Sonos Staff

The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 11, 2024
2256 replies
156696 views

Hey all, today we're sharing a message from our chief innovation officer, Nick Millington in the announcement here. Going forwards we will update that topic and we therefore close this one for further replies.

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come. For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.

Many of you have shared valuable feedback on both the improvements that have made your experience better, as well as the areas where we fell short. We are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks, we will reintroduce the below features, while fixing bugs and performance issues. Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to building upon this first step to create a listening experience that meets everyone’s needs.

Available now

To access these changes, check for updates in the iOS / Android app store to download the latest version of the Sonos app. Make sure your Sonos products are also up to date.

Last updated: Oct 28, 2024. See release notes.

The update has the following version numbers:

80.11.38 - iOS
80.11.32 - Android

In this update:

Support for the all-new Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4
Music library improvements*
Improvements to product setup
Improved performance when browsing content in Home and in Browse on Android
Improvements to multi-system support on iOS
Fixes for multiple settings including Bluetooth display, EQ, and Sub bonding on iOS
The ability to schedule System Updates on iOS
Continued Voiceover improvements on iOS

* Requires player update - 81.1-58074 (or higher)

You can also follow along with updates in this article:

New Sonos App Update!

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

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P

Parsnip62

Enthusiast II

And still nothing...

A

Alan_6

Prodigy II

This Trello board that Sonos tweeted out is very interesting. Have they been hacked? Are they just trolling us? The “(local) Music Library Search is not accessible in the controller without access to the Internet.” comment. They couldn’t be that incompetent as to have built a local database search that requires an internet connection, could they?

https://trello.com/b/4T9rbg8t/sonos-app-improvement-bug-tracker

sigh

Prodigy II

This Trello board that Sonos tweeted out is very interesting. Have they been hacked? Are they just trolling us? The “(local) Music Library Search is not accessible in the controller without access to the Internet.” comment. They couldn’t be that incompetent as to have built a local database search that requires an internet connection, could they?

https://trello.com/b/4T9rbg8t/sonos-app-improvement-bug-tracker

I would expect for the initial speed to get local library search back in place it is a code module that sits within the search subsystem that already existed for the online services, rather than the extended time to develop and test either a separate dedicated local only search subsystem or extend the existing search subsystem to handle online and offline and combine the results..

It stated in the release thread when it was added that it was to be a temporary limitation to be removed in a later release.

D

DBrock

Lyricist II

Haven’t read all 85 pages….My music library, once accessible, now not for 4+ months. Have spent hours on the phone with both Sonos folks and Apple techs to no avail. 8000 songs on my Mac laptop purchased via original cds then downloaded plus iTunes songs purchased individually not selectable/playable. My playlists still exist but now have a ‘.m4a’ extension on every song resulting in ‘unable to play…..’, not there before the May software debacle. I just want access to my music that I purchased, downloaded and had access to for years , that worked seamlessly pre-May. Furious.

C

chambolle

Enthusiast II

We had a power outage a couple days ago; after which nothing worked in the Sonos app and phonos+ wasn’t able to help.

I decided to take the plunge and download the latest app update, then update the system when prompted in the app.

At long last Sonos playlists display and will play in the Sonos app. Phonos+ doesn’t do anything, but isn’t needed either.

Oddly, everything is slooooow. It takes a few minutes after I display playlists or select a playlist before album art will fill in, if it ever does. The same old quirks remain, like defaulting to the top of the queue, that’s still there and still annoying but not disabling.

But it’s progress. Is there any more recent indication from Sonos if and when ‘queue editing’ and saving new Sonos playlists will return? I assume the app remains very much a work in progress.

I

Ian_S

Prodigy III

Haven’t read all 85 pages….My music library, once accessible, now not for 4+ months. Have spent hours on the phone with both Sonos folks and Apple techs to no avail. 8000 songs on my Mac laptop purchased via original cds then downloaded plus iTunes songs purchased individually not selectable/playable. My playlists still exist but now have a ‘.m4a’ extension on every song resulting in ‘unable to play…..’, not there before the May software debacle. I just want access to my music that I purchased, downloaded and had access to for years , that worked seamlessly pre-May. Furious.

m4a is the Apple Lossless file format, which I’m guessing is what you chose when you ripped your music to your Mac? You usually only see the name like that in Sonos when things have gone wrong, as they obviously have for you here.

You *should* be able to share your music folder from your Mac and access it as a network share. Do NOT select either of the first two options in the Mac App for adding a music library folder. They are broken and will never work again. Quite why Sonos continue to confuse people by lazily leaving broken wizards in the app only they can explain.

P

Parsnip62

Enthusiast II

We had a power outage a couple days ago; after which nothing worked in the Sonos app and phonos+ wasn’t able to help.

I decided to take the plunge and download the latest app update, then update the system when prompted in the app.

At long last Sonos playlists display and will play in the Sonos app. Phonos+ doesn’t do anything, but isn’t needed either.

Oddly, everything is slooooow. It takes a few minutes after I display playlists or select a playlist before album art will fill in, if it ever does. The same old quirks remain, like defaulting to the top of the queue, that’s still there and still annoying but not disabling.

But it’s progress. Is there any more recent indication from Sonos if and when ‘queue editing’ and saving new Sonos playlists will return? I assume the app remains very much a work in progress.

Answering the part in bold, This page tells us their intentions on timelines for fixes.

https://support.sonos.com/en/article/the-new-sonos-app-and-future-feature-updates

Except it doesn't. They've already stopped maintaining it and they have missed several timelines outlined there already.

So in short, nope.

I

IvPo

Enthusiast II

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come. For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.

Many of you have shared valuable feedback on both the improvements that have made your experience better, as well as the areas where we fell short. We are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks, we will reintroduce the below features, while fixing bugs and performance issues. Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to building upon this first step to create a listening experience that meets everyone’s needs.

Available now

To access these changes, check for updates in the iOS / Android app store to download the latest version of the Sonos app. Make sure your Sonos products are also up to date.

Last updated: Sept 19, 2024. See release notes.

This update will be rolled out for iOS and Android separately.

iOS - (Available starting today)
Version 80.09.05

Improvements to setup flow
Improved performance when browsing content in Home and in Browse
Improved queue management including ability to delete, reorder and scroll
Added ability to set appearance between light mode/dark mode/system default
Continued improvements to the user interface
Added Trueplay support for iOS 18

Note: This iOS update will be deployed in phases over the coming days. Please allow until Tuesday to receive via automatic updates. If you add a player to your system, you’ll be prompted to update during setup. If you’d like to get the update sooner, go to the App Store, locate the Sonos app, and tap the Update button.

Android - (Scheduled for September 24)

Improvements to setup flow
Added ability to set appearance between light mode/dark mode/system default
Added setting to change the Alexa wake word language

You can also follow along with updates in this article:

So queue editing is now available on iOS, but not on Android? And it's not included in the next Android update on September 24??

How long? How long do I have to wait??

Sigh...

MoPac

Headliner III

The IOS queue is not complete. You’re not missing much. There is still no option to save the queue as a playlist. There is no album art in the queue for your library music. The queue still does not follow the progress of the music. So you could be playing track 267 and when you open the queue you’ll still be on the first page. There is no alphabetical search, only a scroll bar that scrolls in small sections at a time.

I see no value in queue editing if you can’t save what you just tweeted.

U

User769918

Lyricist I

Sonos software has been terrible for me for more than 10 years. I don’t know why the company makes claims that the software works with local libraries. Maybe if you own a handful of albums it works. Maybe. Failed routine updates, versions of the Sonos 1 app adding speakers on its own that were operating with Sonos 2 app and then having no way to clear out the speakers from the Sonos 1 app because the downgrade process had been removed from the Sonos 2 app; the app going haywire as a means to force me to upgrade it...Words don’t capture the disappointment that the software regularly inflicts.

In my experience, Sonos works solely as a streaming speaker. YMMV, but good luck to you if you don’t have your speakers hard wired. It surprises me that a company with such awful software was able to go public. The recent rejiggering of the app interface is terrible imho.

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