Support Spotify Connect to allow users to use the Spotify app as the controller.

Interestingly it sounds like this is a decision by Sonos not to participate. Not Spotify not allowing Sonos to participate. I'm referring to the recent announcements from the Sonos Sales Director. Please can Sonos correct my miss understanding or confirm correct.

After purchasing Sonos players both for myself and family members during the last year, I am now stopping our planned Sonos-extensions. Given Sonos-CEO John MacFarlane's clear statement that Spotify Connect will not be supported by Sonos, we can not invest further in Sonos equipment. Spotify is the most important part of our music experience, and Spotify app features such as Spotify radio and search across titles, artists and albums are both useful and well implemented. Given the availability of Spotify Connect, I'm afraid support for this is essential for our future purchases.

After purchasing Sonos players both for myself and family members during the last year, I am now stopping our planned Sonos-extensions. Given Sonos-CEO John MacFarlane's clear statement that Spotify Connect will not be supported by Sonos, we can not invest further in Sonos equipment. Spotify is the most important part of our music experience, and Spotify app features such as Spotify radio and search across titles, artists and albums are both useful and well implemented. Given the availability of Spotify Connect, I'm afraid support for this is essential for our future purchases.
I am confused. In China the QQ Audio Service App (Chinese Spotify Competitor) offers "Play on Sonos" as option. This is SpotifyConnect-like. Now the guy said he DOES NOT want to join SpotifyConnect, however given the chinese example he offers a "play on Sonos" Button (as other sources say as part of an open API) that apps can integrate. So Spotify offered the "Beam on Sonos" (aka SpotifyConnect) which is controlled by the Streaming Service Providers and Sonos says no. Now Sonos comes up with a "Play on Sonos" Button to offer the Streaming Service Providers for the same fuc*ing functionality. Srsly, this is insane. Just childish and stupid. Of course Spotify will say NO, as they would allow an inhouse competitor to their own Standard SpotifyConnect. Simply Bose, Yamaha, Pioneer, Teufel etc. could have come up with their own Play on XYZ APIs but there is a defined standard from Spotify. So for what reason should spotify now allow Sonos to have that button inside their app? There is none. I mean just re-apply this to another world: Mobile Networks. T-Mobile offers Nokia the chance to be early adopter for the LTE Standard. Nokia denies but Apple, Samsung, HTC and the rest of the crowd joins in. Nokia feels like their are missing a competitive advantage and comes with their own standard. Let's call it HSN. With lots of money you will find a provider in a country that is willing to invest and test and showcase that. However, majority of users will never have that expierence and the standard is none. More examples? Apple Maps, tomtom, MiniDisc, Quicktime, Flash Player, HD-DVD. You are all right to sell your sonos equipment as long as you still get some bucks for it and the big crowd doesn't realize the difference. In a year from today you will have outdated dinosaurs at home with a non-accepted standard that some minor streaming services like juke.fm will support. It's like the UMTS standard is on knocking on the door and we know that all we can do with our phones is core functionality of talking while everyone will ask for the full package with high speed internet. Sonos is right to say that we can use it, but the expierence will just not be giving us the Geek Factor and advantage to have a TOP device. Its just somehow working with basic features. Fail of the century, guys. Be happy you are not on Nasdaq, you would be a penny stock in less than week.

Yes, there is: http://gigaom.com/2013/10/14/sonos-releases-new-200-speaker-ceo-dismisses-spotifys-connect-speaker-partnerships/

Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I agree with Ryan here. I think this feature would be really essential. I see a high risk of scaring customers off by not implementing Spotify Connect into Sonos. I speak for myself right now, but I'm asking myself why I should spend so much money for a product that doesn't keep up with the technological advance?! For me it's really simple... Sonos is not implementing this feature, I'll look elsewhere for hardware that already does support it. Because it seems like the easiest way to listen to music in multiple rooms. And as a matter of fact, that's the only reason I bought a Play 5 and a Play 3. I've just had enough of experimenting with Raspberry Pi and getting disappointing results. Your product is really good. Why not make it excellent by implementing Spotify Connect?!

Because of the reliable hardware, I also planned to extend my Sonos system (currently a Connect for my HiFi systemen and an S5). But after reading this I really start to doubt. When listening to Sonos I listen for 80% to Spotify, 15% music from my NAS device and only 5% streaming radio. There are two things that annoy me about Sonos and Spotify. First the frequent outages of the Spotify - Sonos connection, totday already 48 hours dead! The companies always point to each other, but never take responsibility for this mess. 2nd, the inability to use the Spotify features using the Sonos App, or otherwise the inability to control Sonos using the Spotify App. For me Sonos is just a streamer, I even use a separate Arcam DAC. The Spotify software is much more user friendly, and really serves as a music explorer in which you can discover new music and that’s what I like about this service and Sonos is just the hardware I use to listen! The Sonos control app didn’t make any significant improvement in the past few years, this unlike Spotify! If this battle between Sonos and Spotify continues, I will switch to a Spotify friendly device. Three years ago I have chosen for Sonos above a Marantz streamer, for that reason!. My hardware is 3 years old now and replacing the streamer only for my living room is not that costly. It is highly frustrating when my music evening is spoiled by connection problems. First I start looking for problems in my own network, resetting switches and routers, checking cables, does streaming radio work, does Spotify on my iPad work etc… and until know, in the past three years I am using this combo, it was always the Sonos – Spotify connection and never my own system or the internet provider. So keep in mind, I want a quality music experience and not being a victim of a marketing war! So count your blessings.

Fix this.

What are the alternatives to Sonos? I'd love something that DOES work with the Spotify app on iPad.

Check out this article for some more details: gizmodo.com/spotify-connect-sonos-like-powers-that-bend-to-your-bu-1228510223 It's essential for SONOS to add, else they will be blasted away by competition. I expect it be in the beta of SONOS very soon, and to have them as primary adoptor. Else the brand is dead :)
Sounds like the last comments might be from SONOS employees. I agree with Nicao, there are too many good competitors out there for SONOS not to take substantial heat here. I just bought my first SONOS Speakers, but will NOT be cornered into their ecosystem. If you love your customers, SONOS, act like it.

Hi folks, There's not much to say at the moment but we'd like everyone to understand where we're coming regarding the announcement from Spotify. Sonos is a platform for music lovers and we want Sonos customers to enjoy all the music on earth from whatever source they choose. We have an excellent partnership with Spotify which is, and will continue to be, an important part of many of our customers music listening experience on Sonos. Thanks for your continued support.
I use Spotify to create playlists and then Sonos to play them around the house. That is my solution to the relatively poor integration of Spotify into Sonos. Surely you're saving yourself a load of work by getting Spotify to integrate Sonos properly into its platform rather than the other way around?