change order of Search results

If you are searching by album, the results will always list as Music Library first followed by your added music services in alphabetical order. There is no way to change this other than removing music services that you rarely use so they will be excluded from the results.

What order would you like to see it listed as?

I typically search by artist, get the top level results as you’ve suggested.  When I then click into the artist on Apple Music for example, the albums shown appear random.  It would be sensible (to me) to have most recent albums at top, but as not all may feel the same it probably makes sense to have a toggle there to control the order.  For that matter, some may want to see alphabetically, others by newest/oldest etc.

As an very specific example, let’s say I search artists for ‘James Blake’.  I then choose James Blake on Apple Music.

Looking at the results, his most recent album ‘Friends that Break Your Heart’ appears 5 times. One is listed as ‘explicit’, but there’s nothing whatsoever to distinguish the others.  Despite being the newest album, it appears in the middle of others.  it’s therefore not in chronogical order, nor alphabetical.

It would even be an improvement to see a ‘list’ view with some details rather than just a series of album covers with no detail.  It’s simply impossible to navigate as it stands.

Once into the individual service's listing, the order is up to the service.  Each service uses the Sonos API to implement their UI in the Sonos app, and it is they who are in charge of the look and feel.  Lobbying Apple for a change is your only choice, Sonos couldn't change the search results order if they wanted to.

I really doubt Sonos has no control over how they present data in their own app.

That’s fine. Sonos chooses not to modify the data that they receive from the outside service, so it is represented in exactly the way that each service sends it. 

Doubt all you like.  Matter of fact, keep complaining to Sonos instead of Apple, and watch how soon it gets fixed.  Or you can actually believe someone who has been answering questions here for over a decade and complain someplace where it will do you some good.

I'm simply saying I find it hard to imagine that the iOS SDK doesn't provide a means for Sonos to sort the output of data being returned to them.

Beyond that, Sonos is a fraction the size of Apple. Therefore which company has a better chance of being influenced to improve their product? Asking Apple to change some API being accessed by Sonos is like shouting at the sky.

As stated, Sonos allows the services to design their own user interface via the Sonos Music API, there is no Apple API to change.  Sonos does nothing except supply their API and QA testing.  Everything else is done by the service themselves, including how search results are displayed.  This is part of the partnership between Sonos and the services, and Sonos couldn't change it if they wanted to.

I'm sorry but that makes no sense. Sonos has written the Sonos application for iOS using apple's development tools. That application undoubtedly calls an Apple music API to get information from the Apple music service. It's just data… It can be manipulated and displayed like any data from any service.

Even if what you're saying were true, the data being displayed for Apple music doesn't match the order it's displayed in the Apple music app… Not even close.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi