YouTube has changed its look and feel to get rid of distractions and emphasise the content being watched. A few new aesthetic changes and added functions have dramatically improved the website.

There are some tweaks that can easily be missed and a newly released iPad YouTube app which has craftily sneaked under the radar. So what exactly do you get with the new look YouTube?

Subscriptions and Guide

Subscribing to a channel on YouTube helps create a better content viewing experience across devices. YouTube describes it as like recording something on a DVR. Whatever channel you subscribe to will then start pushing videos to your YouTube account on whichever device you are viewing the website.

The idea is that you get a more complete YouTube experience and discovering videos you might have otherwise missed becomes a lot easier. The improved subscribe experience runs on phones, desktops, laptops and tablets, including the newly released iPad YouTube app.

The Guide is tied in with subscriptions. Depending on what channels you subscribe to, content will start to be cued up in your own personalised guide. New videos appear alongside each channel and your most-watched channels will appear at the top of the guide. The Guide makes YouTube feel a lot more DVR-like in operation.

New look

This is the biggest change for YouTube. The site redesign brings video to the forefront of the whole website experience. YouTube’s pages are traditionally cluttered, but now video sits right at the top of the page.

All the text has been moved below the video box - the idea being that you focus first on the content and the rest later. Playlists sit on the left of the player, so you can easily see related videos. The whole thing also has more of a Google feel, to bring YouTube in line with the big G’s infrastructure.

The iPad app

iOS 6 did away with the conventional YouTube app on iPhone and iPad. YouTube released its own app for iPhone, but the iPad version wasn’t released at launch. This has now been launched, bringing a quicker and smoother app-based experience on the iPad.

Like a tablet-based version of the desktop, you get all your subscriptions, feeds and settings. The Guide has also been included and can be accessed by tapping the YouTube logo.