the Pro Unlock for $5, and I did this only
| because it was a 1 time purchase. If it were a $5/mo
| subscription, I would have never used the app. Sure, I'm
| just one person and maybe many others don't feel the same
| way, but I have a hunch many do. Especially with the
| amount of subscriptions flying around these days, many
| people are getting frustrated by constantly having to
| subscribe.
| hbn wrote:
| I'm pretty sure even the paid Reddit API had some ridiculous
| stipulations, like you couldn't view NSFW content.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| As recently as a few months ago you could see NSFW content
| in Narwhal 2 on iOS. Not sure if it has since changed.
|
| I do remember hearing they were planning that change,
| though.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| A 15 year old bully reaches out to the other 15 year old bully
| and decide to take the lunch of a 4 year old kid.
| hbn wrote:
| I mean I don't think Apple wanted to do this, it was a great
| value add for Vision Pro. I'm pretty sure Apple has directly
| promoted Juno, I thought I remember seeing it in an Apple live
| event? Apollo certainly was - Craig Federighi mentioned it by
| name shortly before Reddit killed it.
| rekttrader wrote:
| Put the code on GitHub and make it open. It's a shame, and yet
| you can ensure it a I'll get used
| drpossum wrote:
| Maybe not github and someplace that doesn't remove repos at
| corps' whims.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41711709
|
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/youtube-dl-re...
|
| https://reclaimthenet.org/crunchyroll-downloaded-github-copy...
|
| https://techdator.net/github-removed-mediabox-hd-for-streami...
|
| and so on
| fouc wrote:
| github is fine to start with imo, that's what forks are for
| (proper forks).
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| This is one of many reasons why we need alternative app stores.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| The floodgates is slowly stating to crack, fortunately. But
| it'll still be some years before the US wisens up to what the
| EU has been doing for the past few years.
| dewey wrote:
| Christian, if you are reading this...maybe a nice HN app as the
| next fun project?
| davidcollantes wrote:
| Hack (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hack-for-yc-hacker-news-
| reader...) is absolutely amazing, but competition is always a
| good thing.
|
| Alternatively, creating a good Fediverse (aka Mastodon) client
| would also be great!
| jascination wrote:
| I use Harmonic on android for HN and can highly recommend it
| keyle wrote:
| The website is perfectly functional on mobile though. And
| fast. And the data is the latest.
| piyuv wrote:
| Ice Cubes is OSS and it's amazing. Alternatively, I hear that
| Ivory rocks too.
| RIMR wrote:
| And for the Android users out there, I highly recommend Glider:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.viter.glide...
| skybrian wrote:
| What does this app do?
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Put YouTube's website in a slightly-modified web view.
|
| There currently is no YouTube app for visionOS. If you want to
| watch YouTube you have to open a web browser with all the
| restrictions and incompatibilities Apple does to the web. Juno
| makes that mildly more convenient.
| megaunicorn123 wrote:
| First Reddit now YouTube. Christian is a talented developer, but
| his efforts are wasted building applications for closed social
| media.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| I find it funny that at the time of this comment this Submission
| and this one.
|
| >Don't build your castle in other people's kingdoms (2021)
|
| Are both on the top 10 of the frontpage of HN.
|
| Also thx for apollo but it wouldn't have mattered if it stayed
| active since reddit has plummeted in usefulness since the time of
| its removal anyway. I don't see reddits direction changing ever
| at this point.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I haven't read that article yet. But it has become extremely
| hard not to build in someone else's kingdom. Just ask Facebook
| or Uber or various other unicorns.
| like_any_other wrote:
| And now our own phones are "someone else's kingdom". The
| corporate noose gets tighter by the day.
| jjcm wrote:
| This will continue to happen as long as the incentives of the
| platform are misaligned with the incentives of the user.
|
| For ad-supported sites, the customer is the advertiser, not the
| viewer. The site will optimize the experience for the customer.
| 3rd party apps simply don't provide a way to control ad delivery,
| so there's an incentive for the platform to shut them down.
|
| It's why I've been pushing for/working on a paid social sharing
| site, since at that point the customer is the user. It means the
| incentives are aligned, and 3rd party apps are a boon not an
| anathema.
| haunter wrote:
| Yattee will always work because it's using Invidious or Piped as
| a backend that you can even self-host
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yattee/id1595136629
|
| https://github.com/yattee/yattee
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Yattee/comments/13d3lj7/how_to_set_...
| piyuv wrote:
| Invidious is in a precarious position right now:
| https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/issues/4734#issuecomment...
| vfclists wrote:
| Is this for Apple's VR thingy?
|
| I take it this is for Apple's app store and Apple removed it.
|
| I thought Youtube removed it from Play store or something, so
| Apple is the bad guy here.
| car wrote:
| The risks of a derivative business.
| delduca wrote:
| Probably the same will happen to Reeder.
|
| Fuck you YouTube to make a worse UI & UX.
| bentocorp wrote:
| I'm surprised that this app was actually allowed and approved in
| the first place.
|
| Apple has an App Store rule against allowing apps or wrappers
| using an API or third party content without the express
| permission of the content owner.
|
| Juno was likely given a pass by Apple due to the dearth of native
| Vision Pro video players. For instance, both YouTube and Netflix
| didn't have native apps available.
|
| Perhaps Apple was a bit more lenient on Juno initially as it
| provided their own platform with some credibility at a critical
| launch stage.
| quercus wrote:
| Time for Selig to build some original ideas instead of yet
| another wrapper around a popular service.
| RIMR wrote:
| I love my MacBook, but this kind of App Store nonsense is exactly
| why you won't find me using any other Apple products. At least
| with MacOS I can install whatever software I want without Apple's
| approval, and I can write Mac OS programs and Apple doesn't get
| to decide if my users are allowed to run them on their machines.
|
| But iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and visionOS are awful wall-garden
| hellscapes that force me to use Apple's store, or pound sand.
| This is a great example where a developer created a useful app in
| good faith, following all of the rules laid out by YouTube and
| Apple, and because Google didn't like it (despite it not breaking
| any rules or laws), the project has been killed with no recourse
| for the developer or the users. There's no alternative option to
| acquire this app, it's Apple's way, or the highway.
|
| Let me write the software I want to write, and use the software I
| want to use, and get the hell out of my way.
| jherskovic wrote:
| Oh, man, Christian, are you going to do Discord next? Because
| it'd fit the pattern to a T.
|
| (This is a joke)
|
| I was a huge fan of Apollo and genuinely appreciate your UX
| design and aesthetic chops. Please make something 100% your own
| next time! You have the name recognition and development
| experience to pull it off.
|
| I can't wait to see what you do next. Just... please not another
| client for someone else's service.
| NL807 wrote:
| This highlights the reason why side-loading should be a right for
| users on the device they bought. Users get to control what gets
| installed on the device.
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