Using Apple Music, how to enable "Autoplay Similar Songs" within Sonos App

  • 19 January 2021
  • 27 replies
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In iOS14 Apple added a new feature to “Autoplay Similar Tracks” when a playlist or queue is finished.  Its supposed to continue to play similar music to what was on the playlist.  Similar to Create a Station that does work (but is fairly buried in Sonos and Apple), but instead it kicks in at the end of an existing playlist vs. creating an unending playlist from scratch like Create Station does from a selected song.

 

See here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208383

 

Apple show an infinity symbol on the player to control this feature.

 

Its supposed to be somewhat better than create a station as it has the context of the entire preceeding playlist when picking a new song, vs. a single song.


27 replies

You’re reading two companies public financials and know exactly what deals they’ve made in every detail. And you’re enough into Sonos development details you know who’s using who’s API. Fantastic. Don’t care about that and not digging through company financials just to let a company know a feature is missing when a service that has that feature is used through their tool. 

We are using the SONOS app and telling THEM we want a feature that’s missing when we use a service inside THEIR app. THEY should negotiate the details to make that happen without making excuses about who’s to blame. 

Merry Christmas! 

 

So you'd rather level blame at whom you think is at fault than direct your effort towards the company which is actually tasked to fix the problem?  Good luck with that.

Oh and it's not too hard to see Apple is responsible.  The Sonos development API is quite public:  

https://docs.sonos.com/docs

 

You’re reading two companies public financials and know exactly what deals they’ve made in every detail. And you’re enough into Sonos development details you know who’s using who’s API. Fantastic. Don’t care about that and not digging through company financials just to let a company know a feature is missing when a service that has that feature is used through their tool. 

We are using the SONOS app and telling THEM we want a feature that’s missing when we use a service inside THEIR app. THEY should negotiate the details to make that happen without making excuses about who’s to blame. 

Merry Christmas! 

Since Sonos is a public company, as is Apple, you can look at their financials.

FWIW, and to shortcut things, what @jgatie says is true. 

Once again, Sonos isn't using Apple's API.  Apple is using Sonos' API, and this function is available in the Sonos API because other services use it.

As to the financial relationship, Sonos has stated many times, and it's part of their Music Partners program.  Any service can be integrated into Sonos via their implementation in the Sonos Music API, and there is no cost to the service. 

But Sonos can tell Apple that people are begging for it 🙂

 

Seeing how Sonos doesn't have any financial relationship with Apple, besides licensing Airplay, which would only encourage not using the Sonos app, it is far more effective for Apple Music subscribers to make the request than to rely on Sonos to do it for you (not that they haven't already).

How do you personally know for a fact that Sonos has no financial relationship with any other company? Besides, I personally know that when I’m using a vendor’s API, I have contacts with that vendor I can work with when something is not accessible within in the API that would be useful to my user base. Apple may or may not wish to open that feature in the API. Vendors don’t always want to open everything outside of their own tool offerings. But since they are locking folks out of Spatial via AirPlay, we’re faced with a compromise— using the Sonos app while missing some Apple features, or the Apple app while missing some Sonos features. Oh well. 

But Sonos can tell Apple that people are begging for it 🙂

 

Seeing how Sonos doesn't have any financial relationship with Apple, besides licensing Airplay, which would only encourage not using the Sonos app, it is far more effective for Apple Music subscribers to make the request than to rely on Sonos to do it for you (not that they haven't already).

Have you read @controlav ‘s post above? This is something Apple would need to implement, not something Sonos can do. 

But Sonos can tell Apple that people are begging for it 🙂

Thank you for your response. With all due respect, is this an official Sonos response or from a developer with appropriate knowledge of the implementation?

 

It wouldn't make any difference if I was God himself, my statement wouldn’t be any more or less true.  It’s all spelled out right here: https://developer.sonos.com/

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Nope clearly I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. Hopefully Apple will agree to make some changes on their systems to allow for this functionality, but still think there’s plenty of opportunity within the Sonos ecosystem for them to implement changes that would bring better user experience in managing music.

 

Sonos has zero to do with the user experience within individual music services.  Each service is wholly responsible for their UI within the Sonos app and because of the partnership agreement, Sonos couldn’t change it if they tried.  The only influence Sonos has is the API, and the API obviously includes the ability to autoplay similar tracks, because other services have incorporated this feature. 

Thank you for your response. With all due respect, is this an official Sonos response or from a developer with appropriate knowledge of the implementation?

It is how Sonos works. See developer.sonos.com for all the details.


Nope clearly I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. Hopefully Apple will agree to make some changes on their systems to allow for this functionality, but still think there’s plenty of opportunity within the Sonos ecosystem for them to implement changes that would bring better user experience in managing music.

 

Sonos has zero to do with the user experience within individual music services.  Each service is wholly responsible for their UI within the Sonos app and because of the partnership agreement, Sonos couldn’t change it if they tried.  The only influence Sonos has is the API, and the API obviously includes the ability to autoplay similar tracks, because other services have incorporated this feature. 

Thank you for your response. With all due respect, is this an official Sonos response or from a developer with appropriate knowledge of the implementation?

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Spotify does it automatically, if you ask it to play a single song (via Alexa) it will carry on with similar songs afterwards.


Nope clearly I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. Hopefully Apple will agree to make some changes on their systems to allow for this functionality, but still think there’s plenty of opportunity within the Sonos ecosystem for them to implement changes that would bring better user experience in managing music.

 

Sonos has zero to do with the user experience within individual music services.  Each service is wholly responsible for their UI within the Sonos app and because of the partnership agreement, Sonos couldn’t change it if they tried.  The only influence Sonos has is the API, and the API obviously includes the ability to autoplay similar tracks, because other services have incorporated this feature. 

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Have you read @controlav ‘s post above? This is something Apple would need to implement, not something Sonos can do. 


Nope clearly I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. Hopefully Apple will agree to make some changes on their systems to allow for this functionality, but still think there’s plenty of opportunity within the Sonos ecosystem for them to implement changes that would bring better user experience in managing music.

Have you read @controlav ‘s post above? This is something Apple would need to implement, not something Sonos can do. 

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Has there been any update on the request for this feature? I would love to have this as well and consider it a significant gap that the Sonos app currently has.
 

While I think the Sonos hardware products are well thought out and designed the software side of things leaves a lot to be desired, and hasn’t received much treatment in years. This would be a meaningful addition and would bring some momentum back to improving the Sonos app experience.

I add my vote for adding this feature of Apple Music to the Sonos app. I don’t want to use AirPlay all the time because it takes away from the power of Sonos!  Apple Music is the only music service I subscribe to and I use it with auto play most of the time, except what I’m using Sonos :( This is a huge gap that I hope gets fixed soon!

As an Android user (bear with me!) who's used all the other streaming apps, this is a common missed feature. I don't want to turn around every 4 minutes to choose another song; I want the streaming service to choose for me while I eat, drink and chat! 

 

Sonos themselves state that the S2 isn't a music playing app, so please let these key music app features flow through to the S2.

Just got my first Sonos product and am super bummed to see that this isn’t available!

I would also love to see this feature implemented.  I notice that Spotify does it quite happily, so it might well be an Apple related issue.  Nonetheless it would be make the whole listening experience much better if there was a way to enable autoplay similar music after playing a single song or album.

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Hello, guys, the feature of Apple Music to continue playing music automatically in the same style as the playlist is indeed incredibly good.

That's why I'm also asking the Sonos developers to integrate the whole thing into the Sonos app. It's super easy to discover new music that you really like and also fits the playlist.

We need Autoplay! Thanks… 😍😘😀


Sonos know nothing about the music they play (other than the name). Only the music services that provide the music know more, and this specific request should be directed to Apple.

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Hello, guys, the feature of Apple Music to continue playing music automatically in the same style as the playlist is indeed incredibly good.

That's why I'm also asking the Sonos developers to integrate the whole thing into the Sonos app. It's super easy to discover new music that you really like and also fits the playlist.

We need Autoplay! Thanks… 😍😘😀

I would love to see this feature incorporatedin Sonos also!

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Given that Apple cannot even be bothered to fix Activity Playlists in the Sonos SMAPI endpoint, I’d say the chances of them adding actual features such as this are slim-to-none.

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Upvote this functionality. I love the Apple Music AutoPlay feature it’s brilliant.

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I second or third this request...I would much prefer to select an Apple Music song from the Sonos App and have Apple Music Autoplay Similar Music RATHER THAN having to stream a song from my iPhone to a Sonos unit to make this happen….this, to me, is a must have feature! 

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