I have both the old app and the new app sideloaded, and have been trying to use the new app over the old one wherever possible. I have found the new app has come a very long way in the last few weeks, it looks great and is growing on me.
I have one niggle which I can’t seem to overcome in the new app - I cannot browse in landscape view, only portrait. This sometimes makes it frustrating to browse, and I often jump back to the legacy app because of this.
I wondered if it is planned to re-introduce landscape functionality in the future?
Finally, thanks to all of the hardworking devs who have put so much time and effort into the new app, despite so much negativity, I think it is improving with every release. If one of you happens to see this, please could you have a look at the landscape mode for me?
Has that been resolved for Android…? And how to set it? My mobile phone now has the new experience since now and I learned that the hard way while driving my car.
Personal, I suspect it’ll be really hard for them to fix this. They appear to have designed the new experience around portrait navigation on mobile, including square art backgrounds and a lot are a complete mess when using a tablet in landscape mode.
The whole landscape experience feels very much like an afterthought.
Why force us to use a new app that doesn’t work as well and not make this simple and obvious requirement a priority. Its been over a year since the first forum post about this. Hire me I’ll implement it.
OMG! Please, yes! Add auto-rotation and landscape mode! I know this is not simple, but AFAIK, Android and Google are planning to make this feature mandatory in the future anyway.
I still try to use the modern app where possible, but end up using the old one for most circumstances as it is much more reliable and has all of these missing features.
It’s kinda weird that an app about watching movies (and TV) forces the user to browse in portrait mode before launching content or just for switching from one extra to another.
I know it will come at some point, but that’s weird.
I could be way off the mark here! IMO… MOBILE is more browsing libraries rather than actually watching. I could not tell you the last time I watched plex on my mobile but I browser content all the time to look things up. This could be a generational thing …
Again, my own opinion but the app seems to have been designed to look overly glossy and as an advertising platform for plex content and less about actually watching content. This is one reason its so bad when you move beyond mobile and over to tablets and TVs which are actually for watching stuff …
Interesting. I use an Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet with Google Play services/store side-loaded and have the current beta available (to me) installed, version 2026.8.1. It does allow library browsing in landscape. Perhaps it has something to do with the screen size. Unfortunately, I don’t have an Android-based phone on which to test. But there is at least some consideration for landscape browsing on mobile devices with the new experience.
I’m 39 y.o.. I never thought I would watch movies on a phone, but here I am.
I never owned a screen bigger than 27-inch, and it’s my current monitor, which I only bought recently because my phone screen was my best display. Even now, my phone screen is quite great. (6,3-inch 1080p HDR OLED; Pixel 9a) My monitor is 1440p mini-LED LCD, DisplayHDR1000. It’s a cheap HDR monitor, but I think it’s a great value for me. (AOC Q27G3XMN)
Anyway… Back to my smartphone. I watch stuff on it while doing the dishes and eating. It’s my TV, and my monitor is for special occasions.
No you can use a separate app called “Force Rotation” from the play store to make plex photos work in landscape. They probably just need to change android:screenOrientation from portrait to fullSensor
android:screenOrientation=“fullSensor”
We shouldn’t have to use a separate app to do this.
Then some small modifications for Sizes/dimensions. Its not hard, its basic.
I now see a couple days ago, in the announcement for the new hiked price of $750 lifetime plex pass they stated “Music and photo library support will be restored in the mobile apps and the new experience on TV apps” So looks like they might abandon the Plex Photos app. Maybe not but at least we get some functionality back.
I never thought I would watch movies on a phone, but here I am.
