Request to improve Plexamp navigation in Android Auto

Plex Labs
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Server Version#: 1.32.8.7639
Android Plexamp Player Version#: 4.11.5
Android Plex Player Version#: 10.24.1.2319

I wanted to suggest some possible ways to improve Plexamp’s (and regular Plex’s) Android Auto experience. The experience as it stands today is challenging to locate what I want to play in a quick or easy manner.

Here is Plexamp’s library screen. I understand trying to reduce the list down to letter in order to make it quicker to scroll through - but having a purely text-based list alone is a challenge to find what I want. Also, why is this limited to an Artist listing? I might want to search by Album or Folder, both options in the web Plex UI.

It’s odd that both Plex and Plexamp have Android auto experiences. The Plex experience actually offers Playlists and Recently Played which is pretty nice, but then doesn’t have the search option that Plexamp has.

I feel like only one of the apps (Plex or Plexamp) should have the Android Auto experience.

Here are some alternative UX approaches that I feel offer ideas for improvement.

Pocket Casts’s has a Podcasts view that is sort of like a tile-based album browser. Once you select a Podcast/album, it then lists episodes/tracks as a list.

Spotify’s Home and Browse options lean on tile-based selections, while the Library initially starts with a list-based selection.

Shuttle is an open source app for playing locally-saved music. Most of their UX is list based, but they still offer some additional break-down options besides artist.

I think that having tabs I show these screenshots like Spotify, Pocket Casts, and Shuttle could help break up different ways to browse through options. I feel like whether there should be tiles or lists to navigate is extremely personal to the user and the ease/difficulty of navigating with them changes based on how many enumerations you have. That said, in my vehicle, list screens show no more than 4 options, often only 3, while tile-based screens show 6. It takes just as long to scroll through them (tiles are horizontal) but it feels like I’m navigating more quickly and that the experience is more responsive.

I’ve put all these screenshots and a few others into this folder.

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That makes no sense, especially considering music is being removed from Plex.

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It is a little confusing as the end user to open up the app menu in Android Auto, to see both the apps Plex and Plexamp, and then both of those of those apps have music features. It makes me feel like - which app is the right app I am supposed to use? It is unclear.

If music will be removed from the Plex app Android Auto experience, then it would make sense to me to only use the Plexamp Android Auto experience. I can hide the Plex app in my Android Auto settings.

Alternatively, unless there is some other Plex-related Android Auto feature to use, maybe the Plex app shouldn’t have Android Auto capabilities? Then only Plexamp would show up in AA.

I am assuming watching videos isn’t going to become an option. It would be really cool but might result in distracted driving.

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