Plex is an excellent app for films and series.
The new expterimental user interface is a step in the right direction. The interface is very much based on the industry standard of the major video streaming providers.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Plex music interface.
It seems like an unloved child. While it’s great that there is now an algorithm that analyses music more deeply than tags ever could, it doesn’t change the rather weak user experience of music within the Plex ecosystem.
I opened this thread to draw some attention to this.
With most music streaming providers offering CD quality music in the foreseeable future, it will be very difficult for Plex to give users a reason to maintain their music collection. The advantages of the streaming providers cannot be denied.
Of course, there will still be people who maintain their music collection and value their CD collection, as these are usually better mastered than the latest remastered versions of the streaming providers.
But unfortunately, as already mentioned, the user experience is rather weak. It does not follow the structure of the big music streaming providers.
I also face the “problem” of having too large a music collection. I navigate to my music collection, get irrelevant recommendations and only see artists in the media library that begin with A. Rather unsuitable for listening to a little music on the side.
Man is a creature of habit. He prefers things he already knows and does not want to get used to a new user interface when changing providers.
I would take Spotify as the industry leader as a role model. Spotify has by far the most users and an intuitive user experience.
Spotify is simple and clearly structured. The left-hand navigation guides the user to the most important categories, such as the homepage, search, library, favourite songs and playlists.
On the home page, an algorithm gives me suggestions for new music and, very importantly nowadays, playlists.
In the library, the individual subcategories are displayed as a top menu.
In the playlists, I have the option of adding individual songs to this playlist at any time by dragging and dropping.
The individual elements of the music are displayed in a card design. This is especially important because there is more information that needs to be displayed for music (artist, album). This leads to a better differentiation of the individual elements and a higher clarity.
If other features from other providers like Roon could be integrated, such as for the “artist pages”, the influences, etc., Plex would be an unbeatable programme for the enjoyment of music.
Therefore, my feature suggestion is to publish Plex Music as a standalone programme and to orientate itself strongly towards the streaming giant Spotify
