Plex says that it's bringing music and photos functionality back to its core video streaming app. This is a major reversal of the multi-app approach that Plex announced about 10 months ago, though the company notes that Plexamp and Photos will still be offered as optional standalone apps.
Plenty of customers saw the merits of a standalone Photos app. Still, Plex's announcement was met with a sea of complaints. The core Plex app has always been an all-in-one hub for video, music, and photos—people just aren't willing to give up the super-unified app experience.
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Removing music and photos functionality from the core app broke a lot of stuff, too. Plexamp and Photos aren't available on smart TVs, so if you use the redesigned Plex core app on a TV, you're effectively locked out of these features. There's also some weirdness with music video libraries (which are forced into Plexamp for some reason), among other problems.
Now, the latest Plex app review for Roku (v8.4.0) brings music and photos back to the core Plex app experience. This will be the standard behavior for the redesigned Plex app going forward, though it'll take some time to reach all devices, as the new Plex app is currently in an awkward early-access late-development limbo.
I should clarify that this change applies to both the Plex TV and mobile apps. Also, Plex will continue supporting the standalone Plexamp and Photos apps.
It's good to see a company listen to its customers, though I think that this debacle could've been avoided if Plex had just taken a more careful approach with its app overhaul. Like, you'd think that the whole Sonos thing would be top of mind, but Plex got ahead of itself and made silly mistakes.
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Source: Plex