The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

Every single thing takes more clicks and is less intuitive, thanks to the “me too!” layout. It’s so bad.

Playing music is cumbersome.

Hi Sonos Team

Has it already been reported that the query for the Sonos room for playing music no longer takes place? This means that music is always played in the last room. 

“what I wish we would’ve done is probably communicate the roadmap a little more clearly”.   CEO Patric Spence…

Well Patric, there is absolutely no roadmap that would change the fact or make it OK to remove features from everyone's products - after they were already in use and paid for.

I purchased these products with a specific feature set, and you reduced that feature set without warning.

Nothing makes sense. The layout. The way you have to side-scroll for years on a fricken phone. 

I would, the whole controller app debacle is just not acceptable.  The only things that will focus the senior management attention will be a drop in net sales (after returns) and a hit to the share price.

The leadership team should fired.

• search does not look in my music library
• When a category in my music library (such as ’Artists’) is opened there is no alphabet index on the right hand side, so it takes forever to scroll to an artist whose name doesn’t begin with ‘a’ or ‘b’. I have a very large library.
• It’s impossible to create a queue on the fly, because the only option is to replace the queue.
• The home screen has too many functions. It was much better having the 5 meta functions at the bottom of the ‘current track’ page, because this is the screen that is in view 90+% of the time.
• On my iPad the home screen has headings and ads rolling over the top of the content which makes it impossible to use. Besides, on both the iPhone and iPad, the content is not always there. Sometimes I have to restart the app to get the ‘your sources’ content.
• The current track screen doesn’t fill the screen, so the previous screen is still visible around the edges. It is particularly annoying when using the iPad and the previous screen is the home screen with the scrolling error.
• Going to the ‘queue’ page puts it at the top of the queue, not at the ‘current’ track. Once again it results in interminable scrolling with a large queue.
• There’s no way to update music library from iPhone and iPad apps
• Many other bad executions & decisions about what is functional 

The new app is a real disaster: slow, unresponsive, buggy. Basically, it has all the problems of the worst app in the world. I am wondering how Sonos development team could decide to release this app in its alpha stage? Don’t use Agile as an excuse please. Kindly revert to the old version, hire a new team to fix the app and release again in August or September.

The request for payment is related to the apkmirror premium service. Close the window asking you to join and continue with the free service. There is no need to pay or login.

Sonos company has fallen from its position many notches into the dark. I work in IT as an application owner in the healthcare industry.  There is no such thing as an initial release with missing features . It joust can’t exist,  you meet the scope of previous needs and future needs in a software release. That’s exactly what happened here (half baked) with a decision to “get feedback to see what features are used.”  That is the worst decision for the company and customers. My family is so outraged over this update that we refused to use it and now or forced to use the third-party apps over AirPlay, is this company goal? It actually makes me think I should’ve not bought the product in the first place because this happened and what’s gonna prevent it to happen in the future?  Was there some beta release with the actual people who use the app?  Wouldn’t that be time for the feedback and not a production release? Did the people who develop the new app not use Sonos daily? 

One huge feature missing is “add to queue”. I know it’s coming in future updates but I need it immediately not in a month.  

This software release can’t be taken lightly and highly recommend placing negative reviews on App Store first and the website or storefront that your product was purchased.  A lesson needs learned from “high” paying customers.   

Hardware is one part, your company nailed that.   Software is just as important as its runs the hardware.  Tesla release bad software on their cars?  

IIt’s a sad turn of events as I recommended the company to friends, but that has completely changed after this software update as customers are not first.

The old app was crappy but usable at best and I could trick it to work despite being laggy and buggy…can we go back to the old app? The new one is horrendous - there is a weird constant scrolling on the Home Screen of the category titles, I have to hit “apply” after adjusting the volume? No add to queue? On an iPhone 13…

 

Looks like you are on iPhone. You can downgrade using the following process. Not straightforward I am afraid but that’s one of the downsides of the way Apple runs the iPhone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1cyfqh8/simplified_iphone_downgrade_option/

 

On Android, it’s straightforward.

Download 16.1 from here:

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/sonos-inc/sonos-for-android/sonos-for-android-16-1-release/

 

Then disable Auto update via the Playstore. Click on Your Account Icon (top right) then click Manage Apps and Device. Click Manage Tab. Find Sonos and click on it. (Sort by App name to make the search easier!) Then click the 3 vertical dots in the top RH side and uncheck “Enable Auto Update”

 

I wanted to download what I think is the newest Sonos app, but it’s taking me to APKMirror. I don’t know this site and it has a little box in the bottom right that says something about a primium version of this app for $10. I never had to pay for a Sonos app before. I don’t know if I want to click on this. It says it’s for the Sonos 80.01.08 version of the IOS app. It does indicate by Sonos, Inc. and has the Sonos logo. So looks okay. 

Wow. I am completely blown away by the incompetence of your software engineering and QA departments. I am a previous embedded firmware developer and I cannot imaging ever releasing anything as trashy as this latest app. How did it pass QA?? Who developed the test cases. Basic things like grouping speakers and changing the volume take seconds to be completed and even then, they sometimes have a mind of their own. Set the volume to 35 and the app reverts to 27?? Try to group a room and it completely drops out of the system.  How - how can anyone claim this was tested?? Is your QA lab that challenged? Did you test it using a single speaker and zone?? I literally have 15 zone in my house and it’s been impossible to use the system since this piece of garbage was released. 

I concur that Sonos should recall this app, re-release that last stable S2 version, and then make darn sure the next new app release is as rock solid as the base of the Empire State Building. If you don’t you are at serious risk of losing a large portion of your customer base. Not only will you not be selling headphones, you won’t be selling any new products at all. Remember, for every one customer that has a good interaction and professes it, 20 with bad experience will shout from the roof tops on the internet about their negative opinions. You are almost at the point of no return with many on this forum from what I read.  I’m already investigating all of my other options. Much of my house is hardwired so I have to option of going to a Control4 or other audio distribution system. 

Sad and completely avoidable with just a little common sense on how to manage a software release. SMH.