Plastic optical fibers have the characteristics of lightweight, softness, low cost and so on. It is noteworthy that plastic optical fibers and other types of fibers have complementary advantages in function, then various plastic optical fibers can be applied in communication, image transmission, illumination, and decorative respectively to realize different functions. In the field of communication, graded index plastic optical fibers have obtained the transmission rate of 10 Gbps@100m in the consumption level, and 40 Gbps in the test level. In the field of image transmission, there are image bundles with 0.45 mm diameter@7 400 pixels and 1.5 mm diameter@13 000 pixels, as well as optical fiber plate products with resolutions up to 256 lp/mm. In the field of plastic optical fiber lasers, the theoretical and experimental research on the relationship between the parameters (gain medium, fiber length, fiber structure) and the characteristics of laser/amplifier is gradually deepening. In the field of decoration and illumination, lots of devices have been developed such as solar optical plastic optical fiber illumination, modeling plastic optical fiber illumination and plastic optical fiber blanket therapeutic instrument. In this paper, the latest researches and applications of plastic optical fiber mentioned above are reviewed.