Fed up with Sonos updates - lost one of my speakers

He is making a valid point.

Sonos is taking deliberate action to cripple software that previously worked.

I could give numerous examples of applications that continue to work for many years after they were first released.

The point (made repeatedly here) that older versions of Android are insecure is demonstrably nonsense, because there are many online banking apps that still work OK with Android 5.

In my opinion it’s right to criticise Sonos for this policy. It is purely a profit-maximising exercise, with little regard for customers who bought into Sonos a few years ago and don’t want to be forced into buying new phones/tablets so that they can continue using products that they have already paid for.

Eyupp,

With respect to audio equipment the mindset has been “buy once, use forever”. It was similar with old telco landline phones. At least in the US the customer did not own the phones and only equipment owned and approved by the phone company was allowed to be connected to the wires (by law). The phone company’s business plan designed a 20 year lifespan into each piece of equipment. Imagine the utility of a 20 year “innovation” cycle. Early “portable” phones were suitcase sized devices. Imagine being required to carry such a device for 20 years before you could replace it with a “small” device you could best be described as a briefcase. Then another 20 years before a handheld device might have become available. I’m not sure that we would yet have pocket sized devices.

Early phone and personal computer innovation was driven scrappy small companies. In many ways this is still true. A small company will develop a small innovation that is then sold to a large company that has the resources to build the innovation on a large scale.

I too had to purchase a new phone last year. My phone was much older than yours and was stuck at Android 4.x. In addition to SONOS, Apps that I needed for my day job were being locked out. The final straw was the notice from my cell service provider that it will soon stop connecting this phone to the cell network. Otherwise, the phone was in near perfect condition. Yes, I was annoyed.

You might have noticed that you have had to replace all of your TV’s. In addition to higher resolution screens, the new TV’s allow stations to be packed closer together. The old TV’s could not operate in the current environment. The old system required a certain amount of space between channels -- “blank” channels if you like. The new scheme does not require any blanks and the whole TV band can be compressed, releasing spectrum for use by other technology, such as expanded cellphone speed and features.

You are missing the point.

There are plenty of cases where technology moves on and things no longer work. But this is not one of them.

Sonos is choosing to deliberately stop their app working properly, even though it could work fine on older versions with minimal maintenance.

The aim here is simply cost-saving (i.e. profit-maximising) by Sonos.

I could go on to explain why it is a very very poor policy in terms of customer psychology and satisfaction, but I’m not going to bother - because the fanboys here won’t want to listen...

Saying someone that does not (completely) agree with you is a “fanboy” is a cop out. In my explanation I did criticize Sonos about following the OS-makers in not supporting older OS's. But that is where the problem starts: stopping support for an OS version will make it unsafe after a certain time. So your first complaint should go to Apple or Google, or Samsung. 

Since no one here knows what it would cost Sonos (either in money terms or in time spent better in other developments) to keep supporting older OS's, saying this would only need minimal maintenance is an unsupported claim. It could be profit maximising, it could be something else. We just dont know.

With respect to Apple, they will make a change in their API, perhaps removing something. If an App does not migrate to the “new improved” replacement, the App will be dropped from the store. In many cases “new improved” does not work on older iOS versions. 

In fairness I didn’t call you a fanboy. I said that the fanboys here would not want to listen.

The claim that we should blame Google first is a diversion. As has been pointed out before, Google may have stopped supporting the version of Android on my phone, but they haven’t stopped me using it as a phone!

My real point is this:

If I don’t speak out about having obsolescence forced upon us by companies like Sonos, who will?

Should we just accept it, and throw (collectively) millions of perfectly good mobile phones away?

Sonos should try harder to do the right thing environmentally.

You blaming Sonos for the environmental impact of the cell phone sales model is like me blaming the company making the shampoo I just bought on Amazon for the environmental impact of cardboard shipping boxes.

“The cell phone sales model” is the same diversion, yet again.

Let me see if I can explain in a way that you can understand: My cell phone still works!

It’s Sonos that has chosen to change the app so that, although it would work properly yesterday, it won’t work properly today.

Can you see the difference?

Just because you can use a phone with a no longer supported OS does not mean, over time, you should…… https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/mobile-device-guidance/managing-the-risks-from-obsolete-products

I said nothing about your cell phone, and it isn’t even germane to the point, which was your silly mention of the environment in this sentence - “Sonos should try harder to do the right thing environmentally.”   When the entire ½ trillion dollar per year cell phone industry’s marketing push is to sell the latest and greatest model, Sonos’ contribution to the cell phone’s environmental impact is nil.  As I said, it’s like blaming the shampoo company for Amazon’s waste of cardboard.