Sonos App needs a total makeover

What specifically are your issues? What changes do you want? Just saying it's 'bad' is of no help.

100% agree with you on this, and any time spent looking at forums and reviews of the app will show that this is a widely held view (you need to sort reviews by ‘most recent’ and sift through the questionable - but inevitable - 5* reviews that claim this is the best app ever seen!).

The app is so poor on all of the platforms that I use - iOS, Mac OS and Windows. The navigation on Mac OS and Windows is laughably out of date. Apps were using this type of hierarchical menu navigation 15 years ago - it is infuriating, and finding (and discovering new) music in any of the app platforms is a non-starter.

No rewind or pause on radio streaming?!

The software developers at Sonos need to look at the Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon apps to see how a user interface can be done well, and make the artists, music, lyrics, music suggestions, etc. central to the experience and available in an intuitive way. One of the joys of using these apps is how they can lead you on a musical journey from artists and genres you know to new artists you have never heard of. (This happened to me on Apple Music this week - I went from the artist Bonobo and found the amazing Broken Bells, and then on to Danger Mouse - artists only one week ago I had never previously been aware of). The Sonos app doesn’t do this at all because it is completely hobbled by its out of date navigation and features. 

Come on Sonos, make your software as market-leading as your hardware - it’s been too long!

@chrislz   You seem to be judging the Sonos app by comparing it with streaming service music player apps. Why do you consider that to be appropriate?

You also seem to be unaware that Sonos ceased development of the Windows and Mac apps years ago. They are dead men walking. Of course they are outdated.

Which streaming service?  Sonos provides an API to streaming services so that can provide and present the features of their service the way they want.  If one service has rewind/pause while another does not, it would be because that service didn’t enable the feature.  You may need to request a change with the service, or maybe ask Sonos to pass along the request.

  It could be that it’s time for Sonos to upgrade their API, but it would need to be done in a way that doesn’t break any services existing use of the API.  I’m not really sure what features are completely missing from the API though.

It’s impossible to rewind or pause a live stream. Internet radio stations work like terrestrial radio stations.

Carry your complain over to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon because the services implement their appearance on Sonos via SMAPI themselves. Sonos even provides the possibility to add lyrics to the Sonos app, it’s not their fault if the services don’t utilise every feature the API supplies.

It is completely appropriate, because I am forced to use the Sonos app to play music unless I switch to Airplay so that I can use the app. Isn’t that obvious?

As for your second point ‘Sonos ceased development of the Windows and Mac apps years ago’ it’s clear that they don’t seem to be bothered to update the navigation, but they still update the apps periodically with bug fixes, etc.

Do you work for Sonos - why would you seek to defend their lackadaisical attitude to their apps?

All Sonos employees who post in this forum are required to have an indication of their status as part of their avatar.

Why would you assume that someone whose opinion differs from yours must be a Sonos employee?

Re. radio streaming - I access radio stations through Global Player, BBC Sounds, etc. all of which offer live radio pause and rewind natively. Whether they extend this functionality to third parties, I’m not sure?

Re. SMAPI, again I don’t know the details of this but this is a Sonos implemented API, which looks quite old (following your link - looks like it uses older API protocols). Any third party content supplier will presumably be limited by what the Sonos API can do? 

My point on this is that Sonos could surely work a lot harder to enhance their own music browsing capabilities in their own app to get closer to what the third party suppliers have done - all of the third party apps have constantly evolved their apps to be better and better. Sonos seemingly have not!

The whole basis of @chrislz 's comments is flawed. The Sonos app is a remote control for the Sonos system, not a music player. The need for a design thst can incorporate any number of music services places constraints that just don't exist for the individual streaming services. The Sonos app serves a totally different purpose. 

And now here's a thing.  @chrislz likes the musical journey that the Apple Music app takes him on. But others may prefer the way the Spotify app does this, or Amazon Music, or Tidal or Pandora. So here is an idea: why don't Sonos make it possible for all those apps to play direct to Sonos? Ah, of course, they already do.

Apple Music isn't on board with that yet...but there's always Airplay.

Fair enough Bruce, but it is not just my opinion as I mentioned previously, and I genuinely find it hard to believe that anyone could defend such poor apps, for all of the reasons I have mentioned. 

Rather than simply shut-down people who criticise the app (which I have seen elsewhere on the forums) can we have a conversation about this? Do you think the apps are great?