While I can appreciate the benefits of having a unified app and codebase I think this initial iteration misses its stated goal of making navigation easier and media discovery simpler. Testing on iOS and so far the UX is far more cluttered and cumbersome to navigate than the existing iOS app. It seems like the focus is far more on the streaming and OTT services offerings (although I appreciate the option to disable these completely at an account level I think it would be more appropriate to deal with it at an app level). For personal media this initial launch falls short and represents a downgrade on the existing experience so I hope to hear more very soon on changes that are planned for that aspect of the app and I hope Plex are listening to feedback. Here are the main issues I have with the app so far:
- Homescreen posters are too large. On an iPhone 14 Pro Max I get to see a total of six posters across two rows. It’s immediately off-putting and feels like a webpage you accidentally increased the zoom on. There’s no at a glance discovery in that format. The size is okay for browsing a library where you simply scroll through the whole thing, but for the Homescreen it’s too much combine with horizontal scrolling. These comments also apply to the Recommended tab in libraries.
- I’d hope that having the Season poster instead of Show poster in Continue Watching will be a user setting. I spent a lot of time getting good quality artwork and having overlays with useful information applied, so not being able to switch back to Show poster would be a major pain point and downgrade. As this recently happened in the web app as a bug and has now been reverted I’m hoping it’s just a bug here too.
- Continue Watching - It only shows a very limited number of items and unlike other rows there is no View All tile or ability to tap the section title. With plenty of TV shows on the go it means I’d spend a lot of time having to navigate to the library section to find the specific library of a show. Which leads me to…
- Library recommended tab - it really feels like Continue Watching should be at the top here and at the very least it should be an option to reorder the sections here. It does seem like these respect the server library settings but there’s not option there for Continue Watching at present. Combined with the limited list on the Homescreen it’s a hassle to pick up in progress content.
- Media details - the loss of the ability to see media details is the most baffling downgrade in this release. It’s amongst the most important information Plex needs to deliver. Not being able to see the media resolution, HDR/Dolby Vision info and audio info is a major issue and makes this not fit for purpose. The loss of the ability to view the filename compounds this. I can’t think of any logical reason to remove this information.
- Separate per-library Recently Added rows on the Homescreen. Hopefully this is just a bug that the server’s “Merge Recently Added Items” setting is not respected as it’s extremely cluttered and unhelpful right now.
- More complex navigation - when tapping an item in the Homescreen you now just get an episode page. In the previous app tapping the show title or season number seamlessly took you to the show or season page. It took me quite a long time before stumbling upon the fact that navigating to those two pages is now hidden behind a vertical dots icon which runs against your blog post saying goodbye to hidden menus.
- Season view - I’d love to see an option to return to the previous list/details layout on mobile as scrolling vertically and seeing more episode details was much better than the current limited horizontal scrolling. Whilst horizontal menus work well on the current TV apps due to the size and landscape orientation it’s a horrible experience on mobile in the new app. Every page and screen just requires endless horizontal scrolling.
- My Libraries - at present the app doesn’t remember the previously selected tab. If I’m going to libraries it’s usually to browse the library in general and it’d be better if it remembered that as per the current apps. At present it’s just yet another step getting in the way of accessing content, especially as the other changes to the app make it harder to simply live on the Homescreen.
- Tapping the My Libraries button from a library brings up the library select menu. Not the most intuitive navigation method but also not terrible. But the placement of the Reorder and See All Libraries buttons isn’t great as they are right under your finger where you just invoked the menu. Most of the time I end up in the Reorder menu. Feels like this buttons should be moved to the top.
- App performance - switching between pages and tabs is quite sluggish and unresponsive. Not at all fluid or smooth. Long pressing an item to bring up a menu is very hit and miss and seems to lock up the app. Hope this will improve before launch.
Some things I didn’t want to lump in as issues above as they’re more feature requests:
- I don’t mind the bottom navigation bar especially with everything except Home and My Libraries removed at account level. It would be great to be able to bring up the library select menu via press and hold on the My Libraries button instead of having to navigate to a library first. Better still, customisation to be able to add specific libraries to the bar for quick access would be a great option for those focussed on a personal media library.
- When viewing an episode page navigation arrows to quickly move to the previous or next episode screen would make for easier navigation and browsing.
- I’m hoping when Casting is activated it will be an enhancement on the current apps and provide enhanced functionality. Casting is useful when visiting family but casting from an iPhone to a Fire TV has never worked for me even though the Fire TV shows as an option and casting to an Apple TV has required me to disable and then re-enable to the setting in the tvOS app every session. If the unified app can make this smooth and seamless across platforms it would be a big win. If this can be enhanced to use the new Plex app on a mobile device as a remote for the new app on local TVs that would be really useful.
Positives:
- A unified app should be a good outcome if it stops the inconsistency between platforms, allows feature parity and faster development. I hope this doesn’t mean features/capabilities of individual hardware won’t be utilised though and any loss of ability to play media formats such as Dolby Vision or Atmos would be a red line.
- I like the episode logo art and for the most part it looks good save for a few long running shows where outdated logos are used. I saw the dev comment that these will be user editable by launch though so I’m looking forward to that.
- Show-view pages have a cleaner and more modern look and the use of art enhances it. Only horizontal scrolling for shows with large numbers of seasons lets this down a bit.
Overall I can see a couple of positive signs that are outweighed by way too many poor design/usability decisions at the moment. I hope this Preview is an extended project and that the devs genuinely intend to iterate on it and take on board feedback as opposed to this being a fait acomplis that they are going to bulldoze through in a “this is what we want Plex to become and present users be damned” way. If this is the barebones and they let the testers and users help them flesh it out then it could eventually become something very positive. If it launches in a form similar to its current state then I could see it being a catalyst for many personal media users to look at alternatives.
One thing that really concerns me is the section in the common questions pinned post titled “Is personal media playback limited without an activation/unlock purchase?”. The answer seems to suggest that in the full release we could be charged to view our own media library via the app which defeats the purpose of the the software. I’d like some clarification on this as having already bought Plex Pass for 3 people to get the most out of the software it would be outrageous to add a further paywall to access our own content.
