Not sure if this is wanted by the devs, but I couldn’t find a better place to put this.
First, a bug:
When casting using chromecast, sometimes the volume keys control casting and sometime it controls just device’s media volume. This is intermittent enough to almost certainly be a bug. It seems to be tied to whether a notification is present for the current track, as that also goes in and out.
Secondly, a ux recommendation:
When a track is playing but the now playing screen is not up the currently playing track is a bar on the bottom. Per standard phone design language, it is assumed by the user that you can drag up on it to pull up the track (which is not the case). The dragging left and right to change tracks is great though. Likewise, I should be able to drag down the now playing screen to ‘condense’ to that bar. (instead of having to hit my phone’s back button).
Thirdly, a design recommendation:
Bigger album covers on the album view would be appreciated. Doubly appreciated would be the ability to change the number of covers horizontally, and the padding in between them. Either way, the art is too small. Also, when you click on an album, it would be cool if the cover was about 30% bigger, so there was less empty space to the right of it, and the art could be appreciated.
Finally, a moonshot goal:
Implement the new chromecast ability to dynamically include speakers in the currently playing group, and you will edge out every other player which can cast. It’s a relatively new chromecast feature and google’s own youtube music hasn’t even rolled it out all the way.
These are the things I think the app needs to be a good app, to be a good enough music service to tempt people to cancel spotify/ytm and switch to plex/plex+tidal, you’d have to get much better with the genre matching. It would be hard to implement, but it would be a huge draw if plex could generate playlists and recommend them to you based on stuff you like. (ytm gets this right, if you like jazz in the evening it will suggest a “muted jazz playlist” in the evening, with half a dozen other ‘themed’ stations. For people without tidal this becomes hard because you are at the mercy of their library. Maybe an album discovery feature where you recommend an album and allow them to listen to a preview of it before prompting them to upgrade to tidal? This would allow those of us who still buy our music to go out and buy said album and pop it in the library. Also, you have a library radio, but it’s no better than shuffling. A radio for what the user likes (see ytm my mix) would be fantastic.
Anyways, thanks devs for all the hard work! Plex amp has come so far!
