I’ve been testing the Plex Preview Beta on Apple TV and wanted to share some feedback based on my experience so far.
First of all, it’s great to see active development on the Apple TV app and to have access to a beta version — really appreciate the work being done here.
That said, I’ve noticed a few differences compared to the current stable version:
• Navigation in the menus feels less fluid than before. Moving with the Apple TV remote seems slightly slower and not as smooth as the current release.
• The UI doesn’t feel as native to Apple TV anymore. On tvOS, when you move between items, they usually grow slightly and have that subtle perspective/parallax effect. In the beta, items stay the same size and are simply surrounded by a white frame. Because of this, it feels less like a true Apple TV app and more like a ported interface.
• Overall, the experience feels a bit less responsive and slightly slower than the existing version.
I also wanted to mention the playback control bar. It would be great if it matched the current Apple TV design language more closely — especially the modern tvOS aesthetic and the Liquid Glass style. The current progress bar feels more adapted to mobile than to TV. Something closer to Apple’s native tvOS player UI, particularly aligned with the Liquid Glass visual style, would make the experience feel more premium and better integrated with the platform.
Curious to know if others are noticing the same things. Looking forward to future updates!
And double unfortunately they neither care nor will do anything about it. As we now know, they are building a “universal” app that shares a codebase across all platforms. This is why the UI feels like it mimics mobile. They are also attempting to build a VOD app and pivot from personal media to Plex hosted VOD.
I doubt they’d have made the significant improvements they’re working on to the server-side of things recently (admittedly, works in progress) if this were the case. A few examples:
A substantial transcoder upgrade (which includes updated Intel drivers, with AMD to come).
A published API so that folks can implement their own client applications more easily (here’s one which as been asked about for years which has now been enabled by this new API: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkyFbzDk1JM)
A new custom metadata provider/agent framework which allows for the development and configuration of new custom metadata agents.
Support for a native NFO metadata agent to allow for more control over how Plex Media Server interprets your locally-hosted content.
Things are hardly standing still on the personal media server side of things.
These are all things that allow them to put effort for development onto the user side of things instead of their side of things. It’s sold as more functionality and customizability and control but all I see are indicators of moving towards “maintenance mode” in the future for the PMS side of things. These are nice to haves for folks who want them but a big point to Plex’s historical service model was that they took care of it all that so we didn’t have to mess with NFO files.
I’ve seen “maintenance mode” mentioned by accounts\people that would know so it’s not just idle speculation on my part; it does fit some of my assumptions the past year though so obviously I’m gonna be biased about it.
I don’t think maintenance mode is going to be soon but I do think it’s on the roadmap. I’m honestly fine with that possibility as long as bugs\frictions keep getting fixed… just feel like there’s some duality to these particular “continued development” examples.
Had the same experience on Roku as well - particularly on episode detail pages it really lags even after recent updates to improve it and can still even hang up entirely. There are some areas I think it has gotten snappier on Roku but it definitely still needs some optimizing.
I think client work will continue to develop even if server side development goes to a maintenance mode thing so pointing these things out is probably helpful for the developers.
These are things that folks have literally been asking for, for years. NFO support in particular, but better Intel graphics support (and AMD), and a supported, documented, API. Just because it could potentially relieve some pressure from Plex doesn’t suggest intent. I’m not necessarily suggesting that’s what you’re suggesting. Just stating my opinion.
I would genuinely like to see something(s) to back up this assertion. I read nearly every comment on every post on these forums and I can’t recall anything suggesting that PMS is entering maintenance mode. I’m getting older, so my memory is fading a bit, but the only mention I’ve seen of this is from ex-employees, potentially with regard to certain client apps.
(I don’t read Reddit, as a general rule, so if something were stated there, I won’t know about it.)
And the thrust of the statements in my previous comment was that there’s still active development (and therefore investment) in the personal media side of things. It wasn’t intended to be a commentary on the long-term future of Plex as a personal media platform. Only that it’s very premature to say “He’s dead, Jim.”
And the reason they didn’t do NFO support was that not having to manage NFO files is something Plex promoted as a service.
So having users manage their own metadata could be seen as eating into their previous business model. Literally they pushed “don’t need to deal with NFO files with our service” as marketing back in the day. “Let Plex handle it!” and if you wanted to influence content you go update TMDB and TVDB as metadata partners.
Which they aren’t really partners anymore because Plex is now with Gracenote and has to follow their licensing rules (which is why they delete ALL artwork for dmca flagged titles now - even in their own streaming service - and you have to use local artwork now where as before they’d just remove the one offending poster or background and you could pick a different one).
Elan mentioned something about it in the PlexAmp dedicated subreddit on a topic related to the layoffs - he’s very active there and it’s a little more focused compared to the Plex subreddit. The other was someone still active and it was an off-hand comment here around the same time as Elan’s comment so it stuck out. I don’t wanna call ‘em out on it just in case.
It still doesn’t change the fact that recent development from Plex is creating functions that they used to manage themselves and now are promoting users “do it yourself” as a feature. So I was making the point that those specific examples could be viewed in the way I presented - as examples of pulling back from PMS development in the future rather than investing in it.
There’s other things like developer and community liaison layoffs and other things that could kinda indicate changing intentions from promised or stated intentions a few months ago to statements and actions that contradict those now (some I’m not at liberty to talk about).
Even the transcoder change was stated to make future maintenance and development easier and more stable by using a more standardized version. That could also indicate a future where PMS dev resources are reduced even further.
None of that is to say these developments are bad or unwanted. Just that the nature of these specific efforts being about user development and metadata management could be viewed as Plex moving towards less resources in the future rather than a ramping up.
Plus employees have already confirmed Plex makes more money off VOD than they do off Plex Pass (which is PMS thing) and that VOS is really quite active (which honestly makes sense but that’s a larger topic and likely covered elsewhere already).
I don’t have “proof” to justify my opinions and perspectives to you so you’ll just have to accept that these are my suppositions and my reasons for them and you’re welcome to disagree.
I just can’t get over the fact that Plex replaced a perfectly working app with this garbage. They should make the original app open source so the community can maintain it.
With all the work they’ve done lately on things like the API, I am starting to wonder if they are gearing up to make the PMS open source and fully pivot their commercial side to their VOD offering. It could make a lot of sense. Plex was once open source after all.
They haven’t replaced anything until it becomes the public release version. Anyone who can’t stand the Testflight app can bow out and go back to the one on the app store.
It’s always possible improvements/changes could happen on the beta app, improving it before release.
That’s not the case for iOS. The old app is gone and replaced with a less functioning app. That doesn’t make sense to me. They could have left the old app available.
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