Sonos App for Apple TV 4

  • 31 October 2015
  • 63 replies
  • 16948 views

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Just got the new Apple TV, and the possibility for apps are fantastic. I can see my TV moving towards a hone center. My question is, if anyone else feels the urge for a Sonos app for Apple TV? I would love one!

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63 replies

Userlevel 7
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You can pay $5 for Suono right now. It didn't work for me, but it might work for you.
Userlevel 3
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This would be fantastic!
Please, make a Sonos app for the Apple TV.

Or, if Sonos does not have enough resources, contract the app to a 3rd party developer? I wouldn't mind paying $5 for the app
Userlevel 5
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Yes, an AppleTv 4th gen app would be a no brainier.
One essential piece of it would be to allow the speakers connected to the AppleTv system be selectable as an output destination.
There is no reason not to do this other than internal politics (i.e. They don't want to risk loosing Play Bar sales by allowing the speakers connected to the AppleTv to be a output destination)


This. My only source for content is an Apple TV 4K and I'm quite happy with it. But would also want to be able to elect speakers.
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Have you tried TunesMap. It looks really nice.
Userlevel 7
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I tried Suono yesterday on my Apple TV: looks pretty in the Store so I paid my $5 and it fails immediately on startup. Complains that some other app is using multicast. Ridiculous, so what, a properly written app shouldn't care? Then I read their FAQ and they don't even support Boosts! i will try and get a refund, I cannot remotely recommend this until they add some kind of free-preview mode.
Bump! Still valid!
I finally found a cool Apple TV controller app, I have been using it for about a month and so far
it works great: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/suono/id1142661172?mt=8
Since I don't have an iPad but do have an apple TV I would like a controller app on there as well...
+1 for app
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Yes please. Let's have a Apple TV app. With Sonos we have "candy" for our ears. Lets have the same for our eyes. When we have guest over. We have a ipad showing whats is playing. Let's go all in.
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i want this ASAP. as well as better integration for airplay to be better integrated such that it takes better advantage of Sonos for a better audio experience.
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Definitely think an Apple TV App would work well, even if it was a "Now Playing" pop up similar to the one you can pop out of the Sonos controller on Windows 10. Quite often I will be using my iPad and the TV is the secondary device playing music. It makes sense to have the Sonos attached to the device you are not actively using sometimes. It would allow others in the room the ability to change music without interfering with what I am doing.
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Great point, Tyler. Sadly, one of the most important assets to any of the streaming service providers is the mountain of data on their customer's listening behavior, which is solid gold to advertisers. Not sure how I feel about being a pawn, but that's the sacrifice we make for the ability to call up any song, any time!
I understand and agree with frustrations. Anytime hardware companies get into software/ content ecosystem issues, things get problematic. Not promoting third party services to avoid conflict of interest. No amazon prime streaming app on apple tv for example, having to run that service through airplay comes to mind.

With that said, I just downloaded the pandora app on apple tv, and it imported all my playlists from sonos. Not a solution, but it did at least bring some of my music to the big screen. My first post in this community, Happy to be here. I miss the days when i had 1000 CDs on my wall, and could listen to a full albums in high quality with no ads or distractions. I guess we call this 'progress.'
Sonos Controller app would be great.

A Sonos 'speaker' app turning the Apple TV into another Sonos device would be even better!
Userlevel 2
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I really don't see it being developed by Sonos, as much as I would love to see it. Hopefully some other app developer will try.
Has anyone had any updates on this front? A 'heads up' appletv4 version of the iOS controller app makes so much sense, and how cool would it be if you could voice control sonos via Siri with the remote?!

Cmon sonos - lets get cracking with it!
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+1 This would be great. 4 of my 5 rooms with Sonos have an Apple TV. The ability to skip songs and manage content with the remote I currently use for volume control would definitely be a better user experience.
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+1 for Apple TV app
Userlevel 3
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[quote=AudiKev]
You are obviously not an Apple TV 4 user. If you were, you'd understand. Your disagreement here is understandable though, because you don't personally have the need for this.

But some of us do. You will see this come to fruition.


Why would you wildly guess I don't have an Apple TV 4? In fact I have one! And that is why I don't think that I would ever like to use an Apple TV Sonos App (instead of my iPad or iPhone).
I'd also love to have a controller app on the Apple TV 4. I get that there could be concern about such an app having a "cannibalizing" effect, discouraging people from buying additional Sonos equipment, but I think there are ways around this. The iOS app, for example, searches the local network for Sonos devices before you can even begin to select your music. The Apple TV app could do the same. If you don't have any Sonos devices on the network, the app won't let you select music to stream.

I don't even understand why anyone thinks this would cannibalize SONOS equipment sales. You think people would want the SONOS app so badly that they don't buy SONOS gear? No way. There are countless other music player apps that people can use for that already. Apple makes this one called "Music" even ;)

The point is, if SONOS supports the needs of customers (even at risk of letting their customers connect to something else), it keeps the customer in their ecosystem long term. Users will continue to expand into other rooms, buying additional SONOS speakers.

The minute you start to isolate your customers and make them feel like their needs aren't met, they'll shop for other solutions.
I don't get this thread!? A Sonos App for Apple TV 4 imho is not really smart and not at all a "no brainer"!

This thread is really proposing an app for the AppleTV, so that a user can control Sonos equipment by controlling the AppleTV with the new Apple Remote? And how is that ANY better than controlling Sonos with fingers on a touch screen while something else is running on the AppleTV (there is no multitasking, you would need to jump out of an app to control Sonos and back again).

Sonos speakers do make sense when attached to the Apple TV (or an optical switch, or the TV) and when Sonos "Autoplay" is set, the system should switch to the optical input and play the ATV sound (for a tv series / film). You should be able to control the volume of the ATV (or TV) sound with the Apple TV remote while doing something in an app. I don't see any need for something else really.


You are obviously not an Apple TV 4 user. If you were, you'd understand. Your disagreement here is understandable though, because you don't personally have the need for this.

But some of us do. You will see this come to fruition.

Two words: for parties.


4 words: give them a tablet.

Two words: terrible idea.

I don't want to give them a tablet, nor do I want them controlling the music. They're my party guests, not a crowd of DJ's. I want a big display (on the TV) that's showing what's playing. So for now I AirPlay the iOS display to an AppleTV. It seems like a natural extension to desire an AppleTV app that could handle this natively and independently.


Using the TV as a sort of heads up display is fantastic. It summarizes what is playing and what is coming up. A person with the Siri Remote can control it and make changes perhaps. But the rest of the visitors can't touch it. Marvelous.
And sometimes people need to stay realistic. Whatever, Sonos probably won't do it anyway, so much ado about nothing.

I think they will do it. It's a natural extension to move to tvOS and potentially even watchOS. So many companies with iOS apps have already done it.

The reason I think they will do it, is think back a decade ago when they had the hardware wireless controller. Then the iPhone comes along. They could have avoided making the iPhone app because of fear it would bring them less money because people stop buying the hardware wireless controller. And it did. But by staying relevant to the customer, by creating the app, they not only stayed relevant and in business, but started to thrive.

I think they are already working on this.
Indeed who knows. Yeah, maybe porting is easy, it is however a totally different UI (must be optimized for a remote). Yeah, an ATV4 app could be nice (I have one myself).

One more thing to consider though: the installed base of ATV4s is still very very small, compared to iOS and Android phones. Heck, even there might be even more Windows phones. Sonos seems to strictly follow market share.


As an iOS and tvOS developer, let me say that making a tvOS UI is about 1000 times more easy. Apple has done most of the hard work by providing templates and other common UI elements that are much easier to implement on the Apple TV than the complex UIs on the iPhone/iPad.

I would be surprised if SONOS' iOS development team couldn't put together a first version in a weekend. It's really not that difficult. Following Apple's existing UI patterns are a must on tvOS, and then it feels like a natural extension of the platform and becomes a real joy for people to use.