Terrible User Interface

I think 8.3 is pretty terrific (except for the queue issues introduced in 6.x forward).

I think 8.3 on desktop is pretty terrific (except for rogue play buttons still screwing up the queue, obviously). 8.3 on mobile is a different story (eg. that navigation route to "My Sonos Others" AKA "favourite artists"). But we all have different priorities and wishlists. One day, Sonos may have controller apps that work well for all of us...

What is it you don't like about the My Sonos navigation. You can create your own customer categories and prioritize them within My Sonos.

What is it you don't like about the My Sonos navigation. You can create your own customer categories and prioritize them within My Sonos.

OK, this is my understanding. Please correct me if I'm missing anything.

The "My Sonos" screen shows:
1. Favourites (ie. things you have marked as a favourite / "added to My Sonos"), split into various categories eg. "Songs" (songs), "Albums" (albums) and "Other" (artists) - there is no way to change this categorisation, and it differs from the desktop approach to showing a single list. As with the desktop app, Sonos caps the total number of "favourite" items you can have (think it's 32 max).
2. Playlists - Sonos playlists you have created for any reason but haven't flagged as favourites

Regardless of how your favourites are carved up into categories, the My Sonos screen shows, for each category:
1. A few items as large tiles (up to 5 on landscape tablet), scrolling horizontally to show the first 8 alphabetically
2. A "See All" link to show all items in a category as a vertically-scrolling list (which means more clicks to navigate to items at the end of the list)

Hitting "Edit" on the "My Sonos" screen lets you do the following:
1. Delete an item from the "My Sonos" list ie. "un-favourite" an item
2. Rename things (so you can hide your friend's "Slayer" collection behind a link marked "One Direction")
3. Delete Sonos playlists (as in really delete them, but hey, having a mix of "delete buttons that delete" and "delete buttons that don't delete" on the same screen is... OK, it's terrible design)

So what don't I like about the "My Sonos" navigation? While the intent may be fine (split favourite things into logical categories) and some of the terminology changes are OK, the current implementation is a mess.

I know all discussion about the new 8.3 UI is concerned with the mobile app, and not the Sonos user experience as the complete user experience (across official Sonos desktop and mobile apps), but many of us use multiple controllers while controlling our multi-room systems. The great thing is, Sonos are currently running a massive A/B test on their users, with the desktop app (basically "the old way") and the new desktop app design.

So anyone want to tell me, what's great about the current implementation of the My Sonos screen?

My Sonos by default has your favorite marked Albums, Songs, Stations, and Playlsits

Seems correct to me. Hitting the show all on any category shows them in list form

If you click the edit button on the main page you can sort the order of these categories on screen

Now the more powerful part. Most of my listeningbright now I’m using Apple Music. I have playlists that I create in Apple Music like my Shazam track. So to get to those playlists I normally have to go browse appple music, my music, playlists. But when I am there in Apple Music I can hit the ... top right and add to My Sonos

I also explore a lot with appple music for you section. So I also did same thing and added it to my Sonos.

So then I went to my Sonos and on front page changed the order so My Apple Music playlists are first, My for you Second, My Sonos playlists 3rd, My Sonos albums 4th, My Sonos favorites songs 5th, and my Sonos favorite stations 6th.

I’m not sure what higher level of functionality I am missing here

You mentioned to many clicks to get to something. I find it saves a lot of clicks.

Hitting the show all on any category shows them in list form

If you click the edit button on the main page you can sort the order of these categories on screen

No arguments there. On desktop (or mobile v7) you hit "Favourites" to list all your favourites then scroll, on V8 mobile, you hit "My Sonos->(category)See all" then scroll (that's an extra click, unless your favourite is early in the alphabet). And yes, I can re-order categories to show the "Others" first. That seems to be about it for local library stuff.

I have just noticed that the treatment of playlists is different (and not just the "delete means delete" bit). My list of "My Sonos" playlists has a mixed list of all my "non-favourited" Sonos playlists, and the Spotify playlists I actually added to My Sonos/favourites. Oh, and it helpfully scrolls through the list of 20-odd items without needing to click "See all". Which is nice, if a little inconsistent with the other categories on the screen.

I don't have an Apple Music subscription, so I'm missing out on all the other cool stuff you described.

As for the other stuff, I guess we'll have to disagree about whether the My Sonos screen is intuitive, well-designed, or otherwise the best way to provide quick access to the stuff you really want quick access to.

It’s not just Apple Music. All the services have this ability. Get to your favorite view in the service then click the ...to add it as a favorite.

Example. I went in tune in and dig down about 5 screens to get to my local city radio stations. I can hit the ... then at top and create a tune in category in my Sonos that lists all my local stations.

Sonos seems slower to change tracks, my playlists appear, then disappear and then magically reappear, and then the icing on the cake, both of my sons kindles are no longer compatible. Great updates, but certainly hasn’t improved my user experience. How do you roll back to earlier versions?

It’s not just Apple Music. All the services have this ability. Get to your favorite view in the service then click the ...to add it as a favorite.

Got it, I think. Went to Spotify->Playlists on 8.3 mobile (this trick won't work on desktop), and did an "Add to My Sonos". Now I have two playlist categories on my "My Sonos" screen:
1. "Playlists" - all my Sonos playlists that I didn't flag as favourite, plus one Spotify playlist that I did favourite, no restriction on the number of items shown on the main My Sonos screen without going to "see all"
2. "Spotify Playlists" - all my Spotify playlists, including entries that I flagged as a favourite (so they appear on the other "My Sonos Playlists" category, only the first 8 items shown, hit "see all" to see the list

No option to name/rename categories (eg. to call artists "Artists" on every Sonos screen, instead of most of them). Only meaningful edit option is the "delete" options, which either do an "un-favourite" or a "delete Sonos playlist" as appropriate (need to go to Spotify to delete Spotify playlists.

Not going to offer any further comment on whether I think the "My Sonos" screen (or "My Sonos" and "favourites" screens if you have Sonos running on a PC) is sufficiently well designed.

Just a feature I like about that is improvement over old favorites.... not to say there isn’t room for improvement