Why is the new Sonos App crap?

Like some of you, I work in tech. Specifically, as a project manager, I help roll out new programs for users. 
 

There are some major tenants/best practices, we follow when launching anything. The ones that come to mind here are:

• collect enhancement requests from your (users) customers to see what’s causing the most (noise) pain
• hold focus groups and engage with beta testers. Get input from the folks that will be using what you’re rolling out. (Not just your CEO or engineers)  ((I was a Sonos beta tester many years ago…but maybe they don’t do that any longer? (Big mistake! ️ Huge! )))
• Don’t just have the engineers & QA team test - do actual User Acceptance Testing (beta testing). Make sure your testers actually represent your user base
• ((Shameless plug)) Have an experienced, knowledgeable project manager organize your product enhancement, testing & release.

What disturbs me most about this launch is the total disregard for standards. It makes me question whether Sonos has truly lost their way. If this is how they launch something as fundamental as a user app, how are they running the rest of their business and are they really a viable company any longer?

We all make mistakes. This one is a doozy! 
 

On the pro side, glad to see they’re actually publishing a roadmap now with identified enhancements and target release dates. Maybe they got a project manager after all! 🤪

In the meantime I too, sit here, trying to slow my breathing, and continue to wait for basic functionality to return. 

I agree!! Ive been with sonos since 2007 and this is the WORST download ever!! I spend more time trying to work out which is where and what which pisses me off no end. Not user friendly at all, so friggin frustrated with it. Tv does not work with my sub anymore like previously, hard to find my fave podcasts, music lists all so predictive of just songs rehashed into every genre by algorithms, boring, nope aim fed up with it!!   

This is how I feel about Sonos - start:

This is how I feel about Sonos - end!

Get your act together, Sonos! Roll everthing back! What you are forcing us to use is COMPLETELY useless. We can’t listen to music. We bought Sonos to listen to music - not to spend our time in vain to get Sonos to work!

First time poster here… have been enjoying Sonos products since 2012, never had any issue. Until this new app. It is a nightmare.

Sonos, please fix this app or just roll back the old one, it was perfect as it was.

Example of latest issue: i cannot set the volume form2 of my Sonos players… sometimes restarting the app works, sometimes not.

Here is what i get:

Give me money back for all 4 speakers if you can't be arsed to fix the app!! 

I literally can't use anything except beam wchich is managed by my Sony TV through HDMI

Why would you think a support forum manned by other users is the place to ask for your money back? 

The app has gradually gone from glitchy but passable to completely broken on my phone and tablet. The connection with my music service will not work at all and parts or all of my system keep disappearing. I'll happily take a refund if this is the service I can expect from Sonos. 

Yet another first time poster who thinks a support forum manned by other users is the place to ask for your money back.  Curiouser and curiouser.  It’s almost as if they aren’t serious about a refund, and just want to rant in public (again).  

Wow. Are you for real? I may be a first time poster here but I've used forums before and know that they're not places to ask for customer service. If you read my comment properly you'll see that it's a statement clearly not directed at anyone in particular. And neither is it anything close to a rant, unlike your oh so constructive reply. But thanks for being so helpful.

Where did you say you needed help? 

Where did I say I needed belligirance?

You apparently struggle with words so there's little point continuing this nonsense. 

agree with all the comments ,some boffin must have thought it up on Friday at 5pm and didn’t give a crap ! it’s *

 *Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

The Sonos app is total crap…amazingly each update just makes it worse which is quite a feat

I am a software developer and would fire the entire team responsible- my dog could do better

The new app is absolutely terrible.  Sonos!!!  Please bring back the make sense, logically original app.  PLEASE!!!

Sonos has gone the way of Boeing.  Obviously run by bean counters and not sound and tech engineers.  The latest app for iPhone is totally worthless. I have spent many hours trying to solve problems with connectivity of my system to the older and now new  app. Avoid Sonos at this point. 

Please please change to the old app.

The old app was pretty clunky, to be generous. The new one is ten times worse and seems to be going even further downhill. I've given up trying to listen to music several times in the past few days as it's just not worked... NOT GOOD ENOUGH SONOS, GET IT SORTED!!

New app can’t connect or see speakers. This product needs a new dev team and product manager that’s knows what they are doing. This should never have been released. Go back to the basics and pay attention to what you customers want and address their pain points. This update does neither. 

I was at my parents house today and they have some older Sonos stuff of mine that I gave them - have to use the old S1 app… And man! What a pleasant experience it was. Everything made sense… everything worked. I have no idea what the crappy financial business reason there was to ruin the current app, but for the love of god - ROLL IT BACK!!!! SCRAP IT!!!! EVEN WHEN IT SORT OF WORKS IT’S ****!!!!

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

The new update is indeed remarkably dysfunctional.  I did find one work-around for the problem of album covers disappearing.  Now I just rely on Google “Search a Song” to find out what I’m listening to since the Sonos app has no idea what it’s playing….

Reading all the comments makes me realise the scale of the problem. I originally thought it was only me! Luckily my TV sound remains unaffected, so far, as you don't need to access the app. State-of-the-art equipment run by the worse control system, ever!?

It’s so bad it’s too time consuming to list everything that’s wrong with it. It was dreadful before but it’s unusable now. 
it’s so annoying to adjust the volume of a room only to see the slider ‘bounce’ back again, then minutes later the speaker may or may not catch up with what you requested. 
Hearing nothing and the app is showing music playing and another time hearing music and the app is showing that nothing is playing. 
all the faults are now well documented so there’s no point in me repeating everything. I have totally given up trying to ‘fix’ it. It is broken so it just ends up being a massive waste of my time. I’ve spent a lot of my earnings on these speakers over the years too. Hang your heads in shame people of SONOS. This is an absolute failure. 

The design is terrible.  I can only imagine you have only one Sonos speaker and one streaming service and simply listen to Spotify.  If you’d been listening for years with friends building playlist and memories and lost all of that I’m sure you’d feel differently.  Controlling the music for a group or your own pleasure is soooo much more difficult.  The app is many time unresponsive.   The old app was great and responsive.  I don’t care what color it’s is if it doesn’t work.