The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

You’re correct - it is not a v80 specific issue.

Keith, thanks for the update. Keep the communication coming!

I am not shooting the messenger (you) here, so please don’t shoot me. Rather, please listen to what your users are saying. The new app is a fail as it stands and for the foreseeable future.

• Reliability? The new app is tremendously buggy and extremely unreliable, as a cursory scan through the forums attests.
• Performance? The new app is far more sluggish, especially anything with a local library.
• Faster access to music? Many of us are unable to use “Sonos Favorites” with the icons grayed out. That forces us to navigate many many clicks to locate the desired music.

I’m pleased to see the list of missing functionality with ETAs! That said, there is a vastly longer list of things that are also missing (or completely broken) that will take months to address. You must be realistic.

So how can you bridge the gap in missing/broken functionality? Rename the new app ‘S3’ and re-release v16.1 as ‘S2’. Sonos have voiced great confidence in the new (S3) app, and if you confidence is deserved users will gravitate there. In the meantime, users with issues can continue to use S2 and have a good experience. As S3 adds more and more working functionality, users will switch from S2 to S3.

Now is not the time to double-down on the disastrous “it takes courage, take it or leave it” strategy. Listen to your users and give them want they want and need.

I’d love to request fixing the connection for Plex users, have an Apple Watch controller and make the new app faster. Gestures are so slow. For example swiping down to move the current tab is like I'm on a really old iPhone and not a 14 Pro.

Sonos hates their customers 

Thank you for the updates and committing to dates when things will be available. I am pretty ambivalent about the changes - it seems like you will be returning the features I need eventually and let’s not forget the last version of the app wasn’t great either. However, for your info, because of these changes I can’t use the new app until things like the sleep timer are reintroduced.

However, it does seem odd that you have gone to all this trouble and it has made the new app harder to use. For instance, the EQ settings are buried away for each speaker instead of being near the playback controls. And there is much confusion to be had when those slide up panels pop up and slide down to return to the Home Screen, but in some of them the user can slide from the left to go backwards - but not when returning to the Home Screen. It leaves you feeling very confused about how to navigate through the app with no obvious suggestion of sliding left or right to return back to home.
 

Thanks again for the information and dates on the changes, looking forward to them.

Hi Keith. I’m sorry you are having a rough day. 
 

I would like to share that this response makes me feel even angrier, because you have continued to justify your actions and clarify when the things you broke will be fixed. What you did not say is “I am sorry”.

I wrote previously that In order for you to begin to recover from what you have done, if it is even possible, you should start by imagining a similar situation with other daily appliances. Your appliance company calls you and says “we have a small routine update we need to make to your home appliances, we can apply the fix remotely. We’ll come by tonight”. 

You come home and the the dishwasher looks the same, but doesn’t actually wash dishes correctly anymore, it is missing the cycles you use every day, and no longer has a timer function so it can run at night. Your family don’t know how to operate it and it is messing up your home routines and schedules.  The oven only now cooks with some of the modes, and has completely removed the timer feature you use every day to cook meals with your family. The refrigerator / freezer temperatures are wrong, you can’t change them, and you are spoiling food and the freezer is thawing and no longer makes ice. When you call to find out what is going on, you are told how great the new experience is. That this was deliberate. There is no way to go back, but that these features will probably come back in the coming months. Until then, there is nothing you can do about it - although feel free to post on our support forums.

Now ask yourself “How would I personally feel if someone did this to me, in my own home, with my own things, without my consent, and then refuses to immediately fix it?” 

If you are like most people, you will probably find yourself saying “I would be very angry. I would want the people that did that to be very sorry, to really mean it, for them to fix it and make amends if they could. Even still, I’d want for there to be consequences.” 

To be clear, this is far far worse than the S1/S2 debacle. People had time to react, and so you were able to recover - but it made your long time customers doubt you. Unfortunately, Patrick already promised that you wouldn’t do anything like it again. He said “If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.” You broke your promise. 

I am going to hope that this is not a mortal self-inflicted wound to your company. It may be, depending on each of your ability to accept responsibility what you did, for how you behaved after the harm was evident, and what you do now.

I’m trying to understand how you can roll out software and remove Subwoofer control features on the very Amp you designed with the ability to control a Subwoofer?

My god this app update just awful.  I have a dozen products that are barely functional, and we use the alarm feature every day.

Heck, I can’t even get to my kid’s “good night” playlist now without pulling my hair out because it’s NOT EVEN LISTED alphabetically anymore.  It’s like a jumbled mess of tiles that some idiotic AI organized for me?  You guys… how did this happen?

Why release the product when it was so obviously half baked?  Just please roll things back to a usable version and release the current thing as a public beta. It is useless. Please don’t steal months of time from people that have spent thousands of dollars on Sonos simply because of some mistake. 

Thousands of dollars spent. Future dollars likely to spend - currently zero. 

I understand being annoyed at a botched release but this is ridiculous. Sack up people. It’s software and hardware and human beings making things. Something got screwed up and they’ll fix it. Go touch some grass, jfc. Your sound system should not be the center of your life. IT WILL ALL BE OK I PROMISE.