Plex update rolls out for mobile, reviews are mixed

Plex is starting to roll out its new look, but only to mobile users. While it looks much more modern, not everyone is happy online.

In late 2024, the company announced a slate of new updates that would arrive in 2025. Since then, users have been able to beta-test the mobile and Apple TV versions of the app. While both updates bring nice visual improvements to the service, some missing features and bugs suggest the app should have stayed in the testing phase a little longer. It seems like the company is rushing the app update out the door to align with its new pricing structure, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Sonos app lately, it’s not to rush your core software stack because the blowback can be brutal if things don’t work at least as good as the old version.

Reading through Reddit threads and Plex forums shows that people are feeling pretty mixed about the new layout. I think the new design looks great, and so far in my limited testing it has had fewer bugs than the beta. The old version was more information-dense, but it looked a little outdated and the new version makes Plex feel much more modern. However, that modernization has come with some new design trends that may feel unfamiliar to some.

How does it stack up to the old version?

The old design (left) and new design (right).

The home page looks much better after the update with larger title cards that have bigger watch-time indicators, making picking up where you left off on another device super easy. I don’t want to say it’s easier than before because the change is quite minimal, but I think what’s been done is a nice improvement. You could make the argument that you see fewer titles on the screen at once, but since the new page looks considerably less busy, I think it’s a win.

Once you get into your media library, the main change is that the sub-sections have been moved from the bottom bar to the top. While this change does make tapping into your full collection a tiny bit harder, it sets up a nicer visual hierarchy of your server, and then the ways that Plex organizes media. Previously all the servers were loaded into a sidebar, but now they’re in a drop-down at the top of the page. Some might find this annoying if you need to switch between servers a lot, but for people only using one or two, it actually cleans up the interface quite a bit.

The Live TV section has also been brought forward in the new design to be one of the three main items anchored to the bottom bar. Again, I like the new design, but this is the one area where I did run into some bugs and I needed to reset the app a few times just to take screenshots for this story.

The real star of the update is the new information cards for shows and movies. Now Plex uses custom fonts to really highlight the media and it looks awesome. There are still issues with the app selecting background images that aren’t centre-justified, forcing server admins to manually reformat a lot of images. That being said, at a glance, the pages look so much better. You have to scroll a little further to see the cast list or read user reviews, but overall I think the adaptive colour and custom fonts look too good to deny. I’m hoping Plex will add back the watch together feature and some other buttons that were buried in the three-dot menu before the update, but for most users, what’s currently available should be enough.

Here you can see the old vs. new Plex media layout, and you can see how the app sometimes chooses the wrong photo to use as the background.

The last area that got altered was the now-playing interface. For some reason in the update, the now-playing controls are weirdly tiny. I’m hoping that will be fixed in a future update. After that, the company removed the casting option from the now-playing screen, making AirPlay and casting harder. During my testing, AirPlay didn’t work at all, so that’s another bug that I’m hoping will get fixed relatively quickly.

The company also removed the picture-in-picture button. The feature still works when you close the video player, but now it’s some sort of automatic system, and I’ve found it pretty unreliable. Sometimes I need to pop in and out of the the video player a few times before it finally gives me the floating video player.

You can find the full list of patch notes and other features that are coming soon by reading Plex’s announcement post on its forums. Overall, I’m pretty excited about this update, but I wish the company would have waited a little longer to make sure all the features were working. The old app was fine and easily could have lasted a few more months while the company refined the mobile experience and the TV experience so they could both be released at the same time.

You can download the app (or update) on iOS or Android. You can learn more about whether Plex is the media solution for you by reading our prior coverage.