Sonos/iTunes Play Count.

Hi there.
No plans to announce at the time. We'll pass on the suggestion for you. Let us know if you have any other questions we can help with.

I've just bought myself a set of three Sonus 1 speakers for my house. I love them and intended to buy more for other rooms as I go along.

I have one problem: As you have to stream music stored on your PC through the Desktop controller software, Sonos does not use play counts.

I use iTunes and the play count is an integral part of the metadata - all playlists are build up using this so it's very important.

How can I ensure Sonos uses the play count in iTunes? If it can't then is there another way around this?

I really hope this can be sorted, as I will have to find an alternative wifi streaming solution, which I really don't want to do.

Help would be much appreciated!

Simon.

Further to last post - perhaps there is a way of using iTunes software on my PC for streaming to Sonos speakers instead of the desktop Sonos software?
This would solve my play count problem if it's possible.

Simon,

It's not possible currently.

However, Sonos is in a beta with Spotify using the Spotify app rather than their own system, which means that they're close to publishing the API to others. Once that's done, all that would need to occur to satisfy your issue is for Apple to fold that API into the iTunes software.

Thank you for your reply!
I didn't realise the issue was with Apple and not Sonos.
I would suggest that if and when Apple allow this, they will be making things much easier for people using their software (and bear in mind people buy media from them too from their iTunes store), it should be the choice of the user not the Plc whether OUR useful data can be made available to a secure wireless system - if the user wishes to share this with their speaker system it should let it.

I much prefer to use my own record collection as opposed to streaming services, so this would be a huge improvement if Sonos could pull in all useful data from iTunes used to populate playlists - ratings would be another huge plus.

Fingers crossed Apple do the common sense thing.

Thanks,
Simon.

I have one problem: As you have to stream music stored on your PC through the Desktop controller software, Sonos does not use play counts.


Simon.

No that's not correct. Music stored on your PC is NOT "Streamed through the desktop controller software" - You can play your music that is stored on the PC by command from ANY Sonos controller linked to your system. As long as the PC is switched on. You can easily verify this by killing the Sonos app on your PC.

But other than that you are correct that the play count is not updated.

Thanks for the confirmation Stuart, I think I'd already understood this to be the case, probably didn't word it well though.

Simon,

Let me back up and caveat my last answer with some additional context. I think it might be possible, if Sonos had built in the capability into their API that they provide to 3rd party partners. For all I know, they may have. But I'd bet they didn't, since it would likely be useable by a small percentage of the partners (and a large percentage of users, I'd bet). But they're in the business of making money, like most businesses, and dedicating time and resources to something that has potentially little impact in terms of selling more hardware (like adding a two way interface to read/write count information) is likely not high on their list of things to do. So, my guess is that Sonos didn't write that into the API (and makes sense to me, I'd bet every vendor handles it differently, which might be a nightmare). Now, the API for casting seems much more straight forward, and since they're already doing it with Spotify, it makes sense that once it's done, they'll publish it for everyone else to access. After all, they want more and more people to buy their speakers. They don't make a single cent from us or the vendors by streaming out music, only from hardware sales, so the greater the audience, the better for them, which means providing the maximum support to their providers as possible.

If they do publish the API, then it does end up on Apple's plate. The question in my mind is, will Apple consider it something important for them to implement. The only way we can reinforce that is by nudging them in all the ways possible. As much as posting here is nice, and a release, it does frustrate me to see many of the issues that are with the 3rd party vendors laid at the feet of Sonos, who has little or no control over what is often complained about. It's like complaining to your TV manufacturer about the movies provided on HBO. All Sonos does is provide a platform, they don't actually do the music stuff, just the API to access it.

Long winded. But hopefully someone will read this and realize what a difficult position that Sonos is in by providing a board (and the Sonos staff who monitors it) where people come to complain about Spotify, Deezer, TuneIn, Apple Music, BBC issues that aren't under Sonos' control.