New App Upgrade - HORRID

Ok for all those threatening to not recommend or to switch products because of this.....what are your next options??? Bearing in mind that rational ppl make decisions on balance looking at the merits and demerits across the board. So tell me if not Sonos who???

I find it easy. I can get to all the key screens from one of the buttons on the new tab bar. Those screens are are functionally pretty much identical to the previous app. The tab bar needs to be on the Now Playing screen to avoid the need to swipe it down, but I am sure Sonos will fix that.

This app update is like the perfect social experiment. It shows that many times form wins over substance.

In essence the controller functionality has remained largely unchanged. A change in layout and arrangement has caused complete meltdown among many users.

Wow.

Yes, the functionality is basically unchanged from two years ago. But consider: two years ago navigating to an album/playlist/song and hitting "play" just worked as you expected, now we get our Sonos systems to perform by learning the vast differences between hitting "play all", "play now" and "play next". Two months ago (or today via desktop app, because "consistent user experience") we just hit "favourites" to get to our favourites, now we visit the many "My Sonos" sub-screens to achieve the same thing, and remember that "artists" are now called "others". And Sonos flat out refuse to address these issues. I can't think why anyone could be annoyed at the state of the Sonos controller software...

I concur with pretty much everyone who has complained about the latest 'upgrade'. It is less intuitive, difficult to find what you want and about as unfriendly as you could make it - in fact it is just plain HORRIBLE.
Come on Sonos, let us roll back to the previous version while you work on a replacement - but whatever you do, DON'T let the guy who designed this one loose on it !

WTF is going on with sonos. First they force everyone to upgrade to the new app with new terms and conditions. AND on top of that version 8.1 sucks. AND now everything suddenly stopped working. I can't play any music at all.

Ok I get that people prefer the previous app. To an extent I do too. But don’t give me this whole it takes me so long to figure this and that out. It remains very clear how to do anything you need to do. Very clear. It’s different but still pretty straightforward.

I disagree. The reaction to the app amongst users is testament to to that. It would be nice if they would acknowledge the issues people have and reassure them that they care. A little empathy goes a long way to customer satisfaction and building an app they will like in the first place.

Ok the things that I understand.
1. The “My Sonos” tab is not well laid out and wastes space with the large icons requiring scrolling. I have to admit I probably hardly venture into that space because of it.
2. There is great hate for the white background. This is an aesthetic thing largely. Not sure what drives it. But I have observed that a few music Apps use it - most notably Apple.
3. The bottom navigating menu should be visible on all screens including “Now Playing”. I think this a reasonable suggestion. Again this in’s currently treated in the exact same way as it is for the Apple Music App and Deezer. As I have mentioned in another thread. Sonos has moved in the direction of make its app look and feel like some of the popular streaming services.

The above aside I quickly worked out that a session should begin with picking your room from the rooms tab and then picking what to listen to by interacting with the other tabs on the bottom menu. All tabs are pretty well understood in a short time. What I am saying I understand that in the previous setup things may have seemed a bit more at arms length than this compartmentalized view. I am not meaning to not show empathy at all but I do not get the Armageddon reaction with threats to move to another product etc.

A number of the concerns are fixable even if Sonos doesn’t have the greatest record of responding to these concerns at this stage of release. People also need to be more specific in saying and describing what they find more difficult to do and how so. As I said I cannot in good conscience say that I find anything unclear even if I force myself.

Ok I get that people prefer the previous app. To an extent I do too. But don’t give me this whole it takes me so long to figure this and that out. It remains very clear how to do anything you need to do. Very clear. It’s different but still pretty straightforward.

I guess the question that everyone has for Sonos is why this is at all necessary. I get that because these changes do no alter how anything is really done - it just lays it out differently.

If you look at the VP of UX's LinkedIn profile, they tout:

"App: with an App store rating of 4.5 stars & over 47,000 reviews, we have set the standard for the best way control your sound system. "

Impressive! Even more impressive is how quickly you just made that bullet point irrelevant. 😛

The new interface is nearly impossible to use... it doesn't even make sense how it works in relation to the previous interface which was better than good enough. As someone that has thousands of dollars invested in sonos I have to voice my utter disgust for this new app. PLs comment below and lets get Sonos to roll back from this atrocious attempt at an upgrade.

The WORST and MOST FRUSTRATING UPGADE EVER!
I also concur. Over the last 3 years I have promoted Sonos, to many of my friends and associates, who then also adopted the company's products. The app, prior to the update in September (ish), was so easy to use. The ease of use, combined with the amazing sound from the little speakers, was what sold me.

Now I really struggle to change music in different rooms in the house. I'm in the family room and want to change the music in the living room, but it doesn't want to allow me to have different music in different rooms. I have to fiddle for 5 minutes to get this set, and I'm at the point of so much frustration, I'm considering not purchasing any more Sonos products. I'm already in almost $2K of product purchases.

People want great sound, but don't want to have to *(&^% around with stupidly designed software. I want to relax and listen to good music, not get frustrated by a very poorly thought out and poorly tested software release. I shouldn't have to take tutoring to figure out how to change the music to my speakers.

FIX THIS NOW, PLEASE!

I just signed up to this forum so I could also share my views on this terrible update .... beat me to it.... terrible update. 😠

The new interface is nearly impossible to use... it doesn't even make sense how it works in relation to the previous interface which was better than good enough. As someone that has thousands of dollars invested in sonos I have to voice my utter disgust for this new app. PLs comment below and lets get Sonos to roll back from this atrocious attempt at an upgrade.

I was forced to update this morming to 8.0 while adding a new Play1 for upstairs.

The "My Sonos" page is just a shocking waste of screen space, why have they not either got a list view option or small icon option.

I'm not a moaner normally but this app is very badly designed compared to 7.4.

Agreed, terrible! Changing rooms in now a real pain. Roll back please.