YouTube Releases iPad App, Filling Last Device Gap in Split from Apple

While Apple and Google severed many ties in iOS 6, it's not stopping Google from filling in the gaps with the release of its own apps, including the new YouTube experience for the iPad and iPhone 5.
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Google has updated its YouTube app to support the iPad's larger screen, creating a new experience for the iPad and iPhone 5 while filling in yet another gap created when iOS 6 took away YouTube's coveted spot on iDevice home screens.

Tuesday's updated YouTube app follows the earlier release of an iPhone-specific app, and using the app is a familiar and seamless experience. A left-hand menu highlights the video service's channels, ranging from "Film and Animation" to "Pets and Animals." You get the same sharing features -- through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, e-mail, messaging and via your clipboard -- as you do on the iPhone app. It just looks so much better on the larger screen. You can scroll through comments, related videos, and channels while watching any given clip. Overall, it's a very iPad-friendly design that gives you the best (and, too often, worst) of internet video.

The updated YouTube app also supports AirPlay, allowing you to beam videos to an Apple TV. You can now also add and remove videos from your playlist, click links in video descriptions and tap a logo to open your specific guide of channels. The company has also enhanced its VoiceOver accessibility. These are all small updates that amount to a better mobile YouTube experience.

Now Google just needs to release its iOS Google Maps app and the company will be good to go.