Redesigned Sonos app and compatibility with voice-over screen reader in IOS

Around 2010 to 2012 I was fairly involved in talking to Sonos and  in beta testing the app from a blind user’s perspective. I spend many hours testing and writing messages describing issues and in the end Sonos released a beautifuly accessible app and it really seemed that they were one of the few companies who get how accessibility should work, e.g. it should be built in and not achieved by some half-baked fixes or other tools like using the screen recognition feature of Voicover. For all these years accessibility was maintained in all app updates and it is sad to see that apparently Sonos leadership had a change of heart when it comes to accessibility. Why would they release an app on May 7 and say that by May 21 many accessibility features would be restored and that furthermore another 6 weeks later the app once again is supposed to be completely accessible. If they know all this then why don’t they schedule the public release for the end of June so that all users can enjoy the new app? I wish there came a day when an app was released with full accessibility in place, but all the sight4ed users have to wait 2 months before they can properly use the app, maybe the screen goes black 90% of the time which of course isn’t a problem for Voiceover users, but sighted people can only use the app for 6 minutes every hour or something like that. Shame on Sonos and maybe it is time to re-evaluate what else is out there. I wonder if the experience with this new app is so bad if I could call Sonos and they would offer to buy back my $8,000 or so of sonos gear at full retail value.

I remember a few years back when I tweeted that an update to the Sonos iOS app broke one part of accessibility--specifically, the app stopped announcing which rooms were selected when you were grouping things together. I was amazed when the Sonos official Twitter account mentioned me and asked me to provide more details. Subsequently, I got a DM from this same account, letting me know that there was an update to the App and Sonos believed they had fixed the problem. They asked me to try the new app and report back. I did so, and to my even greater amazement, I could once again group my speakers accessibly. I told that story for years. I invested heavily in the ecosystem (I currently have 32 active units, and my child has a system with eight units). I recommended Sonos to my friends--blind and sighted--because of this commitment to accessibility, which was nothing I’d ever experienced in the mainstream consumer electronics space. I remain hopeful that the accessibility issues with the app (of which there are many) will be addressed within the stated timeframe. Still, I doubt I’ll be telling that Twitter story again.  

This news makes me very nervous to become a new blind Sonos customer. I was thinking about purchasing the headphones when they launch to dip my toes into the Sonos ecosystem, but I won’t do that until we get a public apology from the CEO and other executives in the company assuring us issues like this will never happen again, and the accessibility is restored on all platforms. Sonos products aren’t cheap, and this is absolutely unacceptable we’re locked out as paying customers.

I use my Sonos app with voiceover on my iPhone because I am blind. While the latest update fixed many voiceover issues, there are still a lot of problems. For example, many of the settings in account settings and system settings are not accessible. in particular the EQ settings do not indicate whether loudness or trueplay is on or off my Sonos Move. There are also many other examples of similar problems. When will these issues be addressed so that blind people can use the new Sonos app in the same way as cited people.