The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

@Keith N  I know it is Sonos policy to keep the future a secret, but in extraordinary circumstances like just now when the first part quoted seems to have caused turmoil in many S2 user set ups, can you give some insight into one true innovation to the music listening experience that you will deliver in this future you refer to above? Give us just one aspect of this brave new world of music listening that Sonos is touting today. 

Let’s face it - what Sonos did when it came to the market about twenty years ago was truly innovative and very little since then has been; the innovation you promise in the future has to at least come close to that first innovative leap, although I cannot imagine what that can be without a significant reinvention of hardware to deliver some outcomes I can’t even imagine just now.

Failing that, this just looks like the same churning of what is basically a remote is being done, as was done for S2 to make it look better than S1 in the days following the forking off S1 to S1 and S2. With a lot of kit in perfect working condition left behind that could not cope with S2. And some of the kit on the margins that could handle S2 then, has now been broken by you via recent S2 upgrades - I refer to the issues being faced by Connect Amp and Play 3 users in the last six months, with play 1 units probably next in line to get broken by Sonos upgrades to S2.

I have never understood how the communication flow between hardware and software departments work at Sonos, but the courageous new app update seems to suggest that there is not much talk across the aisle at all.

For me it has always felt like the app was made by a different company altogether. One that doesn’t understand how much time people like me spent saving money to buy a decent speaker system and how much music means in everyday life.

Please sync your hardware and software efforts, Sonos.

I appreciate yall letting us know when we can expect to edit our alarms, but a heads up that I’d be stuck with 645 for weeks would have been nice

on the other hand, it IS peak comedy that an overnight update meant I’d be stuck with a dentist appointment alarm for weeks 

Why don’t you bozos run two apps in tandem while you fix your collective poo?

Yes this approach they’re taking makes ZERO sense and is only damaging their brand.  Terribly.

Imagine a Boeing - one should not talk about Boeing these days - so imagine a Tesla doing something similar to deliver a much better driving experience next year! By starting a steering wheel redesign this year?

Do Sonos users in the first world really need a different music listening experience next year?! Whatever that may sound like...but whatever that is can only be delivered by radically different hardware than just tweeters and woofers in a box. Or, by the other end, in how the music is performed, recorded and mastered.

curious if the idea of a class action suit would make Sonos more amenable to providing a rollback mechanism?

Added to all the other missing functionality....using Pandora through Sonos, I used to be able to select a Pandora mode for a given station (Crowd Faves, Deep Cuts, etc) but that functionality seems to be gone. Please add it back. 

@Keith N 

Another insight which will resonate inside Sonos only after the post of “VP of User Experience” is eliminated, because all this churn is that post justifying its existence. It does not matter who occupies that post.

A common analogy in high end audio system users to justify their constant kit upgrades is to point to cameras, or even cars, where the same things are done. 

There is a fallacy in this one and it is this: A better UI in cameras/cars may allow you to take better pictures or make you a better/safer driver. 

But beyond a point that is quickly reached, a better UI for a home audio system is not going to allow you to elevate the music listening experience, that is a passive one, compared to those of taking pictures or driving cars that are active experiences. There one is interacting with the UI all the time that the equipment being controlled by the UI is being used.

Sonos, led by such VPs and like, has fallen in the trap of thinking that innovation for a system that is used passively for 99% or more of the time, lies in the domain of the remote/UI. And tt is easy to confuse change for innovation.