So I have used plex for years to download podcasts to my phone to listen to in my car, or download a mix of shows for during hurricanes, tried doing the same today in that stupid looking update iPhone version of the app and discovered we can no longer do that. Well isn’t that just absolutely fabulous! I think this whole company needs to take a long look at themselves in the mirror and realize how much of a disappointment they all are, literally nothing was all they had to do and they messed that up.
Oh well, just another feature taken in the never ending trail to an alternative service and an early death for plex.
Hi and thanks for the question here. The answer is fairly simple. When we started working on these new apps one area that was a big focus was around downloads. Why? It is because downloads have been a pain point for a while for many users. There was also some underlying tech in our downloads stack that was very challenging and problematic.
The truth is - we didn’t “remove” anything here. Well, I guess you could argue that we removed everything… but let me try and explain a little bit.
As we were going through this process around the new apps a decision was made to rebuild downloads altogether from the ground up (without the main tech that was causing a lot of the pain points for everyone). So the quick answer here is that this part of downloads hasn’t been built yet - but it is coming. The initial goal was to get basic downloading super fast, responsive, and on a solid foundation then start to build out functionality. We are already onto the latter parts of this effort and have recently worked on downloading groups of titles like an entire season. Other “groupings” downloading (i.e. playlists) is coming along with more “smart downloads” like your device being smart enough to not only remove something on device after watching but also queue up the next episode or two to download in the background for you automatically.
We are looking to provide more context and more technical information in a communication like a blog post here before long to explain this a bit better, so keep an eye out for this sometime this summer.
Ok, so maybe next time instead of pushing out broken things how about finish what’s on your plate first?
And you will be bringing back the playlist library and the side bar as well, right? RIGHT? There was literally no reason to remove either of those features. And don’t feed me some “it was broken” stuff, it wasn’t broken and worked damn well.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a real “New Coke” moment on the part of Plex right here with this whole thing.
with playlists can we get the same ability as with series to download like the next 20 upnext videos plus have the playlist remember where you left off, the way it currently works with the old app is if you watch a few videos then stop and comeback later and press play on the playlist it starts the list over from the start which is a pain when you have a playlist where you have multiple series and movies mixed in, and its even worse when you have a series like star wars the clone wars where the first 3 seasons are mixed in together for instance you start with a ep from S2 then an ep from s1 then a movie and so on
I feel like Crystal Pepsi always gets forgotten about…
We will definitely be working on Playlists, both from a download standpoint as well as from a general usability standpoint within the next year. These are some good suggestions that I will add to the discussion for that work. Thanks for the comments!
@McWanke Is there a feature checklist somewhere I can occasionally visit to see when all the capabilities I need have been (re)implemented and can try out the new app?
For example: Right now I see that I cannot download entire shows and that downloaded items pancake into a flat list. Both of these are non-starters for me. When traveling I watch TV shows. I like to have a good selection downloaded which usually means a hundred episodes or more across 5-10 shows. Adding/Removing by Show/Season is trivial. Manging episodes individually however is a management nightmare.
We don’t have anything published anywhere that exposes what is up next but it is an area that is in discussion and I hope to have better news sometime this year around more visibility into what we are working on and what is in the queue.
As far as downloads right now in the new experience, there were a few new additions around bulk queue management and our next phase of downloads development is kicking off which should start to add in some of what you are looking for. Keep an eye out over the next month or two as this work starts rolling out.
@McWanke are you saying that all episodes for a series will be grouped together finally? If so, this should work that whether or not the episodes are downloaded 1 at a time, or all together.
Given that one of the main reasons why Plex decided to split their consolidated app into multiple apps, was to enable a lot faster development work. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that with all the numerous Downloads problems and suggestions over the years that Plex has the benefit of what’s important to users and what was down incorrectly before, Given this I’m lost on how basic download features that have been requested so many times are going to take more that a few months more. We’ve been waiting way too long on deaf ears and promising that it’s coming.
EDIT: The same can be said about the new Photos app not supporting the number one mobile platforms (iOS) HEIC file type out of the gate.
