Plex’s Top Shelf feature shows media I want to watch, not what the app maker wants me to watch. This is what that space should be used for frankly, and I hope more apps follow suit. By default, Plex just shows a banner, but if you enable the Top Shelf option, it shows actual titles from your On Deck list (Plex’s version of a queue).

On many of the other apps I’ve installed-like Hulu or Netflix-those titles seem to be more or less random. When you put an app on the Apple TV in the top row of the home screen, the top banner displays related media. In particular, I’d call out Plex’s Top Shelf option in its Settings. Netflix and Hulu? You guys should be taking notes here. Plex has done an admirable job of using the interface conventions laid out by Apple to provide an easy to navigate, very responsive application. Perhaps most importantly, the Apple TV version beats the Fire TV’s on interface and aesthetics hands down. 2īut the new Plex app for Apple TV has reversed that trend, possibly once and for all.

1 When I picked up an Amazon Fire TV last year, support for Plex was the number one reason my Apple TV ended up relegated to second-best. For a long time, I watched via a Mac mini hooked up to my HDTV, but the interface was often cumbersome, requiring the use of an iOS app to navigate the front-end on the Mac. I’ve been using the Plex server for years now. Honestly, it’s more or less a wholesale replacement for the media library features of iTunes. You can also build playlists, search, and quickly filter for certain types of content. On the server, Plex catalogs and organizes your content, pulling down metadata where appropriate. If you’re not familiar with Plex, it’s a combination of software and service that lets you stream media from a server-generally your Mac, PC, or Network Attached Storage box-to a client device, including your iPhone, iPad, another Mac or PC, or some set-top boxes like the Fire TV. But the app that I’ve been waiting for perhaps longer than any other may actually be the best of the bunch, and that’s Plex.

So far a lot of the Apple TV apps I’ve installed have been underwhelming: many of them are warmed-over versions of iOS apps or suitable only for bare-bones streaming. Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

Apple tv plex app