Plex Announces All-New Apple TV App, Now Available in Preview

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Plex, the popular media server and streaming app, made several announcements today. The service adds new discovery and community features for all users and improves video streaming quality for Plex Pass users.

But perhaps most notable for Apple users, Plex is also extending previews of the all-new Plex experience to Apple TV.

Plex outlined the announcement in a blog post today. The company says one of its focuses in 2025 will be improving discovery and community among its users. As part of this, you can now write reviews on Plex that other users can see. You can also comment on reviews posted by other Plex users.

For us, discovery isn’t just about finding something to see, it’s also about finding more friends and fans in the process. That’s why you can now access your Plex profile at watch.plex.tv for everyone to see. By default, all Plex users can be found via search by other Plex users in the app (unless you’ve already changed this setting). By making your profile public on watch.plex.tv, you can easily share links to your profile with others so they can see what you’re watching, what’s on your watchlist, and more. You will be able to check it.

Hero Reviews iPhone In Hand

Of course, there is also a privacy aspect to this. Plex says that by default, “all Plex users can be found by other Plex users in the app through search.” However, the company emphasizes that privacy settings remain unchanged. If you have opted out of this behavior in the past, you will not be automatically opted back in.

There’s a new option in the Plex app’s settings menu called “Share Ratings and Reviews.” You can choose from five different options:

  • Anyone
  • Everyone signed in to Plex
  • friends of friends
  • friends only
  • private

Preview of the new Apple TV app

Last November, Plex announced a dramatic redesign of its iPhone app that completely rewrote it from the ground up. At the time, Plex released a preview version of the app via TestFlight for iPhone users. Now, the company is expanding that preview experience to Apple TV users.

plex apple tv

The focus of the new Plex design is an improved navigation system. There are also some big visual changes, including larger and more immersive artwork.

In addition to cosmetic changes and new features, Plex said this is also a major internal overhaul. The app has been rewritten from the ground up, consolidating the platform into a single codebase. This should allow for faster development of future updates and new features.

You can sign up and try new apps by visiting the Plex forum and joining the beta. The Plex website page also details features that are still missing from the new app, such as casting, download functionality, and offline functionality. Plex emphasizes that the new app is “far from perfect, but we want to get feedback from the community as soon as possible.”

To learn more about the new Plex experience, check out our original article from November.

Finally, Plex Pass subscribers now have access to HEVC hardware encoding. Plex says this provides higher quality video for the same bandwidth.

HEVC encoding provides better visual quality at the same bit rate and enables higher quality video with the same (or lower) bandwidth usage when streaming from Plex Media Server. Additionally, this encoding has the ability to store HDR metadata, so no tone mapping is required.

For more information on today’s announcement, check out Plex’s blog post.

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