Unless I’m misunderstanding something, this means losing the ability to listen to music through my TV. If true, this totally sucks. My Plex Pass (which includes lyrics, sound levelling, fades, and visualizers) becomes less valuable with each announcement Plex makes!
Why would it be devastating? Why would they drop Music from the main Plex app without giving people a way to access that Music? I mean, people make fun of how stupid Plex is sometimes, but they’re not that stupid.
I welcome the segregation. That way each app can specialize in its own thing. The Plex app has always had trouble trying to do everything for everybody. Some things can’t be done because of how it would affect watching videos, or how it would affect listening to music, or just simply even just how it would affect browsing and searching. Like it’s trying to do too much.
I mean we can clearly see how awesome and more tailored the PlexAmp UI is for music. So I think this is a positive change if it does happen.
[quote=“ChristianKent, post:5, topic:888235”]
Why would they drop Music from the main Plex app without giving people a way to access that Music?[/quote]
I hope they don’t, but if you look at what they have committed to for music, it adds up to simply this:
In 2025, they will remove music playback from the Plex video apps.
That’s it, that is the extent of what they have committed to.
That means that unless they also commit to adding Plexamp to some other platforms like Google TV, those platforms will be without music playback capability.
We simply don’t know the whole story yet and can only hope that Plexamp becomes more widely available by the time we need it.
Plexamp also works for desktop (MacOS, Windows etc) and they are also working on a dedicated photos app (in beta already).
This change in theory should be a good thing across the board. Instead of the 1 Plex app that tries to do everything but not well, you’ll have dedicated apps that focus on specific things like Movies and TV, Music, and Photos. So music will still be apart of Plex (PlexAmp is super popular with music lovers), they’re just transitioning to the dedicated apps. If you read carefully they don’t say anywhere that music is going away in that news article.
Late Q4 / Early Q1: As we transition to dedicated companion apps, we will begin phasing out support for music and photos in the Plex mobile app for iOS and Android. We will provide ample notice and resources to help you transition to the new companion apps.
My problem is that I use music and photos very sporadically but also very conveniently with plex on mobile and Samsung TV. Having them all in the same app makes it very easy to just turn on some tunes and watch some vacation photos spontaneously (mostly at the same time) after seeing a movie. This probably won’t be as natural if I have to switch apps back and forth.
If the movie experience gets better that may be worth it but I’m cautiously pessimistic to this plan.
I like the idea of splitting the apps out. I haven’t used the main plex app for music for ages. Plexamp is just better. It’d be good if when they do remove them from the main app that they have a link in the menu to launch the separate apps. I can see it being especially handy for tv users who play music through their tv.
What about soundtracks?! Part of the experience is to be able to have a collection that includes the movie, spin of tv shows, AND the soundtrack. I can’t be the only one who watches Top Gun then wants to have Danger Zone on repeat for dessert.
Not a fan of this change–not unless Plexamp gets a significant upgrade. I do use Plexamp now to listen to music, both from Windows and from Android. It’s a decent player, though the UI seriously lacks intuitive navigation. But sometimes I play music from my TV, using the Roku Plex app, and I would hate to see that go away.
Mostly, though, Plexamp simply isn’t much good for organizing a music collection. The main Plex app isn’t fabulous for that, either, but it’s way better than Plexamp.
I use Google TV and the Plex app to listen to music all the time. My guess is the option left will be to cast from Plexamp to Google TV.
The problem with that is casting music to Google TV hasn’t worked for sometime, soon as Ambient Mode starts on Google TV music playback with stop soon after.
Doubtful Plexamp will be ported to Google TV as seems this announcement is about doing less not more.
I think in the long run this is a huge win for music and photos fans of plex. The main plex app suffers from music and photos. It’s clunky at best and im sure supporting it also limits what Plex would like to do with the main focus (movies and tv). This will also allow music and photo development efforts have a focus on a single use app for each. They can do as they want without limitations and also having to create some parity between the apps.
As a developer, I truly see no downside to this unless they do something unexpected like, abandon music on tv apps without plexamp being released etc etc. Music apps and video apps really don’t belong together when it comes to user experience. To obtain perfection in both separation is a must I would argue.
Yeah, it would be devastating if they decide to actually do that to the browser and pc apps, I want all my media in one place not in separate apps, I guess at worst I could always just use an old version of plex
I love the plexamp app, but if they removed access to the music libraries from the web or desktop apps how would we have access to modify things like album art, or playlists? Plexamp is limited in a lot of ways. I have multiple masters of many records in my music library. I occasionally have a modify things to get everything sorted in a legible manner. I can’t imagine they’re going to add that level of customization into plexamp seeing how it’s really a mobile app that happens to work okay on desktop.
In my case, this is very bad and a potential deal breaker. It means having one more app to install. I prefer the simplicity and convenience of just one main app.
I use both the main app and Plexamp. I consider myself a nerd. So personally, this is not a problem. But members of my household overwhelmingly prefer just one app, or nothing at all (possible but not the best experience ).
Why not simply have Plexamp as an option, as is currently the case?
From the blog post:
" * 2025: We are planning to expand device support for Plex Photos, while deprecating music and photos playback in the primary Plex (movies & shows) application. This means that by early 2025, the Plex app will be entirely focused on the discovery of movies, shows, TV, and fellow fans."
So, that appears to say that by early 2025 we won’t be able to listen to music through our Roku TVs using the Plex app like we’ve been doing for years. Now, I can manage my music libraries with the Plex app on my PC and then listen to the music through the Plex app on the TVs (the main ones of which have been outfitted with good external speakers to enhance their use for listening to music). Is there any statement from Plex about when/whether there will be a Plexamp or other dedicated Plex music app for the Roku TV that will work the same way (i.e., be managed on the PC and listened to on the TV)?
I’ve never messed with Plexamp as the main Plex app does everything I need for it to do for my home music listening, but everything I’ve read about it so far seems to focus on its use on phones or other mobile platforms. I have no desire to deal with phone/mobile apps in connection with my main home music experience, so I hope they’re not planning to replace the current Plex app music capabilities with some phone/mobile-based app.
Unfortunately Plex seems to be continually running away from its original focus (or at least, from my interest in/interpretation of its original focus). I was originally sold on Plex as a great way to manage the media content I already have, and up to now it’s been doing a great job of that. However, I have ZERO interest in using Plex for “the discovery of [other] movies, shows, TV, and fellow fans”, which unfortunately looks like it’s going to be their entire focus for 2025 and beyond.
Plex has not yet committed to making a music app available on all platforms once they yank it out of the main app. I think we all have our fingers crossed.
I am not excited about the social/discovery stuff either – but to be fair, Plex has recently put in a lot of work on the personal media front. Every server release has fixes for library management, and they have even improved hardware accelerated tone mapping. Aren’t they also moving towards x265 transcoding support?
Based on what is actually in recent releases, I’m not worried about the future of personal media on Plex in general. I think if they were abandoning personal media they would have stopped making those enhancements a year ago.
I am very worried about some of the details, specifically if I’ll be able to play Plex music on my Android TV in the future. If their answer is “idk just cast it from plexamp on ur phone” then I would be pretty upset. (It’s the same question for photos, though that isn’t a feature I personally care about.)
For now I am giving the benefit of the doubt but I sure would like them to address this issue soon.
