Greetings,
We’ve been working for a bit on the new Plex Experience preview that many of you are becoming quite familiar with. The feedback and reported issues that have been shared are incredibly helpful and much appreciated as we nail down areas to focus on and improve. (If you aren’t familiar with the preview on Roku yet… why don’t you give it a shot?)
Our Roku team has been working on updating the preview with the latest updates as soon as they are ready. Today, the preview update is ultra-special, as it re-introduces two amazing Personal Media features. There’s a lot to cover today, so we hope that this post helps to shine some light and transparency on the behind the scenes action here at Plex.
So, let’s get into it.
Music and Photos are coming BACK to the Plex app
In the second half of 2024, we shared our plans to create a new experience in the Plex app, focused solely on movies, shows, and Live TV. We also rolled out a dedicated companion app for photos, Plex Photos, and migrated all support for music collections to our custom music player, Plexamp. We intended to better cater to the needs of our users, ensuring that each app is focused on its specific media type.
Since then, we’ve shipped our new app experience on mobile and started the TV preview release. The feedback that we received immediately thereafter and since was loud and clear. In hindsight, we recognize this wasn’t the right approach. Many of you let us know that you’d prefer to keep music and photos in the Plex app, instead of accessing this functionality in companion apps.
We listened. We learned. We are adjusting.
So starting TODAY, the new experience preview for Roku (Ver 8.4.0) brings back support for music and photo libraries.
But, what does this mean about the Plex app on other platforms?
We aren’t forgetting them, that’s for sure! Our team is focused on getting the new experience ready to release on our TV clients and restoring support for music and photos libraries everywhere, including our mobile apps. We don’t have a timeline to share yet, but will provide more information in the future.
What about Plexamp and Plex Photos?
And finally, this will not change anything for our existing companion apps: Plexamp and Photos. Plexamp will continue to be supported as it has been the past few years and will continue to be the best app for audio listening and curation. Photos will also continue to be supported as a separate app.
All of us at Plex are immensely grateful to you, for spending the time interacting with us and our apps, and providing thoughtful feedback. We are listening and we are excited to keep moving forward and building something that is really cool. Keep the feedback coming, and please go give the new preview for Roku a test.
Thanks,
Your Friends at Plex
