Plex adds free Chromecast support, media shuffle and camera uploads to its iOS app

Popular media server software Plex today announced that it added several new features, including camera uploads, Chromecast streaming and media shuffle, to its mobile and web apps. These features are available as an update to the Plex iOS and web app. The biggest announcement is the expansion of Chromecast support to all users. This feature was initially rolled out to paying subscribers, who were able to preview the service before it went public. The feature allows Plex users to stream video, photos and music from their iOS device to a Chromecast that is plugged into an HDTV. Chromecast is free and is rolled into Plex version 3.4.0, which is available now in the iOS App Store. Seriously, though, if you’ve been waiting to check out Plex on the Chromecast, it’s completely awesome. Downright rad. Not only do we provide the highest quality streaming around for your photos, music and videos (guaranteed, or your pixels back), we just added “content mirroring” which displays details for your media on the big screen while you browse, which is an incredibly cool, unique, and useful feature. Impress your friends. Make your parents think all that money for college didn’t go to waste. Plex also added support for playlist queues that allow users to create a list of media that can be played automatically. The queues allow sequential playback as well as shuffle for both music and video clips. We’re happy to be introducing our play queues feature, which is—as you might have guessed—a prelude to full-blown playlists for Plex. As always, we don’t take new features lightly; what you’re seeing below is a shuffle of over 40,000 tracks, using the highest quality shuffle mechanism there is. It’s incredibly fast, even over a remote connection. And once you’ve created a play queue, you can easily add to or edit it. Other notable features include the automatic upload of camera roll photos from an iOS device to the Plex media server. This upload feature is available only to users who purchase a Plex Pass subscription. We’ve got one super cool brand new feature for Plex Pass members on iOS called Camera Upload. It’s easy to explain: point the Plex app at a server and a photo library, and it’ll make sure all the photos on your camera roll automatically upload to that library. All these features will be available today in Plex’s web and iOS app. The iOS app is available in the App Store for $4.99 and works with both the iPhone and iPad. Continue reading →

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