• None of the station art is showing up when playing any SomaFM stations.
• all the favourites are in one location, there’s no split between a favourite playlist or favourite album or song - you have to go digging so deep now into favourites to find anything
• would love instructions on how to roll back on iOS.
• really bad experience compared to S2

Just got the following response after emailing the CEO:

My name is Teodora and I'm a senior member of the Customer Experience team here at Sonos. Our CEO, Patrick Spence, brought your feedback to my attention, and I wanted to reach out and see if there's anything I can do to help address this.

I understand you’re experiencing troubles with the new Sonos App and I’ll be more than happy to provide you with an explanation.

This feature is not currently available in the Sonos app, but will return in a future update. You will not be able to view, enable, disable, or change any settings related to their Sonos alarms on either iOS or Android apps. For what concerns searching the music library, this is not possible as the new App uses only universal search. To find the music library you can go to the Home screen and scroll down to Your resources. There you can browse the music library.

This revitalization of the Sonos app is our most ambitious software update yet, and aims to address what our customers have been asking us for. It’s a huge undertaking, and we are taking the time and effort to ensure all features work seamlessly and meet both our standards and the standards of our listeners. With this commitment in mind ,some features will not be available at launch, but will be added to the app on a rolling basis over the coming months.

Thank you for your collaboration and patience!

Best regards,

Teodora R.

Clearly they expect us to wait for them to fix this shambles rather than allowing us to roll back the app.

Very poor response ! - is my PC response !

Unfortunately this update means I cannot sell my speakers for a decent value due to poor software 

I will gradually replace them and sell them all at a later date when the software actually works 

thankfully I have not updated so I have usability for now 

very disappointed as I enjoyed my speakers for a few years but thanks to software updates I will have to find an alternative system 

So we have gone backwards until we can sort out the issues. When features ‘return in the future’ this is a validation that they have gone backwards….

"over the coming months"

That's encouraging feedback

This is a copy/paste response that everyone gets when they email the CEO. I was promised a follow up from an issue Sonos introduced over a year ago (which still isn’t fixed) and despite chasing, they did absolutely nothing and didn’t respond further. 
 

They need a strong lesson in customer service, they’ve lost the plot. 

Notice the timeframe - MONTHS ! 

More issues:

• ‘recently played’ isn’t adding songs or the station itself for my self curated Apple Stations I’ve set up. It’s like ‘recently played’ just doesn’t see Apple stations.
• not a single piece of station art shows up from SomaFM, just generic black tiles.
   

For what concerns searching the music library, this is not possible as the new App uses only universal search.
 

Sounds like local libraries are not going to be useable in the long term. “Not possible” is strong wording. Of course it’s possible, Sonos has decided to not make that a priority. 
 

Probably the beginning of the end for me. 

Yes, this is what I feared, it seems the writing is on the wall.

However there is a workaround if you can run Plex media server on your network. See :

As a HEOS owner (via Marantz built-in), that platform has its own issues despite very real improvements to its interface and recent upgrade to Tidal allowing for hi-res streaming. Their integration with local libraries is quirky at best, plus they don’t support Qobuz.

However, unlike Sonos, their app is progressing forward, not regressing backward. Why, for the life of me, would Sonos separate access to a NAS library from music sources then compound the issue by removing the letters on the right side of the screen allowing me to click on a “U” for U2 is beyond me. I won’t get into the issue of not building my own queue, which I frequently do when listening to an original version and cover versions of a particular song.

With this update, Bluesound currently has the most user friendly and customizable app, due as much to their improvements as much as Sonos’ abdication of this as a goal. 

Yeah but that’s not the product I bought. 
 

I’m guessing none of this works when you lose internet but still have a local network. I suspect a whole lot of this new app is running data through Sonos servers, particularly things like search. 

I am doing fine with the new app.   I miss the Add to Queue and Sleep Timer features.  One plus is that it seems to be dealing better, though slowly, with 2000-3000 song playlists…   I should try the Web app.
 

I maintain playlists in Apple Music, and syncing from Apple Music to Sonos still works.   I could never load my playlists into Local Library.

Yes indeed, the backend seems to run on Sonos servers. For instance to link your local Sonos system to the local Plex media server accessing files on your local NAS, you need to allow access to Plex from a server in the USA. Talk about efficiency.

In any case I am not trying to justify Sonos bad decisions, I am just trying to find a way for my hardware not to end up useless.

It’s quite clear that this ambitious software update was a fail. In the speed, quality, feature trade off, for some reason they over indexed on speed. In my experience for both internal apps and importantly products for our customers, we say, we don’t go backwards. Feature or functionality are removed only after a thorough approval process and generally only with a documented work around. 

launching a product and specifically saying key missing features will be added in the future, is essentially releasing a beta products as a general release. This release would be a very decent beta for those users wanting to explore new functionality. As a user losing key functionalities some that are  core to my system and that I use every day is a disaster
 

I agree with all the issues posted here and I want to add that on Android, the new app removed the widget completely. Something that I used almost exclusively. This is definitely an MVP release that was rushed out to meet a deadline on someone’s performance sheet because it is not ready for public release at this time. Sonos should roll back, fix everything until it matches the functionality of the last version, then release it...even if it takes months.

Smart Home Sounds who are a big Sonos partner in the UK have just published some time frames on missing features.

Unfortunately as with most app launches nowadays, this isn't the finished article just yet. While the Sonos S2 App has launched with a solid foundation, some users might have noticed a few missing features including the ability to edit playlists and queues (frustrating we know). Here's some good news! We can confirm they are on their way and we've been able to compile a timeline for some of the crucial additions Sonos is expected to bring in the coming months:

Auto Trueplay / Quicktune Era (100 & Era 300) - Arriving in Late May

Snooze Alarms - Coming in June

Google Assistant Setup on Android - Coming in June

Sleep Timers - Coming in July

Find Missing Products Tool - Coming in July

Offline Devices - Coming in July

Queue & Playlist Editing - Coming in July

Source (scroll to the bottom) - The NEW Sonos App is Here: 5 Things You Need To Know! (smarthomesounds.co.uk)

I’ve written to Patrick, the CEO as well

The quality is simply not there, SONOs is too mature a company, to be releasing MVP upgrades, which regress the product and degrade the User Experience.

Experienced everything on this topic

Upon upgrading, all of my services have vanished - whilst attempting to re-add, the SONOS app simply times out.

Additionally, some very basic functions have vanished.

- The sleep timer function is gone.

- The alarm functions are gone.

Time is money. Do you have the time to spend, rebuilding a working system? I don’t.  

Additionally, I’m now going to be getting called by all of my relatives asking for support  - and from reviewing the forums, I will be powerless to help them.

I’d love to know why SONOS have decided that the sleep and alarm functions are superfluousness.

Why is it acceptable to release an ‘update’, that is a functional regression?

1. Can’t add a song to the queue.
2. It’s removed my Move Speaker and I can’t re-add it. I can’t even use it as a bluetooth speaker.
3. The Mac App no longer recognises my system.
4. Conclusion - completely unusable.
5. I’ve been fed up with connection issues for a long time and now using my JBL bluetooth speaker - completely reliable after 8 years.

It’s 10:45pm and we’ve just wasted half an hour of precious sleep trying to figure out where the f%#k sleep timers have gone. Kids are in the middle of exams, winding down with mediations, and there’s no way for us to set their speakers to turn off.

…and that’s just ONE feature. The rest of this App is just weird. We’re into Sonos for the usability and quality of “design”, but to upgrade an App by trashing all kinds of usability and delight is NOT good design; it’s kinda shitty.

”Thanks” Sonos.

Found a workaround to a degree for the alarms issue. Lyd for Sonos on the watch still allows you to turn existing alarms on and off, just no ability to change or create new ones.

At least I don’t need to unplug at night now…

The speed of things has been driving me insane, had hoped the new app might at least sort this….it hasn’t! 
 

One thing I had noticed, the incredible lag only seemed to occur when using my Play:1’s. My newer Move and One do not seem to suffer the lag (built in obsolescence by Sonos?)

I don’t mind the new layout as such, not including “Play Next” is criminal!! Add to it the removal of iOS Lock Screen control from the old app and it’s all just infuriating!!

 Sonos used to be a joy to use, I was ready to pull the trigger and buy an Arc and a couple of Era 100’s, think that will probably wait now though…..could be looking for a new system!!

That’s a helpful link - thanks. 

Where are you going to move to? I’m worried that any other speaker company will just end up shitting the bed like Sonos years later