The majority of reviews for the update are NEGATIVE.

The majority of the views were negative for the 5.0 version when it was released, the version you all love now and desperately wants back. I can show you posts and threads identical to these, with the same screenshots and the same complaints, in the weeks following the 5.0 release. People hate change. Give it time.

Not true for me, i love changes and surprises, but if they are intelligent... logic...
The new update is really problematic, poor (white! Absurd!) and the functions are “hidden”.

Sonos please update with an intelligent controller like before (and give back the colored app-icon please)...


At the very least, I was expecting to be able to find a way to go back to the old look. But it's not there. How this got approved is befuddling.

No, it is true. And I never said one is better or worse than the other. I don't give much credence to the "science" of UI design, it is more trends and fashion than any real science.
Good thing others do or we'd stil have jetfighers crash because someone had the bright idea of switching the emergency eject handle with the throttle. Sound familiar?

Still doesn't explain why you have such an issue with people that do care about user friendly design.

As to usability and intuitiveness, people rioted over the usability and intuitiveness of the WordPerfect UI after they changed to WYSIWYG. Is anyone going to tell me that a blue screen, DOS character based, control/shift/alt/arrow key combination based wordprocessor is better than a graphic based, mouse driven, WYSIWYG interface? Of course not, but people did, because that is what they were used to..
Great example, because there was a clear case to be made for WYSIWYG. Something that's completely absent with the new controller.

Look, Sonos will tweak it, your muscle memory will adapt, and we will all be back here in three years arguing the same things, except by then 8.0 will be perfect and 11.0 will be horrible.

That's the problem right there. They forced people to upgrade to an unpolished new design, for no apparent reason. And now we have to bare with them while they try to get it right.

You really expect usto trust people that not only didn't get it right but, despite the negative feedback, decided to turn our speakers into expensive bricks until we got with the program?

What is so unpolished about the new design?

I suggest to you that the swapping of the controls on the fighter jets was a perfect example of the lack of science in UI design, i.e. the trends and fashion emphasis I spoke of. Luckily, changes based on fashion or trends in audio system apps don't result in lost lives and multi-million dollar craters in the ground.

At the time of the WordPerfect release, every one of the complainers could not recognize the obvious benefits of WYSIWYG because they were blinded by their familiarity and muscle memory allegiance to the old blue screen of perfection. They utterly refused to believe there could be any improvements, improvements which in hindsight, became stupidly obvious. If familiarity and muscle memory are so powerful as to blind a large portion of a user base to obvious benefits like WYSIWYG, imagine how effective they can be to mask subtle improvements, or just a different style or look with the same functionality? Kind of like how 5.0 was originally horrible until people got used to it, so that now it is intuitive, beautiful and easy to use.

See you all in 3 years.

PS - Sonos never forces upgrades, though if you enable automatic updates on your devices, they will do just that, update automatically. Also, upgrade one device and you will have limited Settings menus until you update your hardware in kind. Ditto for those who update hardware but not controllers.

I suggest to you that the swapping of the controls on the fighter jets was a perfect example of the lack of science in UI design, i.e. the trends and fashion emphasis I spoke of. Luckily, changes based on fashion or trends in audio system apps don't result in lost lives and multi-million dollar craters in the ground..
That example actually dates back to the late 1940's and gave birth to the field of human factors and ergonomics, because having jets crash due to bad design is a bad investment. And already back then that resulted sound science like fits law for example. Since than a lot more progress has been made.

At the time of the WordPerfect release, every one of the complainers could not recognize the obvious benefits of WYSIWYG because they were blinded by their familiarity and muscle memory allegiance to the old blue screen of perfection. They utterly refused to believe there could be any improvements, improvements which in hindsight, became stupidly obvious.

And because that sometimes happens, it's always the case right? It can't possibly be that it's the design that's at fault, it's always the user's resistance to change that's to blame. Doesn't matter how hard to read something may be, how many more clicks you might need, how weird the screen is layed out, etc. There is no such thing as a bad design.

PS - Sonos never forces upgrades,

They did with 8.1 as people demonstrated with screenshots of their app telling them they needed to upgrade to be able to use the system. i wouldn't be posting here if I could've kept using 7.4

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/please-go-back-to-the-last-app-the-update-sucks-so-bad-6791742/index3.html#post16160787

We shall see who is proven right in about 3 more years. I'm already 1-0 in this little game, care to wager on how 8.0 will viewed by the vast majority the next time Sonos overhauls the UI? Maybe that thread can hit 45 pages like the 5.0 one did.

The majority of the views were negative for the 5.0 version when it was released, the version you all love now and desperately wants back. I can show you posts and threads identical to these, with the same screenshots and the same complaints, in the weeks following the 5.0 release. People hate change. Give it time.

I have professed the virtues of Sonos for many many years and although I understand that people are resistant to change, I cannot find one good thing about this change. I would give anything to have the old UI back. I used to go out of my way to get people to buy Sonos because of the positive impact it would have on their lives but now the app is so bad that I have stopped recommending this as a great system. I have spent months trying to get used to this and simply cannot. Compared to the previous versions this is HORRID. I can only assume that you have a lack of reference and don't know how good it used to be so possibly by not having anything to compare to this app may seem ok.

Have you given the newest version from Tuesday a good try. It looks the same but having the nav at bottom it flows very well.

I am actually going to say it is my favorite version of Sonos yet (well except for the issue with being able to play over the Queue but I have accepted that is the way it is and has been for some time now). Maybe one day I will get my Queue lock / party mode and I will be able to say the app is pretty perfect for me.

Is anyone going to tell me that a blue screen, DOS character based, control/shift/alt/arrow key combination based wordprocessor is better than a graphic based, mouse driven, WYSIWYG interface? Of course not, but people did, because that is what they were used to.


Yeah, I threw a fit when they made the move from vi to vim, lol.

I am actually going to say it is my favorite version of Sonos yet (well except for the issue with being able to play over the Queue but I have accepted that is the way it is and has been for some time now). Maybe one day I will get my Queue lock / party mode and I will be able to say the app is pretty perfect for me.

Interesting you talk about "favourite version". The Sonos experience is currently multiple competing versions:
1. The unfinished v7 queue changes (which were fine in principal), and all the inconsistency problems that still causes - the "mostly ephemeral" queue, with individual play buttons free to go do their own crazy thing (you have to learn which buttons should never be clicked)
2. The desktop UI - dated appearance, great navigation / layout (except queue issues)
3. The ongoing mobile experiment - mostly OK, except for the My Sonos issues with poor layout, excessive clicks and different terminology from desktop and selected mobile screens

Of course, it's probably unrealistic to expect that I could just walk from room to room, pick up the closest device, and have a seamless and consistent experience from my multi-room system.