I make only occasional use of the Plex mobile apps but this morning my TestFlight preview of the new experience updated to 2025.10.02 (981).
I’ve not really been using or testing the preview so far because of the following problem that I wasn’t prepared to figure out while the original app remains. But seeing the notifications on this forum that the redesigned experience is now beginning to be rolled out, I felt catalysed to take action and see if the problem was solvable.
The problem is, my Home tab, the default view within the app, was almost empty. The only element on view was a carousel of “Trending Trailers” and I suspect that only appears because I don’t yet know how to remove it. I certainly don’t want it on a home screen/tab.
My use of Plex is entirely about my own libraries. On other devices, with the standard home screen, I see in sequence my Film libraries and pinned-to-home collections, my TV libraries and pinned-to-home TV collections, my photo libraries, my music libraries, my other libraries containing things like GoPro footage from sports/hobbies etc.
And that’s all I want/need. I don’t use or want any of the watchlist elements, or the ad-supported content from Plex or integrations from other services. I don’t mind at all that these options are available through Plex but since I don’t use them, I don’t want them on home and generally other Plex apps have allowed me to have that.
But the issue here is, there’s no obvious reason why when loading into the new experience for the first time that none of MY content appears like it does everywhere else.
I eventually found a comment after reading many posts here that in the separate “Libraries” view it was possible to favourite a library. And I suspected and hoped, correctly as it turned out, that if I favourited all my libraries, these would appear on the home tab.
I did and they did. Job done.
But it was super not obvious and I suspect shows that very little testing has been done with a use-case where the user does not readily adopt ALL the “Plex Things” like watchlists and ad-supported channels and integrations to other services that aren’t Plex related.
Thus, I would suggest that some consideration be given to this use-case and some manner of help or guidance provided to users as they receive the new experience on how to simply get back to their previous position with the minimum of fuss.
The app as I see it on the Testflight iOS platform is, in my opinion as of 3rd March, 2025, still a long way from being ready to roll out widely as a replacement for the previous app. I’ve noticed many of the same problems reported in the many threads here and noted all kinds of issues. Case in point, when I launch the app, I’m asked to choose which home user I want to access the app as. That’s fine. But I switch to another app for a second, and when I switch back, I’m asked again. There is no grace period. Doesn’t feel like an intended behaviour, not obvious how to correct, unless it is a bug/issue.
Hopefully the roll out will be paused to allow more time for this to properly cook. The references here to the problems SONOS have had bear paying attention to, self-inflicted as they are.
