Prodigy I

Answered

My list of issues with new Sonos App on IOS

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 7, 2024
183 replies
12888 views

I have updated the Sonos IOS app on just ONE of my IOS devices (thankfully).
My overall impression of the new Sonos IOS app is that it is missing quite a bit of functionality that was available in the old app. I therefore suspect there will be quite a backlash from existing users until Sonos address some of these issues.

For what it is worth, here is my initial list of issues/questions…

1 - There are issues with the Rova service on the new app. When you click on Rova via the “Your Services” rail nothing shows.
My other IOS devices that are still using the old Sonos app correctly show the list of Rova Station selections as expected.

2 - Related to the above point, when searching for a radio station. e.g. “The Sound” the Rova stations do not show in the results and the Rova service icon in the search rail shows with a “!” icon next to the service name. Doing the same search using the old app correctly returns the Rova stations in the search results.

3 - The “Sonos Favorites” rail list only shows 18 items and nothing happens when you click the “>” icon at the top right of the “Sonos Faborites” rail. This should expand the list to show all of my favorites. The old app and the new Web app BOTH allow you to see all of your favorites (I have 30 favorites in my list).

4 - The Music Library no longer allows you to position into your list of Artists or Albums by selecting a letter to position into. This is a pain if you have a large list of albums.
e.g. To play Album “Zombie” by Fela Kuti you have to scroll through your entire list of albums in alphabetical order to be able to select it.
What makes this worse is the fact you can no longer search your Music Library being that the “Classic” search option which supported Music Libraries is no longer supported.
Again what makes this worse is that the Album list within the Music library previously displayed in grid form, now it displays in list form with 1 album per row so it takes forever to scroll through the list.

5 - When you play an album from your Music Library the tracks on the album are not added/visible in the queue. You there cannot edit the queue to reorder tracks etc. You also don’t seem to have the ability to be able to add songs to the end of the queue or select to play next etc.

6 - The “Manage” list within “System Settings” on the old app doesn’t include the ability to setup/maintain your Music Library settings. So currently the only way to maintain these settings is by using the old Desktop Controller, which I understand is soon to be retired.
So my question here is, moving forward how are we going to do tasks like adding a new Shared Music Folder?

Ross.

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Best answer by rosswells127

I really like my Sonos gear, but the new app not so much!
Here is what I have decided to do until Sonos add the missing features and fix their bugs with the new app.

I have installed a 3rd party Sonos controller on my iPad - which I had updated to the new Sonos app.
The 3rd party app has excellent Music Library support and also allows me to listen to my radio stations via Rova. It also allows me to see all of my Favorites.
I have turned off updates on my iPhone to keep the old S2 app in place.

It would be good if Sonos could add the old S2 app to the Apple Store so users could revert back to that version while they work on their new app to bring it up to standard. I do hope that Sonos listen to their user base and get the new app up to speed ASAP.

Ross.

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Cashee

Lyricist III

Completely agree. That’s my mission now too, to rid myself of Sonos. This “upgraded” app, May 7th 2024, is beyond useless. That said, I eventually decided (wrongly or rightly) to update the app again. So now I have app version 80.00.08. I did this after I updated the speaker software. Regards “Alarm feature”, not that I use it myself, but I can now see, with the above version, the return of “Alarms”. If you go to the settings “cog” icon (top right), then “system settings”, which takes you ‘manage’. Click ‘manage’, the next page is titled ‘manage’, on that page, second from top of the list, is “Alarms”. Click that and it should then enable (presumably disable too) you to “add” an alarm. I don’t use alarms myself so haven’t tested that it works, I’m a bit frightened to, to be honest, in case I can’t turn it off again !! But it looks like the alarm feature has returned in version 80.00.08. Can’t vouch for it working though 😊. Overall, though, this so called “upgrade” of the app is beyond useless. You still can’t add to the music Q, or play next etc etc. Still can’t bring in all playlists from Spotify, still can’t change WiFi network settings, still can’t control ARC etc etc. What a mess (polite understatement) Sonos has made of this app, which was almost perfect as it was. Now it’s broken and our Sonos investment with it. Diabolical. Anyway, thought I’d just let you know that I found “alarm” feature again. But as I say, I haven’t tested it as I don’t trust Sonos anymore to get anything right, and didn’t want to set up an alarm that I couldn’t turn off again 😌 !!

J

JSWolf42

Trending Lyricist II

Trueplay is working again in 80.00.08.

C

Cashee

Lyricist III

PS: thanks for mentioning SonoPhone app. I just got it from the App Store. Had to pay for it, like you said, but it works (which is more than can be said for the Sonos app) and it has some features that are now missing from the Sonos app, namely, all my playlists I can now access, and also can now control the speaker groups. Which couldn’t do in the awful Sonos app. So, SonoPhone helps for now; good tip. Many thanks indeed. I just wished Sonos would take notice of all user comments and complaints and respond. It’s “radio silence” from Sonos which doesn’t help matters.

J

JSWolf42

Trending Lyricist II

PS: thanks for mentioning SonoPhone app. I just got it from the App Store. Had to pay for it, like you said, but it works (which is more than can be said for the Sonos app) and it has some features that are now missing from the Sonos app, namely, all my playlists I can now access, and also can now control the speaker groups. Which couldn’t do in the awful Sonos app. So, SonoPhone helps for now; good tip. Many thanks indeed. I just wished Sonos would take notice of all user comments and complaints and respond. It’s “radio silence” from Sonos which doesn’t help matters.

So with SonoPhone or SonoPad, you can group speakers (that no longer work in the official app)?

B

beynym

World-Class Superstar

So with SonoPhone or SonoPad, you can group speakers (that no longer work in the official app)?

Yes, you can.

D

Dr. Wade

Lyricist III

Can you access the Music Library and the Music Library playlists using SonoPhone?

C

Cashee

Lyricist III

Using SonoPhone I can now access all my Spotify music library, whereas in the new Sonos app only about 20 playlists from my Spotify Library were showing. With SonoPhone app I can now see them all. I’m still working through the SonoPhone app and yet to discover if (and how) you play “next” and “add songs” to a Q, building a playlist on the fly, as you could in the old Sonos app - which was a great feature, now no longer available. If I find away to do this in SonoPhone will update you on my progress.

B

beynym

World-Class Superstar

Can you access the Music Library and the Music Library playlists using SonoPhone?

Yes, you can.

M

mark94025

Contributor I

The new Sonos app sucks. It is a major step back from the prior version. I wish I had not upgraded. AND, I wish that I had not purchased addition Sonos products (a pair of Fives, AMP and turntable).

When using Pandora we don’t have access to lots of functionality which we had in the prior version. We have Sonos Ones (pair), Sonos Fives (pair), Sonos AMP and Sonos Turntable.

Within a Pandora channel we now can not access to deep cuts, fan favorites, wider artists offerings, etc.
At each usage of Sonos, only the Ones (pair) shows up and I must add the AMP and Fives
Organization of list of services and channels in a service is totally confusing and poorly organized
Can’t access our music library
I wish I could go back to the prior release.
Who at Sonos made this decision to put our a significantly less featured and poorly organized release?!?

mark94025

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dmatt

Contributor I

It doesn’t even do the one thing it should do well...add new speakers to the system. If someone can figure out how to do that, I will appreciate. I’ve tried everything (reset the app, logout and login, used an old version of the app (which requires me to download the update to add a speaker)), I get the error message that the device connection is lost (even though I am connected to http://<deviceid>:1400/ when connected to ethernet on the router itself and do not see it ever disconnect, and never get the speaker added to the system.

Hopefully the Android tablet I ordered will work, but I am not holding my breath.

App now works (mostly) to add speakers, the problem now is you get an error 1000 or 1002 when attempting to update the speaker. After it fails the speaker shows up as an unregistered speaker. Good news is that if you install the Windows App (or the Mac App), you can now connect to the speaker and send the update to the speaker using the Windows App. Once done, go back on the IOS app and hit the fix button and the speaker will be added correctly. It looks like the new app doesn’t talk well to speakers with old firmware, but once the new firmware is installed the app has no issue setting it up correctly.

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