Sonos iOS update is shockingly bad - first impressions
Userlevel 5
+6
The whole My Sonos feature is confusing. The playlists are confusing, and huge graphics which means hardly any playlists can be shown. Was SO hoping the Mac app would get an update, but no such luck. Wait for more reviews before upgrading..... or am I missing something?
This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.
Page 3 / 6
The new app has its flaws (more on that in a minute) but basically it is really simple to use. New things take a bit of getting used to. Most of those who have slammed the new app seem to have based their views on 2 minutes effort. The Sonos bar is key. I want to pick a room? Tap the Rooms button. Then a source? Tap Browse. The one inconvenience is that the bar doesn't appear on the Now Playing screen, but I hope that will change. But I just swipe down and there is the bar (and usually either the Rooms or Browse screen, saving me one of my button presses).
I came in this evening and in less than ten seconds of opening the app had my music library playing in the Living Room. How disastrous is that?
It is logically organised. Instead of a jumble of things on the main menu, Browse contains just sources (wish they had called it Sources), More contains the things I need much less often, like Settings and Setup. Search and Rooms are self evident. 'My Sonos' contains the things I have chosen myself and want to get at quickly. What is so ****** difficult?
Yes, the icons are too big. Yes the Sonos bar should be on EVERY screen. I'd like to see Playlists on the Browse screen and just selected playlists in My Sonos.
But come on guys. Get with it and make a bit of an effort. With a few tweaks this is going to be way better than 7.4. If you want to be left behind, that's your call.
To clarify, I also expect the UI/UX of a premium hi-fi product to be first rate (as it was when I originally purchased my system, and then it got better, and then it got a lot worse). But hey, I own Sony products, so I'm used to the "buy for the awesome performance, deal with the poor UI" mindset. Some of the Sonos design/implementation decisions (or "bugs", but I don't think Sonos would choose to classify them as such) are inexcusable. What they're tying to do is awesome. When the key software features (queue, playing, navigation, favourites etc) are in a more "complete" state, Sonos will be awesome. I even sort of support their "no user customisation" mantra. But it just feels like Sonos have given up on their core product while they chase shiny external systems integration.
I agree that the Sonos app design aesthetic is subjective, that's why there should be user option/choices between white and dark themes. However, I don't see the Sonos app as being free, I see it as a necessary accessory to the Sonos hardware that had to be downloaded instead of included in the box, and the price for this necessary accessory is certainly baked into their hardware costs. I am sure Sonos enjoys beefy profit margins, and good for them, they should. But since the Sonos app is the face and/or front-end to Sonos hardware, I certainly do expect the UI/UX to be first rate. I purchased many Sonos speakers and subs because I was impressed with the Sonos experience, which encompasses both the hardware and the software.
Actually, I like the aesthetics of the design, but that's subjective. It's the awful unintuitive inconsistent user experience I can't stand. But... there is, sadly little incentive for Sonos to improve things at the moment because they're selling the speaker experience, not the required software UI. The rule is that if you're building a free/cheap app or website that users can abandon in seconds, the UI/UX has to be first rate. If you've sunk hundreds of pounds into nice hardware, how quickly will you sell it if the software is annoying?
I can deal with the not-so-great changes that were made to the app, but as I've said in another thread, what I cannot get passed is the awful UI design. If Sonos would just add an option to change the white theme to a nice (and slightly transparent) gray/dark theme and bring back that cool (and tastefully done) artwork overlay effect blurred the background, I would be very happy. Options would make most people happy, actually. There is no sleekness or character in this version. Nothing about the UI tells me that this app is the front-end controller/player to a high-end music system. It has altered my Sonos experience as a whole.
On the other hand, maybe the terrible App is a marketing strategy to get people to move to voice activated Sonos One? How is that going to go?
Do you mean the great big room icons on the rooms tab? Or do you mean the tiny room ids at the bottom on the browse tab? Please do look at all the tabs and everything on screens. Then you will see that it really is quite intuitive. The update has drawn together common items into groups. It’s not perfect but hey ho.
Meanwhile, you are perfectly happy about the queue behaviour? Getting that very basic functionality better is at the top of my list rather than icons having moved somewhere else.
Have to agree with all of the above posts. This iPhone update is terrible. I am a savvy tech user, but tech anxiety goes up every time I pick up the app to change rooms, etc. "Will I get it right this time? Or will I just end up switching my station to another room? Or will I find my Favorites? And how $%%^&%$# do I switch rooms? And why are the room buttons so hard to see on the white background? And groups? I don't even dare". I have told many people over years to buy Sonos (and have bought several for my self and as gifts), but am rethinking this.
On the other hand, maybe the terrible App is a marketing strategy to get people to move to voice activated Sonos One? How is that going to go?
On the other hand, maybe the terrible App is a marketing strategy to get people to move to voice activated Sonos One? How is that going to go?
Like some others, I do not regularly post to forums. It was not until hosting some friends last night that I noticed how "bad" / "poor" the new controller truly is. Aesthetically it is not pleasing. Functionally it is woeful. I used it for 3 hours and it never was intuitive. I have been using Sonos for many years (and promoted it to others to adopt). I hadn't used the update to this point because (thankfully) the Mac OS controller remains quite good (don't change that one). And I traded messages with an installer of home systems who advised that all of his clients are not happy either. I can only hope that some updates / adjustments are coming, but would be difficult to pick an area to start. Really alot of work to do here...but dominant colors of while, black, red? Can see there was an effort from some minimalist look, but not having ability to search for songs from selected room screen is confounding. Good luck...will be waiting.
It seems there are a “couple” Sonos apologists...
Perhaps more than a couple?:-).
Would you really like this thread to consist of only negative opinions such that all the visible and immediate purpose the thread then serves is for these posters to be satisfied that they have expressed their anger and let off steam?
Does it not help at least some to have "apologists" posting responses in a manner that is constructive at least in intent?
It seems there are a “couple” Sonos apologists...
Hi, thanks John B for reading my mad ramblings and being measured in your response!
If I could just comment on a couple of things, I would be interested in your views...!
Your right to a degree that the system does more than when the CR200 was launched. But the ‘more’ is mostly more online sources, more configuration (trueplay) and options in setting up, etc. The true core — the essence of what Sonos is — is ‘play this music in that room’. I personally (and I’m getting on so my memory does fail me) can’t think of new functionality that has been added to day to day playing of music. That part should be fundamentally simple. It’s core, it’s basic — and that (some) people are complaining that this part is not fluidly simple would suggest its gone bad.
The other thing I’d like to comment on is the distinction between what is logical and what is intuitive. I’m not sure there is any difference here. For instance you may click on a button that is unlabelled because it’s location / shape /context suggests what it should logically do. If it’s logical, it’s intuitive. My own personal opinion is that modern design (unlabelled buttons, the ‘hamburger’ button, the ‘three dot’ symbol) are bad design and counter intuitive, but this seems to be the way interfaces are going, so I guess I’m in the minority here. But again the visuals are always down to preference. But call it logical or call it intuitive - the design should be both!!
Right, off for bacon sandwich.
Andrew
I truly believe that when people say 'it is not intuitive' they really mean 'it is not what I am used to'. Two examples from my own experience:
1. Mac owners are fond of saying how intuitive the OS is. Not for me as a lifetime PC user, on rare occasions I have had to deal with one. Where is the start button? How do I right-click? Where is the Explorer function? It's not about intuition, it's about learning how things are organised, what they are called and where to find them.
2. Office 2007 and the introduction of the ribbon to Word and Excel. For quite a while I complained that it was unintuitive, that I had gained no functionality but could not find anything (sound familiar?). I actually made progress when I thought a bit about what sort of commands were on each tab and why. And learned about the new 'dialogue launchers'. Neither system was more 'intuitive' or more 'logical' than the other. They were just different, and I needed to learn the differences. I cannot imagine working any other way now. But I expect I will have to one day.
I think the new app is true to the concept of 'just play music in a room' that you mention. And that comes through the Sonos bar. The Rooms button gives me Rooms. Choosing music is done in one of three ways:
(I) By choosing a specific source (Browse button - why the **** is it not labelled Sources?)
(ii) By searching a source or across sources (Search)
(iii) By going to things I frequently go to and have personalised (My Sonos)
The 'More..' button is for things I don't need for playing music day-to-day, which used to be lumped in with everything else
The glaring fault in the design is that the Sonos bar is not visible on the Now Playing screen. This does not give me a navigation problem because I know to just swipe down the screen. But it gives me an irritation problem
The other thing that MUST be fixed is the My Sonos icon size, which makes that area far too difficult to use, especially on the phone.
Fix those two and I believe you will have a simple to use and effective app, for those users who are willing to put up with short-term unfamiliarity and just get used to it
(The app has other flaws that need addressing too, but it is hardly necessary for me to list those.
So Andrew, do I believe that someone should be able to pick up an app like this and just use it by 'intuition'? No, not in any way do I believe that.
So. Fix the problems Sonos, but Don't go back.
Apologies to all of you who disagree with me for expressing my views.
It seems there are a “couple” Sonos apologists...
Absolutely right. Let's not have two sided debate on a community forum. Maybe we should block people's accounts who don't agree with the majority.
As to the claim by another poster that people should 'beware' of me, how utterly ludicrous. Like everyone else I am expressing an opinion, which everyone is free to disagree with, and apparently most do. I have a right to speak, and to be ignored if you wish.
And FWIW I think there are some significant flaws in the new app, but that the solution is to fix those not roll back. Why should I not express that view?
It seems there are a “couple” Sonos apologists...
Absolutely right. Let's not have two sided debate on a community forum. Maybe we should block people's accounts who don't agree with the majority.
I don’t usually comment on these things but after writing to Sonos they told me to post on here. I am not a fan of this new update - like most of you.
With two young girls my wife and I are usually moving around the house quite a lot, and the feature the old app was good at was grouping and ungrouping rooms. In this latest update you can group rooms easily but ungrouping does not seem to work as easily. The only way I can get things to stop playing in certain rooms is either to stop the music from the first room therefore stopping all music - or get something else to play in the room I want to disconnect and then pause it.
I have found that I’m using the app on my Mac as it’s much easier.
A rollback option would be a great idea
With two young girls my wife and I are usually moving around the house quite a lot, and the feature the old app was good at was grouping and ungrouping rooms. In this latest update you can group rooms easily but ungrouping does not seem to work as easily. The only way I can get things to stop playing in certain rooms is either to stop the music from the first room therefore stopping all music - or get something else to play in the room I want to disconnect and then pause it.
I have found that I’m using the app on my Mac as it’s much easier.
A rollback option would be a great idea
I’m new to Sonos and have loved the sound and use on my iPad... until this update. I lost all my radio favs and struggling to understand how to use the new set out. Not friendly or sophisticated. Hopefully we’ll see something to improve on this sooner rather than later.
Userlevel 1
Uggh.
My entire family absolutely hates this dreadful new interface.
Not intuitive is an understatement. In my opinion they really broke it, and I don’t understand why.
It seems just about everything is more difficult to accomplish other than selecting something from one of your 8 favorites.
I have 8 different speaker areas and it is such a hassle navigating among them compared to before.
I read the tutorial and was patient, and indeed am a fast learner. But my conclusion is that they really messed this up.
How about some incremental updates rather than a giant re-work that throws most familiarity out the window? That would allow some customer feedback.
I have submitted a suggestion that they permit users the ability to use an older version via rollback.
As an aside, the last thing I want is Amazon listening to everything I say in my home, so the integration is not something I will use.
BTW, I like change......but change for change sake is often a bad idea.
My entire family absolutely hates this dreadful new interface.
Not intuitive is an understatement. In my opinion they really broke it, and I don’t understand why.
It seems just about everything is more difficult to accomplish other than selecting something from one of your 8 favorites.
I have 8 different speaker areas and it is such a hassle navigating among them compared to before.
I read the tutorial and was patient, and indeed am a fast learner. But my conclusion is that they really messed this up.
How about some incremental updates rather than a giant re-work that throws most familiarity out the window? That would allow some customer feedback.
I have submitted a suggestion that they permit users the ability to use an older version via rollback.
As an aside, the last thing I want is Amazon listening to everything I say in my home, so the integration is not something I will use.
BTW, I like change......but change for change sake is often a bad idea.
Beware of the ones and twos of people on this site that seem to be out of touch with the majority of people that have taken the time to give their views on the horrible update.
It seems there are a “couple” Sonos apologists...
It seems there are a “couple” Sonos apologists...
Serious question: what advantages are there in renaming shortcuts to favourite things, other than hacking the alphabetical order to manipulate what gets shown on the "My Sonos" dashboard? Albums, artists (sorry, "others") and playlists already have names, what's the value in editing an item's "My Sonos dashboard" name, unless you want to name a playlist "AAA My awesome playlist please list this one first", or have a playlist named something different when navigating to it via "Playlists" versus "My Sonos" browsing?
Hi, thanks John B for reading my mad ramblings and being measured in your response!
If I could just comment on a couple of things, I would be interested in your views...!
Your right to a degree that the system does more than when the CR200 was launched. But the ‘more’ is mostly more online sources, more configuration (trueplay) and options in setting up, etc. The true core — the essence of what Sonos is — is ‘play this music in that room’. I personally (and I’m getting on so my memory does fail me) can’t think of new functionality that has been added to day to day playing of music. That part should be fundamentally simple. It’s core, it’s basic — and that (some) people are complaining that this part is not fluidly simple would suggest its gone bad.
The other thing I’d like to comment on is the distinction between what is logical and what is intuitive. I’m not sure there is any difference here. For instance you may click on a button that is unlabelled because it’s location / shape /context suggests what it should logically do. If it’s logical, it’s intuitive. My own personal opinion is that modern design (unlabelled buttons, the ‘hamburger’ button, the ‘three dot’ symbol) are bad design and counter intuitive, but this seems to be the way interfaces are going, so I guess I’m in the minority here. But again the visuals are always down to preference. But call it logical or call it intuitive - the design should be both!!
Right, off for bacon sandwich.
Andrew
Despite your scorn for renaming, I have started using it to re-order and classify my favourites. I think this could prove very useful.
Strange comment about what My Sonos gives you over browse ->music library->artists. It gives you your favourite artists instead of all of them. That is the point of favourites.
OK, the uninituitive behaviour of the queue versus the many "play" buttons is old news (year-old "won't fix" bugs and assorted UI failures). Agreed, that is a separate topic.
My problem with "favourites" isn't the "favourites", which are awesome and I use all the time. I simply don't understand why:
1. "My Sonos" lists only the first 8 alphabetically in each favourites category, then you need to use the "see all" to list 28 of your 32 favourites
2. The "My Sonos->Edit" option doesn't edit "My Sonos" (a dashboard of favourites and playlists) but instead allows you to delete favourites, thus promoting other favourites onto the My Sonos dashboard
3. There's the renaming of favourites, which I guess lets you hide your mate's Slayer collection behind a link that says "One Direction", so OK that's useful
Look, I get that it's hard to describe what Sonos actually does without sounding like a crazy person. And I know that "favourites" is a feature that didn't exist when I bought my Sonos, and I can work around the navigation issues. But I don't think I've seen a single change in two years that has actually improved the user experience.
I am not sure what your point is about the behaviour of the queue, which hasn't changed at all in the new app
Strange comment about what My Sonos gives you over browse ->music library->artists. It gives you your favourite artists instead of all of them. That is the point of favourites.
Strange comment about what My Sonos gives you over browse ->music library->artists. It gives you your favourite artists instead of all of them. That is the point of favourites.
I am not suggesting that solves all the issues with My Sonos.
Wow. Just spotted that edit button. So OK, I have a "favourites" list that contains a couple of albums, a couple of playlists, and nearly 30 artists. By default, this is listed on "My Sonos" as:
1. All favourite albums
2. First eight (alphabetically) others (AKA "artists")
3. All favourite playlists
4. All Sonos playlists (note: these are not my favourites, they're just "playlists I created for various reasons but probably don't use much")
With some use of the editing button, I can go and "edit" my favourite artists, either by "renaming" (no idea what that does) or "deleting" (which removes the artist completely from my favourites list and bumps the next favourite artist alphabetically onto the "My Sonos" screen). Still looking for that "let me pick my favourite eight favourites" button.
Look, I get that people like their playlists, people probably have a different or "more evenly distributed" album/artist/playlist breakdown of favourites, but I'm struggling to see what the "My Sonos" screen gives me, other than learning to hit "My Sonos->Other-see-all" to get to my favourites list (vs "browse->music library->artists"). Oh well, we learned the difference between "play all" (replace stopped queue and play) and "play-all->play now (first action on the play-all button menu or app equivalent)" which obviously does "insert into queue and play album followed by most of yesterday's listening". We can learn how to navigate this new app. BUT WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO learn an app, it should be intuitive.
Couldn’t agree more.
At the end of the day if you hand the new software or the old software to a newcomer I can’t imagine anyone defending the new software as being so dense as to suggest they would find the new easier to use or figure out
It’s not being aggressive. No one has to have died (lol) to point out bad software
At the end of the day if you hand the new software or the old software to a newcomer I can’t imagine anyone defending the new software as being so dense as to suggest they would find the new easier to use or figure out
It’s not being aggressive. No one has to have died (lol) to point out bad software
Not just IOS, Android app is terrible too...with 9 zones and 5 users, music is going on and off in all the wrong rooms now....never had this problem before. This is not just a matter of getting used to it, there is a fundamental issue with the logic in the selection process. Way too much menu switching and swiping to play a tune now....Almsot think Amazon has developed this to force that terrible Alexa on us all!
Page 3 / 6
Enter your username or e-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.