Integrate Apple TV Up Next Items into the Plex Programming Grid?

[Dave_S]

My wife hates Apple TV’s Up Next UI, finding it completely confusing (she’s lived with TiVo for many years). She wants the grid back and is about to force us to resubscribe to cable. PLEASE, can you integrate Apple TV’s Up Next notifications into your grid interface so we don’t have to go back to the cord?

[tom80H]

I’m not sure I understand what you’re looking for?!
Would you mind to elaborate or give a specific / more detailed example?

[Dave_S]

Apple’s “Up Next” feature shows users new episodes of shows they watch regularly as thumbnail icons in a single line across the bottom of the Apple TV app’s “Watch Next” screen. Problem is that it’s a continually moving target. As new episodes arrive, earlier programs/episodes get pushed aside, eventually sliding off the right side of the screen, making it easy to miss stuff. And the only way to search the Up Next selections is to the swipe horizontally through all the show icons until you happen to spot the one you’re looking for. With a lot of shows in the queue, it’s easy to miss what you’re looking for, because they are sorted by a date you cannot see.

TiVo’s grid UI, which is what my wife wants is very similar to Plex’s programming grid, except that it exposes the date the new episode came in for only one episode, or shows the number of unwatched episodes if there are several unwatched. It also seems a lot easier with Apple TV’s slippery as glass remote to scroll up/down than left/right. Perhaps it’s simply because we’ve been dealing with grid UI on so many other products/devices for so long, we just become more accustomed to them. But Apple’s handling of new episode notifications on ATV is a real pain-point for my wife, and by extension for me. I would happily subscribe to Plex if they could integrate Apple’s Up Next notifications in the grid in some more traditional way than what Apple has done.

[tom80H]

And how would Plex get access to all the shows you have queued Apple’s TV app? From what I remember they’re not only showing their own content but bundle content from all (lots of) apps on the Apple TV.

To be fair… if Apple allows something like this, Facebook & others would be all over it because that means they found yet another way to track you (meaning: I don’t see Apple exposing that feature to 3rd parties – they’ll be happy to integrate others but will not allow being integrated).

[Dave_S]

If I knew how to do this, I’d build my own app; that’s why this a feature request. There are a lot of third party apps that Apple allows to access user data, the user just needs to give consent; it all needs to be above board and with the user’s knowledge. The Up Next information on Apple TV may fall into that category. But if it’s not possible, then that’s for Plex to decide, and I’ll appreciate them looking into it.

[TheDaveAbides]

So you want 3rd party apps to integrate into the Plex interface? Specifically on the Apple TV?

I understand your frustration with Apple’s unified Watch list, it’s a mess. I only use it if I see the first few items in the Top Row. And even then if the app was on a different user than the item I wanted to continue with, it won’t launch.

Any type of unified playlist has to happen at the OS level and won’t ever be passed to a 3rd party. Apple has enough problems getting all the apps into the unified system as is (that’s why there’s no Netflix integrated), and there’s no way they’re going to pass that data along to another party. That said I have a couple of solutions for you.

A remote case will give you a little more grip and help orient the remote better in hand. You can also change the default action of the home button to go to the Home Screen, and not the TV app.

Second, an Android TV device may have a more flexible home screen. I’m not sure about the “ChromeCast with Google TV” as it has a different interface, but pure Android TV is customizable (if the devs support it in their apps) where each app can expose items such as the watch list on the main screen, in a grid.

Good luck.

[Dave_S]

Thanks. Story I read when Netflix first arrived on ATV was that they refused to provide Up Next data to tvOS because they didn’t want Apple accessing their user watching data. [shrug] Who knows in the big tech blame game? Unfortunately it’s the users who suffer. Thanks again for your suggestions.