Plex’s free streaming video service officially adds integration with Apple’s TV app

Last month, Plex began beta testing integration with Apple’s TV app, but some of the specifics were unclear. Plex has now confirmed to 9to5Mac that it’s now rolling out integration between the TV app and its free on-demand video streaming service. Here’s what that means.

For those unfamiliar, there are two key components to Plex. First and foremost, the service allows users to host their own libraries of TV shows and movies, and access those libraries remotely. Plex has also been expanding and debuted its own streaming service in 2019, offering users a variety of free TV shows and movies.

It’s the latter component of Plex that is now available in the TV app and via Siri. With an update to the Plex app on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV app this week, Plex has fully rolled out support for integration between the free Plex ad-supported video on demand library and Siri.

What this means is that content that you have in Plex will now appear in the TV app and in places like your Up Next queue. When you connect Plex with the Apple TV app, you’ll see the following explanation:

Start watching by connecting Plex.

This participating app will share what you watch with Apple.

Your playback, searches, purchases, and device trust score are used to personalize your experience, improve that of others, send you notifications, and prevent fraud.

A Plex employee on Reddit offered more details about Plex’s integration with Apple’s TV application last month, explaining that it’s not technically possible to bring user-hosted content from Plex to the TV app.

This feature will only work with our free on demand movies and TV shows. We’d love to integrate personal media as well but that’s not technically possible for a couple reasons. To make this work we provide Apple with a list of content we have available for streaming. As detailed in our privacy policy, we don’t know what content our users have in their personal media libraries.

The latest version of Plex is available on the App Store as a free download.