I know there are other threads about this but I have not found any solution. It is impossible to properly play music from my iPhone music library to my Sonos speakers. The songs skip midway through, then skip and skip without even playing, then just stop playing all together. Yes, I have done everything suggested. I have changed my wireless settings from automatic to channel 1, and I have set auto-lock to never and tried my best to NEVER USE MY IPHONE FOR ANYTHING while using Sonos. But this is ridiculous. Not only does it drain my battery but sometimes while playing music all evening long I need to use my phone - shocking, I know. The moment I open any other app, my songs start skipping. This is NOT a wireless connectivity issue or other communication with Sonos speakers issue. I can stream Pandora from my Sonos app all day while using 6 different iPhone apps and never have the Sonos app on the screen. This is ONLY an issue when playing from my iPhone library. Again, Sonos, this is only an issue when playing from my iPhone music library. This should not be an end-user workaround. This is a basic function and should be something that is fixed and explained by Sonos. Where is the solution?

The solution, as has been explained in many threads, and in the Sonos FAQ on the matter, is to move your music off of the iOS device, and on to either a computer's hard drive, or an NAS of some type. Yes, it's a pain in the rear. You can thank Apple for forcing this issue to occur, which Sonos has indicated that they're working on finding a solution for with Apple. And if you've ever been a developer working with Apple on anything at all, you'd have some sympathy for Sonos.

Playing music from iPhone library to Sonos

I was offering an example of a solution and not saying it as a fact, but that said and without getting into the weeds let me give it a shot. Bluetooth and Wifi are both radio signals. Bandwidth requirement is low in Bluetooth whereas it is high in case of Wifi. Bluetooth is short range say 10 meters whereas wifi is good generally for 100 meters. Sonos has a new speaker out for preorder and I believe it is called "Move". It is Wifi at home but take it to the park and it becomes Bluetooth. So obviously this was already under consideration. The wired version most of us have at home has to be plugged in because Wifi is an energy hog in comparison to Bluetooth which uses much less energy and is well suited for rechargeable batteries. Next is the frequency range along which Bluetooth devices are supported which is 2.4 GHz to 2.483 GHz. On the contrary, in Wifi the frequency range is 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz. So couldn't it be a mater of some programming? I really am not a Sonos engineer but perhaps it could be, and at worst you might need to buy a dongle to plug into the port to make it happen. Even if I did have to buy say a $40 dongle, I'd rather do that than have to buy a $10/month music subscription forever. I trust this answer is responsive to your question.

What port will you plug it into? Presumably you expect the dongle to be a Bluetooth to Wi-fi adapter that plugs into the Ethernet port?

Could you explain how Sonos is going to make "the speakers utilize a Bluetooth connection" when the speakers are not equipped with Bluetooth?

Please also explain how Sonos can run a file server reliably in the background on iOS when it is forbidden to do so by Apple?

I was offering an example of a solution and not saying it as a fact, but that said and without getting into the weeds let me give it a shot. Bluetooth and Wifi are both radio signals. Bandwidth requirement is low in Bluetooth whereas it is high in case of Wifi. Bluetooth is short range say 10 meters whereas wifi is good generally for 100 meters. Sonos has a new speaker out for preorder and I believe it is called "Move". It is Wifi at home but take it to the park and it becomes Bluetooth. So obviously this was already under consideration. The wired version most of us have at home has to be plugged in because Wifi is an energy hog in comparison to Bluetooth which uses much less energy and is well suited for rechargeable batteries. Next is the frequency range along which Bluetooth devices are supported which is 2.4 GHz to 2.483 GHz. On the contrary, in Wifi the frequency range is 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz. So couldn't it be a mater of some programming? I really am not a Sonos engineer but perhaps it could be, and at worst you might need to buy a dongle to plug into the port to make it happen. Even if I did have to buy say a $40 dongle, I'd rather do that than have to buy a $10/month music subscription forever. I trust this answer is responsive to your question.

The only part that is responsive is the fact you are not a Sonos engineer. The rest is nothing but rambling nonsense with no application to Sonos devices. Simple fact: There are no non-Airplay capable Sonos units that are capable of Bluetooth (as demonstrated by their FCC certification).

And you can currently add a Bluetooth receiver to any Sonos with a Line-in. Matter of fact, the Line-in is listed in the Announcements thread as one of the solutions.

nik9669a...I agree

jgatie...Not sure what you mean by Sonos running a file server in the background. Bluetooth creates a direct personal area network to a device. There is no server. And as I said Sonos already has a combined bluetooth/wifi solution in one of their latest speakers. I respect disagreement, but not someone who feels a need to be insulting. This site is supposed to be a place to share ideas and solutions. Perhaps you can consider that concept next time you post.

DennisC, I’m sorry but my post was not a serious one.

The idea of Sonos (or anyone else) designing, developing, building, testing and supporting such a device in the numbers required by just a small handful of Sonos users for $40 retail is, IMHO, ridiculous.

Yes, the new Move speaker can run in Bluetooth or Wi-fi mode. (It will, contrary to your earlier post, also run on battery in Wi-fi mode.) But the hope that because they have developed this hardware they could cost-effectively strip out the relevant parts to create the dongle you want is highly unlikely.

I appreciate your reply. My thinking is this: using the with the last numbers I have seen, Apple has 900 million iPhones and they estimated 500,000 iPads out there worldwide. That’s 1.4 billion units available to use a wireless speaker. I can use my iPhone or iPad with my wired Harmon Kardon system by adding a Harmon Kardon Bluetooth adapter for $59. I don’t know how many HK systems are out there, nor do I know how many Sonos Wifi speakers are out there, but HK created a reasonably priced option for folks like us to use their big wired home systems with their portable devices, and so I was thinking why upset all those current Apple and potential Apple customers. Sonos stuff was/is some cutting edge stuff so why not come up with a solution for all of us who love the product, plus grab all the market share I could. HK seems to think so anyway. Just my two cents. I’m actually considering writing to Patrick Spence, Sonos CEO and asking him to consider a solution.

nik9669a...I agree

jgatie...Not sure what you mean by Sonos running a file server in the background. Bluetooth creates a direct personal area network to a device. There is no server. And as I said Sonos already has a combined bluetooth/wifi solution in one of their latest speakers. I respect disagreement, but not someone who feels a need to be insulting. This site is supposed to be a place to share ideas and solutions. Perhaps you can consider that concept next time you post.

That wasn't me,it was controlav.

Apologies. My mistake!

@DennisC - Sonos speakers expect files to be supplied either by SMBv1 or a custom https server. Please explain to me how to (reliably) run a background process on iOS that that does this. And when you do, kindly share the method to Sonos as they cannot figure this out either (hence the deletion of the feature).

I don't know that you can re-engineer a radio to work for bluetooth and wifi when it was designed for wifi only. Also not sure on the cost to test the feature as well FCC issues. It also wouldn't satisfy many of the people complaining about the lost feature since it would only provide 'streaming' to a single Sonos speaker, not to the whole Sonos system.

As far as the market share, it doesn't make sense to figure every iphone/ipad user would want Sonos to convert existing speakers to bluetooth or provide a bluetooth dongle. The majority of those Apple folks are not interested in Sonos at all. Those that are, and don't have a Sonos speaker yet, would simply get a speaker that is airplay 2 compatible. The size of the market for this is the people who own Sonos and are depending on playing audio from 'on this phone'. I'd actually say there are more more android users who would benefit from adding bluetooth than Apple, since Apple users already have the airplay option.

So the solution to being able to play music to Sonos via my iPhone is to not use my iPhone. Helpful.

I have no patience or sympathy for a company that sells a product intended to perform a service it does not perform. They spend millions on ads featuring people playing music from their iPhones.

I would appreciate constructive answers rather than belittling the question. A Sonos setup is not a small investment and it should work as advertised. Period.

I too am also struggling with not being able to play the music library downloaded on my iPhone. I was told by customer service that they no longer support this; and that if I want to play my personal music, I have to look at uploading it to a music service that I don’t want to subscribe to. Is this for real? If so, Sonos has just disabled a key feature. My friends & I were royally pissed off & disappointed during our holiday get togethers to learn we can’t play our carefully curated (over many yrs) music library. Is this for real????

It is real, and it has been this way for 5 months. How important could the feature be if you haven’t noticed it was gone for 5 months?

Thanks for breaking our world, Apple. Sure would be nice if you explained why you had to do this to us, as well as the users of BlueSound.

On the advice of my audio equipment vendor installer, I bought an AudioQuest Beetle Bluetooth device, plugged it into my Sonos amplifier and paired it with my iPhone. To play audio from my iPhone through Sonos, I select Line In on the Sonos interface. As long as the iPhone stays in range of the Beetle device, it works. Volume continues to be controlled through Sonos.

It’s hardly surprising they would suggest you spend at least £100 on hardware from their point of view. Though there are cheaper (free) solutions and others that even though they include buying hardware are far more versatile (eg a NAS). And those solutions don't force you to have the phone charged and in the vicinity of the new device.

Here’s a thought: since apparently a Raspberry Pi has enough horsepower to emulate Airplay and send music to the Sonos, cpuld someone possibly develop an Alexa skill to take the Bluetooth stream from my iPhone and stream it over WiFi to my Sonos speakers?

Since Sonos and Amazon are a bit in bed anyway, I was hoping that Sonos could maybe get support from Amazon to develop that; most folks with this issue, like me, only occasionally stream music from their phone to their Sonos speakers, and since I already have an Echo and the Exho Dots are downright cheap nowadays, Most folks would a lot rather have that capability back without buying any new hardware, or at least without buying another Sonos speaker they don’t need or want.

seems like a win/win to me; more sales of Echos, more capability for Sonos.

Ok it’s obvious what happened…

Time Reverse!!!

My landlord bought me a Sonos. Being a software engineer and then a vp of technology, I ended up in charge of a lot of software being delivered to a wide range of customers. When I got my Sonos, I was floored at the user experience. So easy and intuitive! I ended up buying another one and love them.

then I lost my ability to stream from my iPhone.

sonos sold out. Either they caved to pressure from redistribution charges or Apple is being a total greedy jerk. Sonos is a brand that, in my mind, is in the same level as Apple. That would have been a great partnership and would have instilled value in the Apple products I do have. And would make me thing more about the other Sonos products. My kids are getting iPads for Christmas, I would love to think about how my daughter can stream her swift in her bedroom.

Apple lost a leader and it shows.

I’m of the opinion that the change by Apple was not directed at companies like Sonos and BlueSound, but instead a by-product of a change made for other reasons, probably security or battery life related. But of course Apple hasn’t commented about the change.

For your daughter, I’d give strong consideration to AirPlay 2, it works well for me, when I’m not using my NAS.

I do feel like I should follow up me previous comments with my latest experience. I dig into it a little bit, then I realized that I could leave iTunes and the Sonos app up on my wife’s computer, control it from my iPhone, and essentially play my iPhone music through my Sonos. Actually, I can even control it from Alexa without even using the iPhone.

yes, it’s a hassle to leave the laptop up, but at least it gets my functionality back. It still seems to me like you could write an app to run on… just about any computing device… to serve music up to the Sonos. But maybe it’s two guys in Honk Kong working part time for Sonos that develop all their software, and they’re spending more time protesting lately. Who knows. Long as I can play my music, I’ll live.

Then I'd recommend that you speak directly with Apple.

No one is terribly pleased by this. Certainly not us, the customers of Sonos, but while I'm sure it's high on Sonos' list of things to get fixed, they have to rely on Apple to revert the change that was made which affects the way that Sonos, and oddly pretty much only Sonos works.

Until Apple is willing to work with Sonos on a fix (which they may, or may not have an interest in doing, since Sonos competes directly with HomePods), it seemed appropriate to provide potential solutions so that you can continue your life in the meantime.

And if you own an AirPlay 2 Sonos receiving device, such as a Beam, Sonos One, or PLAY:5 gen 2, you can always AirPlay 2 your content to your Sonos system, using Apple's own music player, which (oddly) isn't affected by the change that Apple made.

Yes, you're right. It sucks. I don't know of a single person who likes the situation, including me. But it exists. We've just offered you potential alternatives until such time as Apple deigns to acknowledge the issue.

Yeah, as a long time Sonos customer leveraging the technology in multiple places at my inn, the investment is now defund for one of the main music sources. I agree with the other customer. You stop advertising as is and get your customers a fix. Migrating ALL music to another source if RIDICUL

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