Hello valued Plex users,
Most of you are already familiar with the new Plex Experience that we’ve been working on. We announced it first as a Preview for mobile and then expanded it to Apple TV. That new experience on our mobile application has graduated from the Preview status and is starting to roll out to mobile users. Additional platforms like TV apps, will be following at a future date. We wanted to give you some highlights of improvements made during the Preview and some that will be added shortly, as well as more clarity and info about changes to features that will be available in the mobile app now that it has started to become available to all users.
While the updated experience is starting to roll out today for our mobile app, rest assured that we’re continuing to actively work on improvements, new functionality, and additional parity items. This includes even more updates based on feedback we’ve received from users during the Preview.
(If you don’t see the new update available on your mobile device right now, be patient. It will be rolling out to all users over the course of the next week.)
Improvements since our preview went out:
User Experience
- Improved load times and scrolling performance
- Improved access to item context menu on content and libraries via long press
- Implemented fast scroll and alphabetical scrolling for libraries
- Mark episodes as watched/unwatched directly from the season screen
- Improved “View All” collections to display correct items
- Personal Live TV tuners are now available
- TV show shuffle and playlist options added
- Improved library reordering options
- Portrait Mode is now supported
- Sleep timer added
- Plex Home users are now prompted to log in on app launch
- Localized logos for movies
- Library page icons refreshing when marking items watched/unwatched
- More in-app settings added for better customization
- Casting support, including AirPlay for personal media content
- Tablet experience improvements
Playback, Subtitles and Media Selection
- Added the ability to choose which version of an item to play
- Pre-selecting audio and subtitle tracks before playback is now possible
- Added -10s/+30s scrub buttons for easier navigation
- Picture-in-Picture (PIP) support added
- “Up Next” continuity for episodes
- Improved Dolby Vision (DV) HDR handling and tone mapping when transcoding
- Fixed DV Profile 5 playback issues (green/purple effect)
- Resolved forced H.264 transcode issue when using HEVC server encoding
- Enabled OpenSubtitles subtitle search
- Fixed PGS subtitles forcing transcodes only when audio is also transcoding
- SRT subtitle track information reporting to Plex Media Server
- SRT subtitles on Direct Play
- Only transcoding ASS subtitles when necessary
- Improved audio playback volume when using iPhone speakers
What’s coming soon:
Here are some of the biggest updates currently in progress or coming soon, many based on your feedback. This list isn’t exhaustive, but it gives you a sense of where we’re headed in the near term:
Accessibility
- Better VoiceOver support
- Numerous improvements for accessibility and screen readers
Personalization & Libraries
- Home screen button row for quick access to favorite libraries
- More player experience settings (Skip Intro / Ad / Credits)
- Default library view setting
- Reintroducing Scan Library and Delete Title actions (we still encourage using Plex Dash for management, but we appreciate the convenience factor)
- Collection artwork enhancements
- Improved invite flow
- Fixes to library onboarding issues
Movie & Show Details
- Improvements to navigation and action buttons
- Horizontal episode scrolling
- Easier season/episode navigation (no more reliance Go To Show/Season in the overflow menu)
- Better artwork handling
Live TV & DVR
- Guide rendering performance
- Improved recording management
- A handful of OTA related issues
Downloads
- Download of entire seasons / shows
- Fixes to storage limit settings
- View progress syncing for downloaded items
Playback
- Investigating low volume on transcoded files
- Larger buttons and tap targets for improved control
- “Stats for Nerds” playback info
- Subtitle fixes (especially when casting)
- Casting improvements across the board
- Zoom-to-fill support
- PiP and mini-player enhancements
General Improvements
- Better error messages
- Faster page load times
- Smoother scrolling (especially on pages heavy on content rows)
- Updated haptics and feedback
- Better jump bar (A-Z) navigation
- Responsive (tablet/large screen) UI improvements
- More polished animations and transitions
Here are some feature changes that may affect you:
Personal Media features:
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Downloads: The downloads feature has been rebuilt to be more robust and user-friendly. This provides a strong foundation for future enhancements, such as syncing watched status and downloading TV seasons. After your mobile app updates to the new experience, you will likely notice that any current downloads on your device will lack some metadata (and have limited subtitle functionality) due to the migration. They are still playable and you can remedy the metadata issue by simply downloading them again.
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Music and Photos: We have built dedicated music and photo applications that are companions to the Plex app. Plexamp and Plex Photos are where access to music and photo libraries will live moving forward. As such, music and photos access will no longer be available within the regular Plex application when it gets updated to the new experience. Both companion apps are still in active development and can expect updates soon.
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Single Item Sharing: We’ll no longer offer the ability to grant access to single, individual items on a Plex Media Server (such as an individual playlist or single specific movie). Existing individual items will still remain accessible in the new apps. However, you will not be able to do so for new, individual items. You can continue to grant access to libraries on a Plex Media Server to family and close, personal friends.
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Pinning Sidebar Sources: Due to core navigational changes in the new experience, favoriting libraries has replaced pinning libraries to the sidebar. Favorited libraries will continue to behave similarly to pinned sources by influencing the library content display on Home and providing quick access to those libraries.
Pro Tip: You can even long press the Libraries tab at the bottom for quick / one handed access to your favorites. -
Over The Air: Casting OTA Live TV from your Plex Media Server will not be available at first, but we are actively working on casting improvements, including resolving this issue.
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DVR: Scheduling is intended to be part of the mobile experience and we are working as you read this on making sure this will be available soon.
General features:
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Android Auto: Since the functionality was only usable with music libraries and music will be handled in our dedicated Plexamp app, this is no longer available. Plexamp does support Android Auto as well as Apple CarPlay.
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Settings: If you adjusted settings in your app previously, you can review the settings after the app update and make changes, as desired. We’ll continue to add some additional settings and preferences in future updates.
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Manual Connections: We do not currently have plans to offer the ability to specify “manual connections” to Plex Media Servers in our new app experience.
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Casting: When using the new experience on mobile, it will support casting to Chromecast devices, as well as AirPlay and Android screen mirroring using system controls. We’ll also continue bringing in more casting functionality and the ability to cast to additional Plex apps over the coming months.
Mobile specific features:
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iOS app icon: For our users on iOS, you will unfortunately not be able to switch your app icon for the foreseeable future.
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External Players: On Android devices, we will no longer support the ability to specify an “external player” to use for playback of content. All playback will be within the Plex app, using our player functionality.
Closing note:
Thank you for getting to the bottom of our post. As you are reading, all our teams are working hard on improving our mobile experience. We have taken into account all feedback we have received and we will continue listening to your impressions.
We appreciate your support and understanding.
Sincerely,
Your Friends at Plex
