Plex unveils brand new Apple TV app now available in preview

Plex, the popular media server and streaming app, has a handful of announcements today. The service adds new discovery and community features for all users and upgraded video streaming quality for Plex Pass users.

Perhaps most notable for Apple users, however, is that Plex is extending its preview of the all-new Plex experience to Apple TV.

Plex outlined his messages in a blog post today. The company says one of its focuses in 2025 is to improve discovery and community among its users. As part of this, you can now write reviews that are visible to other users on Plex. You can also comment on reviews posted by other Plex users.

For us, Discovery isn’t just about finding what to watch, it’s also about finding more friends and fans like you in the process. For that reason, you can now access your Plex profile at Watch.Plex.tvand make it visible to someone! By default, all Plex users can find other Plex users in the app via search (unless you’ve already changed this setting). By making your profile publicly available on Watch.Plex.tv You can easily share a link to your profile with others so they can see what you’ve seen, what’s on your watchlist, and more!

There is, of course, privacy for this. Plex says that by default “all Plex users can find other Plex users in the app via search.” However, the company emphasizes that your privacy settings have not changed. If you have selected this behavior in the past, you will not be selected automatically.

In the Settings menu of the Plex app, you’ll find a new option to “share my ratings and reviews.” You can choose between five different options:

• Naked
• Anyone logged into Plex
• Friends of friends
• Only friends
• Private

New Apple TV app example

Last November, Plex unveiled a dramatic redesign for its iPhone app that has been completely rewritten from the ground up. At the time, Plex released a preview version of the app via TestFlight for iPhone users. Now the company is extending this preview experience to Apple TV users.

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

In addition to the cosmetic changes and new features, Plex says this is also an important after-the-hood. The app has been rewritten from the ground up and unifies its platforms across a single code base. This should enable faster development of updates and new features in the future.

You can sign up to try out the new app Heading to the Plex Forums and join the beta. One page on The Plex website Also detailed features still missing in the new app including casting, select download and offline features and more. Plex stresses that the new app is “nowhere near perfect, but we want to get feedback from the community as early as we can.”

You can learn more about the new Plex experience in our original coverage from November.

Finally, Plex Pass subscribers now have access to HEVC hardware encoding. Plex says this will offer higher quality video over the same bandwidth:

HEVC encoding offers better visual quality for the same bitrate, allowing for higher quality video over the same (or lower!) bandwidth consumption for streaming from your Plex Media Server. Additionally, this encoding has the ability to preserve HDR metadata, meaning no tone mapping is required!

Check out Plex’s Blog post for more details On today’s announcements.

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