Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
It’d shock you, however Plex is the middle of my media consumption. A lot of what I watch has been dumped from my Blu-ray and DVD assortment and, hardly ever, collected from the excessive seas. The platform gives me every little thing that streaming providers don’t — possession over my media, the power to look at uncompressed video on my 75-inch tv and residential theater system, and the choice to take it with me on the go.
The refreshed Plex interface retains many of the performance and amps up the design.
However the one factor it’s been missing is a good interface. Don’t get me incorrect. The present Plex UI works and does every little thing you want from it. Nevertheless, it seems dated, requires extra faucets than wanted to perform oft-used duties, and simply doesn’t really feel nice. Because it seems, Plex thinks the identical. There’s a brand new Plex interface out — on cellular first, however coming quickly too different platforms — and I’ve been testing it over the previous few days. Oh boy, there’s quite a bit to speak about right here.
Have you ever tried out the brand new Plex interface?
11 votes
Out with the previous, in with the brand new
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Plex wasn’t kidding when it mentioned that the brand new Plex expertise was utterly reimagined. Pop into the app, and you’ll instantly observe the night-and-day distinction in strategy.
All of it begins with the homepage, the place the upper data density, bigger posters, and cleaner titling make every little thing look extra fashionable, for lack of higher phrases. The all-black backdrop additional provides to the visible enchantment and makes the media pop.
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That renewed visible aptitude extends deep into the library. Faucet a film or TV present, and also you’ll be offered with a big art work that flows down the web page. Lots of the extraneous data, like audio and video codecs, has been eliminated. As an alternative, you get a lot easier particulars concerning the episode, together with its air date, episode size, a quick description, and the solid.
The up to date library web page takes a web page out of contemporary streaming providers and removes nerdy bits like codecs.
It’s what you’d count on from a contemporary streaming service, although I can see die-hard knowledge nerds being sad with the change. As a fan of film and tv posters, I’m a bit detached to the brand new strategy that may cover away a portion of the art work. Nevertheless, it’s not an enormous deal to me.
The opposite very noticeable change is the switched-up navigation. Proper now, Plex depends on a sequence of tabs and hamburger menus that may make one-handed use exhausting. It’s not very intuitive both and makes it a chore to modify between a number of servers and libraries.
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All of that’s gone. As an alternative, the whole interface is optimized for one-handed use. There are not any extra hamburger menus to modify between libraries. As an alternative, customers are anticipated to faucet the “My Libraries” tab and toggle libraries from the drop-down menu on the prime. I’m not an enormous fan of this modification, because it nonetheless requires two faucets to modify from films to TV exhibits. Nevertheless, Plex continues to be engaged on the UI, and I hope this toggle makes it to a extra accessible location.
Elsewhere, Plex’s streaming hub ambitions are very clearly on show. Devoted tabs for collections and playlists, vestiges of the self-hosted origins of Plex, have been swapped out for a Dwell TV and On-Demand tab.
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Personally, as somebody who hardly ever catches Dwell TV or the assortment of low-quality B-films on Plex, I’d like the power to customise these buttons. In reality, I can see myself including devoted buttons for my film and TV library. Nevertheless, that’s not doable right here. The collections and playlists that I discussed earlier? These have now been consolidated beneath the library feed. It’s not a nasty selection contemplating each the options have been decidedly prosumer-oriented.
The brand new interface makes it apparent that Plex considers ad-supported streaming and discovery the way forward for its enterprise.
One other recent addition is the Uncover tab. One more Plex enterprise, Plex Uncover enables you to, effectively, uncover new media to devour. The concept right here is that you simply add fascinating upcoming or ongoing exhibits to a watchlist. Much like JustWatch, Plex will allow you to toggle on all of the streaming providers you subscribe to. If a present in your watchlist is out there on a streaming service, the Plex app will redirect you to that streaming service. Conversely, it may possibly additionally launch the file if in case you have it in your server.
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Plex Uncover has been out there for some time, and truthfully, I haven’t discovered a lot use for it. It’s not how I devour media, and I’d somewhat observe my viewing habits on Trakt anyway. That mentioned, you may’t fault the implementation, and a minimum of on cellular, watchlists look fairly and work effectively. Furthermore, it may be a nifty approach to discover one thing new to look at.
Why now?
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
Plex has been transferring away from its local-streaming roots for some time. As such, the transfer to combine extra of its content material aggregation and free streaming service into the app makes a whole lot of sense. In spite of everything, Plex desires extra customers to faucet into its on-demand film streaming service. That mentioned, as somebody who has little interest in both Plex’s streaming part or Dwell TV, the transfer is a bit off-putting to me. A lot as I like the remainder of the interface adjustments, the brand new app seems like a good portion of the interface has been designed to sideline the self-hosted characteristic that constructed up Plex’s viewers.
The refreshed Plex app is a transparent look into the corporate’s ambitions, and long-time customers would possibly wish to begin alternate options like Jellyfin.
That mentioned, I hope I’m simply leaping the gun right here. The interface, because it stands, is certainly the appropriate step in direction of modernizing the dated UI. Moreover, the app is simply out there in preview in the meanwhile, with lively growth nonetheless happening. So hopefully, there’ll be extra choices to customise the interface and convey Plex extra according to its streaming roots.
