0.14.1 reaches the closed beta — fullscreen visualizers on the TV, and network speakers with a remote server What’s new →
lagu
Get the beta

Lagu for Apple TV

Plex music on Apple TV,
at couch scale.

Lagu for Apple TV plays the music library on your Plex Media Server through the television and whatever it is plugged into. It is a tvOS app written in SwiftUI, laid out for a 16:9 screen and a Siri Remote, with the full library, radio, lyrics, and visualizers.

Closed beta · TestFlight Same purchase as iPhone tvOS · SwiftUI
Lagu Now Playing on Apple TV: synced lyrics on the left with the current line highlighted in gold, and on the right the album cover, track title, rainbow seek bar, transport controls, and buttons for Lyrics, Fullscreen, Up Next, and DJ. A tab bar across the top reads Now Playing, Home, Library, Radio, Search, Settings.

01 · The library

Everything on the server,
from the sofa.

Sign in by typing a short code at plex.tv on your phone, or by scanning the QR code on screen. There is no password to enter with a remote. Pick a server, and the library loads.

Home shelves

Recently played, recently added, Made For You mixes, and radio stations, grouped by library when your server has more than one.

The full library

Playlists, artists, albums, songs, genres, styles, and moods. Albums and songs sort by year, format, and bitrate, the same as on the phone.

Search by voice

The tvOS search field takes Siri dictation, so an artist’s name is one button press and a few words.

Every library, merged

If the server keeps music in several libraries, they arrive as one A–Z. Apple TV follows the library choices you made on the phone, and Switch Server is in Settings.

Radio and Guest DJ

Track, artist, album, genre, mood, and decade stations, Deep Cuts, and a Guest DJ that tops up the queue. Sonic features use your server’s Plex Pass analysis.

Autoplay

When an album ends, Lagu can carry on with music that sounds like what you queued. Off by default.

02 · Now Playing

A television-sized
Now Playing.

Synced lyrics, two ways

Beside the artwork, or fullscreen. The current line sits in the center and the rest dim around it.

Five fullscreen visualizers

Spectrum, Radial, Nova, Oscilloscope, and Trackprint, edge to edge in the colors of the album that is playing. Mode, lyrics, and seeking stay on the remote.

Gapless, crossfade, leveling

Live albums and classical works run without a break between tracks. Crossfade, Smart Fades, and loudness leveling work as they do on the phone.

Up Next you can edit

The queue is on screen beside the player, and tracks reorder from the remote.

Siri Remote scrubbing

Slide a thumb across the touch surface to seek. Slow movement is fine-grained, fast movement covers minutes, and it coasts to a stop when you let go.

Scrobbling

Last.fm and ListenBrainz. Last.fm sign-in is a QR code you approve from a phone.

On screen

Lagu on Apple TV,
screen by screen.

The Radial visualizer fullscreen on Apple TV: a pulsing orange disc over a green and red background taken from the album cover, with the cover, track title, artist, and a thin progress line in the bottom left corner.
The Radial visualizer, fullscreen, in the colors of the album that is playing.
Lagu Now Playing on Apple TV without lyrics: a large album cover on the left, and on the right the track title, artist, a FLAC 16/44.1 label, a five-star rating, the rainbow seek bar, transport controls, and buttons for Lyrics, Up Next, DJ, and the visualizer.
Now Playing, with the format, your rating, and the rainbow seek bar.
The Spectrum visualizer fullscreen on Apple TV: gold and rose frequency bars with peak markers across the screen, reflected below, over a blurred version of the album cover.
The Spectrum visualizer, one of five that run fullscreen.
The Library screen on Apple TV: seven large tiles for Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Styles, and Moods, with Playlists focused and outlined in orange.
Library: playlists, artists, albums, songs, genres, styles, and moods.
The Radio screen on Apple TV: Stations with Deep Cuts and Library Shuffle, a Made For You row of artist mixes, and a Moods row below.
Radio: Deep Cuts, Library Shuffle, Made For You mixes, and moods.
LAGU REMOTE

An iPhone or an Android phone runs it.

Turn on Remote in Settings and the Apple TV shows a QR code, with a six-digit PIN as a fallback. A paired phone can browse the library, search, build the queue, seek, and start stations on the TV, over your own Wi-Fi. An Android phone works as well as an iPhone. Apple TV hosts while Lagu is open in the foreground, which is a tvOS rule.

Lagu on an Android phone acting as the remote for an Apple TV: album cover, track title, star rating, and rainbow seek bar, with a banner reading Controlling Apple TV and a Disconnect button above the transport controls.

What it doesn’t do

The gaps,
listed.

Apple TV is a playback screen, and a few things from the phone and desktop apps are not on it. The platform table has every feature, cell by cell.

No downloads

Apple TV streams from your server. Offline listening is on iPhone, iPad, Android, desktop, and Apple Watch.

No EQ or waveform seek

The ten-band equalizer and waveform seek bar are on phones, tablets, and desktop.

Sleep timer is coming

So is the year filter for Albums and Songs. Both are in progress.

Sonic Adventure starts on a phone

Pick the two tracks on a paired phone and the path plays on the TV.

Getting it

From the beta list
to music playing.

Join the beta list

Pick Apple TV on the signup form. Invitations go out by email in waves as TestFlight slots open.

Install from TestFlight

Apple TV, iPhone, and iPad share one TestFlight listing. Accept the invite on your phone and Lagu appears in TestFlight on the Apple TV.

Link your Plex account

Open Lagu, enter the code it shows at plex.tv/link, and choose your server. The library is there a moment later.

Questions

Asked about
this platform.

Is there a Plex music app for Apple TV?

Yes. Lagu is a music player for Plex with a dedicated Apple TV app. It plays the music library on your Plex Media Server with gapless lossless playback, synced lyrics, fullscreen visualizers, and radio, and it is built for tvOS and the Siri Remote.

Does Lagu for Apple TV need Plex Pass?

No. Playback, the library, search, playlists, the queue, lyrics from your own files, and Lagu Remote all work without it. Sonic radio, Guest DJ’s sonic personas, moods, and Plex-fetched lyrics rely on Plex Pass on the server, as they do in any Plex client.

Do I pay separately for the Apple TV app?

No. Lagu is free during the beta. At launch, one $1.99 App Store purchase covers iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV together. There is no subscription.

Can I control Lagu on Apple TV from my phone?

Yes. Lagu Remote lets an iPhone or an Android phone browse, search, queue, and seek on the Apple TV over your home Wi-Fi. It needs no Plex Pass and no cloud service. The Apple TV hosts while the Lagu app is open in the foreground.

Does Lagu on Apple TV play lossless audio?

Yes. Lagu direct-plays FLAC from your Plex server and plays albums gaplessly. You can also choose a lower streaming quality, from 320 down to 128 kbps, if the server is on a slow connection.

Lagu on other screens: Android TV · Linux · every feature

Bring your library along.

The closed beta is open and free while it runs. Invitations go out from the list in waves.

Join the beta list