Feedback on new app

Can I just add my user experience of the new app. It is flawed, makes no sense to any of my users (we are a SONOS delaer) and needs to change.

From the Rooms menu, I can do nothing. I have to select the room, which logically would expect you to access the room "options", but no, you then have select a different nav bar icon, which is counter intuitive - wy can I not access rooms, then select music, without jumping between nav bar items?

If I double click the room I go to a full screen "Now Playing" view which allows me to do - well not very much really.

I cannot select music from the now playing screen - it seems to be an enormous waste of space when they could easily give you more usable features.

Frankly, there are too many "ways" of getting to the end result.

Swipe, select from Nav, select room, then access nav bar again, then search - wow - so many different styles of UI to get music playing.

It could be so, so, so much simpler.

This app makes NO SENSE whatsoever. Even after using it for hours I find it frustratingly useless as a UI

Nothing is logical. The thing you want to do you need to approach from the wrong direction.

I would actually pay money to get a better app.

SONOS need to admit that they have failed badly on this one - the product is outstanding -this app UI is a car crash, a complete disaster of a user experience.

Your comments suggest that you have not explored the app properly to find out what happens where.
Select room. Then select music. Sounds logical to me. It’s different but more logical.

Now playing screen. What do you mean can’t select music? Does Show Queue not work for you?

Does selecting the room in My Music not work for you?

Did you not read the bits where I said i have never claimed the new app was better than the old?

That's exactly what you do every-time you call the app quick, easy and logical in response to someone complaining about it. Why you say? Well because in comparison it isn't, and by side-stepping that fact, your pretending it isn't the case.

There's huge difference between telling someone the new app indeed is a big step backwards, but if you follow these steps it'll be easier to deal that, and telling them what those steps are and questioning their intelligence by asking how that doesn't work for them (BoredofBalham's post immediately above this is a perfect example).

I ask you what is illogical about a simple set of steps in the app .
I already pointed tout that the way the rooms dropdown on now playing does not allow to switch rooms is illogical.It's no coincidence that remark pops up in most of the critiques and complaints. But it doesn't stop there. The usage of big icons making list extra long, or only being able to see 2 rooms at a time on the rooms screens is illogical. The way my sonos only shows 5 items in the overview is illogical, etc.

But can I get the music I want playing in the room I want in a few seconds without difficulty? Yes. That is all I am claiming.

It's now without difficulty, certainly not in comparison with the previous app. And that last part is something you can not ignore as the current app is the follow-up to the previous, and sonos made it impossible to keep using the old app.

What a colossal waste of both our times this debate is. I concede that you are correct on every point, and I am completely wrong.

I agree that the new app is poorly designed, I do not see why I should have to relearn how to use this every few months.

Going forward I intend to test new apps on an old android phone I have, I will only download new controllers if I deem them to be an improvement. Does anyone know if using old versions of the app long term will cause any problems? Will it eventually do it anyway if I keep saying update later?

I agree that the new app is poorly designed, I do not see why I should have to relearn how to use this every few months.

Going forward I intend to test new apps on an old android phone I have, I will only download new controllers if I deem them to be an improvement. Does anyone know if using old versions of the app long term will cause any problems? Will it eventually do it anyway if I keep saying update later?

Eventually some services will stop working as those services make changes which require firmware/controller updates.

Will it eventually do it anyway if I keep saying update later?
No, providing that you lock it off everywhere - all controllers, all possible updates (e.g. android auto updates), never allow anyone on the system who may update it either helpfully or accidentally. In addition, you can't add new controllers (so you can't change phones, laptops etc) or re-install existing ones if there's a problem. So locking it down can be quite restrictive.

Stuart_W and Amun thanks for your comments, very helpful.

One change I would like to see is the ability to change the Music Library menu structure. For example, if I could, I would change the menu path to be Music Library>Genres>(albums). Currently this path ends with artists. With classical music this would be especially helpful as "composers" is often not correctly filled in by iTunes. A list of all albums, as currently provided in the path (Music Library>Albums) is way too long to use and it would be nice to narrow down by genre.

I've had my 5 room sonos for 7 years, long enough to have had the orignal remotebefore there was an app...Anyway, what I find annoying is how confusing it is to change rooms. Too many steps.

The new interface is very inconvenient. Especially the way you select a room and make group is not straightforward. Furthermore the selecting a song from search was much more convenient when you could choose what you want to do with instead of start playing it directly.
To be clear I normally never give feedback, but these changes are extremely annoying.