I don’t typically write in forums or comment on stuff, but in this case I have to add my voice to the crowd.
New app is a great step back.
I use this app for my frequent travels, download movies and watch them.
That feature is not just messed up but straight unusable.
The downloaded movies do not allow scrolling through video.
The downloaded movies do not keep track of last frame watched.
I understand I can downgrade my machines to an older and functional version of the app, but why do I need to waste my time fixing your mistakes? Can’t you guys revert this new mess and send out an update with the previous version?
Well if they added it back that’s good. I haven’t seen a recent version of the interface since it’s no longer possible to run it alongside the old app (and I’m not removing the old app just to see what’s changed).
I’m still running 2025.15 (iOS) and I can also select the audio track and subtitles on the information / pre-play screen. It’s maybe not super intuitive, just tap “Off” for Subtitles:, for example.
Thanks, we do appreciate you trying.
One of my biggest complaints is not knowing why some of these decisions were made.
From our point of view it seems like there is no roadmap.
I would say I do see a roadmap. But can only guess why the changes. Maybe:
Plex wants dedicated apps for each media type, removing old code and making the apps easier to update and maintain.
They want to redesign the Plex experience by updating the UI, functionality etc.
Keep the Plex ecosystem growing (they have talked about opening up 3rd party agents and NFO support which has been a long requested feature).
Of course with change and redesigning things you will undoubtedly get pushback, but to be fair the change and redesign was much needed on some platforms like the Apple TV.
I hope Plex communicates better which features they plan to leave behind, and which features will be added back to the new experience apps over time. I think that would alleviate a lot of concerns.
I think everybody is onboard with updating the app and making more current, more relevant, however we all expected the new app(s) to work and that’s really my (and betting others) biggest grip and disapointment. Especially for feature like LiveTV & DVR which are Plex Pass features, there’s no excuse for those features not too work on a new app!
I’ve had a Plex Pass since December 2016 - so almost 9 years now and this is the first time your updates have enraged me to the point of posting to the support channel to show my displeasure.
The new update is completely unusable on iPhone and iPad. When I first booted it I had a Continue Watching section with one entry, while my web experience (thankfully still on the old UI) has 10. After closing the app and rebooting I now don’t have a Continue Watching section at all on my app Home tab while my web app still has all 10 items. The only way to continue watching anything is to first select the library, then go to the “Recommended” tab, then use the “Continue Watching” section from there. Removing the Continue Watching from the Home tab seems like a blatantly stupid idea - it’s by far the thing I use most, by multiple orders of magnitude. I would guess that something near 99% of the time I would boot the app and select something from Continue Watching (I watch far more shows than movies), while the remaining 1% was either finding a movie or a new show.
My home screen consists of, from top to bottom:
Browse Libraries - links to the libraries - this is good, but should be below Continue
Trending Trailers - not my content, get out of my face
Popular With Your Friends - this isn’t Facebook, get out of my face
Trending on Apple TV - I don’t even have Apple TV and you know that because it’s not selected in the Streaming Services settings, this is just obnoxious
My home screen should have the following:
Continue Watching
Recently Added in Shows
Recently Added in Movies
Recently Released Movies
Start Watching
The good news is that the fix is easy - literally show what’s present in my web app right now and undo this disaster of a “New Experience”, or at least release the legacy app separately so I can purge this disaster and get the functional one back.
For Reference: I have every single option in the “Streaming Services” section, and every single option in the “Online Media Sources” set to “Disabled” - there is NO reason I should still be seeing anything except my local content.
I paid for Plex to support the local media features yet keep getting irrelevant nonsense I don’t want shoved down my throat. Historically I’ve been able to remove said nonsense, by tweaking some option that should have been disabled to begin with, but this time you’ve literally crippled the app.
To add those features to Home page is available. Go to any Library and long Press on a library header and add your Favourites.
This is blatantly incorrect. I just tested on the iPad and iPhone apps by going to my “Shows” library, then the “Recommended” tab, then “long press” on literally all the headers and… nothing happens. When I eventually release said long press (waited for 30 seconds one time - used a stopwatch) it opens that category fullscreen. Scrolling around within that maximized section does not have any menu or options for adding to favorites.
I took this to mean the sub-section headers within the library, i.e. “Continue Watching” or “Recently Added”. Adding the library to favorites makes a “Continue Watching” section and those sub-headings (“Recently Released”, “Recently Added”) appear on the home tab.
I also went back to the “Online Media Sources” server settings and toggled everything to Enabled then back to Disabled and it finally killed the last unwanted visitors, finally restoring my home page back to something resembling helpful.
This was still a catastrophically stupid update, and the fact I had to fight the terrible UX and post angrily on a forum to get it back to a borderline-usable state just reinforces how bad this really was. I had briefly trialed Jellyfin some time ago but came back to Plex for the UI. That advantage is gone, I’ll be heading back to the open-source option. I’m just happy I paid for the lifetime pass ~9 years ago and not this year ahead of the price increase or I’d be pissed. Luckily I never actually got rid of Jellyfin and instead setup a tool to sync watch states, so it’s an easy transition.
How about just playing a video from my library? That used to work, now doesnt (core function). My ipad will play movies from my plexMediaSever hosted on a mac and a pc, but my android tablet wont play anything from thr mac hosted media server.
Feeling quite frustrated and blindsided by the update.
I’m curious, what exactly was (is) wrong with the current Apple TV app, design-wise? What change exactly was much needed and how is the new experience doing it better now?
Edit: forget it. I’ve just read your point of view on that big other thread there and I’m not gonna lose my time with that, have read enough already, sorry, shouldn’t have asked.
Plex’s entire purpose for doing the app change is to go to a single code base across all platforms. There wasn’t anything wrong with the previous apps (except the Apple TV app couldn’t play 4k without stuttering.) But the entire redesigns focus was to unify the code and make it simpler on them.
