In September, Plex changed the Roku UI and many of us made a lot of noise requesting that the change be reverted. Plex employees made it clear that would not be happening, and many supporters suggested giving it some time and letting them work the bugs out. I have come to define this as the “Vista” era of plex. It is my hope that our feedback be heard, despite current evidence that it is not. I come from Rochester, NY, and every day I look at the Kodak and Xerox towers, and I truly hope that Plex does not become the next Kodak, Xerox, follow in the shoes of Prodigy, which now only exists in Mexico or so many other products that have risen and fallen into obscurity (Lotus 123 anyone?). I challenge plex to turn things around. You have an amazing product. Dont stay stuck in this bad decision.
Libraries remain un-pinnable without going through an additional menu.
Significant lag remains while marking episodes as watched/unwatched.
Family members who are less tech literate struggle significantly with use.
Libraries are not directly accessible from the home menu.
I can say that I am begrudgingly testing emby and jellyfin. I do not want to do this, but the product I have loved for so long is disappearing, is becoming less user friendly, task friction has increased. Many of us with plex-passes fear that a subscription paywall is just a matter of time. I am posting more than anything to let plex employees know that 90 days later I remain deeply concerned with the changes to the Roku player.
My point exactly. I am just illustrating examples and challenging them to not stick with this poor piece of software. Microsoft Vista birthed Windows 7, one of the most celebrated and stable versions out there. Obviously plex isnt Microsoft, Kodak or Lotus, the situations arent the same. Regardless, it bothers me that we’re being forced to use a poor piece of software as an “upgrade” when the previous version worked so wonderfully well, was more user friendly, and required less effort for better functionality.
And to use that analogy, they didnt rollback to XP, but they also didnt force us to stop using it and tell us we had no choice but to use vista. That is why most of us stayed on XP until 7 came out, and then stayed on 7 until 10 came out, because Vista and 8 were awful, just like the current roku app.
My point is that Plex can’t stay still and there will be ups and downs along the way. Personally, I find the newest UI to be quite usable and prefer it to the old. Sorry you and Rando don’t; it’s going to be tough on you both for awhile, I guess.
To me Emby and Jellyfin are currently backward movements. Yes, they are quite usable and definitely have their strengths, but overall, they require a lot of sacrifice (I’ve checked them out before too). If you prefer them, I’m not going to tell you not to use them. Do what you think is best.
This new Plex UI is definitely a change, but honestly it isn’t as bad as everyone is making it out to be. People just don’t like change. Now, if we wish to complain about lost features (Watch Together), I’m there with you.
So we’re coming up them having worked on this for at least a year now…they’ve pissed off a ton of their users (especially some of the most original ardent supporters of Plex). And what have they really gained from all of this? The apps are all over the board now, some not having been touched in ages.
I just don’t see how any of this is making things better for the company or its users.
What do you suggest they do? Sitting still is not an option.
As Woody points out: with Kodak lacked the ability to adapt and compete and thus Fujifilm took them over. Xerox gave away their digital future to Microsoft which turned it into Windows. This helped move us to digital and Xerox was about paper.
I do agree that Plex looks a bit scattered currently, but they have communicated their unified vision and I believe it is one worth taking. A small company is going to take time to turn the ship, especially after cutting more than half their workforce that was involved in the previous build out.
My hope Plex endures and learns from their mistakes. But, it is painfully obvious from IT history that sitting still would be a guaranteed company-eliminating mistake.
Seriously, the planning and execution timeline is longer than a year, but even with the beta going out as public release, a year of increment updates have been abysmal. They INSIST on creating “solutions” for problems that were non-existent and created brand new problems instead.
[Chorus: Ensemble]
No, no, no, no
No, no, no
Stick to the stuff you know
If you wanna be cool, follow one simple rule
Don’t mess with the flow, no, no
Stick to the status quo
A hybrid path would be nice. A mix of old world and new. Top nav just doesn’t make organizational sense in a highly customizable world. Put the left nav back, keep iterating on the main window.
NO.
We advocate for HIGH QUALITY TESTING PROCESES THAT STRENGTHEN THE INTEGRITY AND STABILITY OF THE APPS BEFORE THEY EVER REACH THE HANDS OF OUR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS.
Edit:
We spent a decade waiting for non-existent features and STILL continue to do so. I would rather have beta testing of Plex apps sit in beta for 2 years to 8 years before ever being introduced to the public. REFINEMENT and STABILITY are not Plex’s strong suits despite many getting away unscathed. I’m personally exhausted from all the “Well, I’ve never had anything go wrong with my setup. You must have done something wrong, configured it all wrong.” Defending Plex, knowing they have a slew of bugs and UI problems does not make them immune of criticism that they don’t have anything wrong in their coding. In fact, if you look at release notes, they often have bugs squashed that were supposed to NOT BUGGED… and they corrected their mistakes, AFTER telling their users there was nothing wrong. People like you defend the devs and swear that there’s nothing wrong with the apps. You just can’t keep waving your finger and saying that it works for you and that the rest of us users are just bad at networking and configuration. Plex is marketed as an EASY 1-2-3 app. Stop blaming the end-users and advocate for better beta testing like the rest of us.
I’ve been through all the UI changes. I even remember Hulu’s very first UI on desktop. I remember ALL OF IT. I remember VIVIDLY. And it DID NOT GO WELL. We literally told them that horizontal top menu’s did not go well with what the community wanted, especially the versatility we intended on having with our libraries. Instead of GIVING US the OPTION to have OPTIONS, they steered us like sheep down their path. Plex has it in their self-interest with their media partners of what they should do to their apps. Plex makes bold marketing claims in saying “all your media, all in one place, all in one app” - and then doesn’t. Plex has turned themselves into Apple’s media ecosystem. Instead of LISTENING to us, Plex CHOSE FOR US… and still continue to do so.
