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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D

Derrick Kaleta

Enthusiast II

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.

I purchased the sonophone app the same day I foolishly updated the sonos app. It is the only thing that has enabled me to use my system as before. You can edit the playlist, move the songs around and add songs. Just press the song and you will get options- to move it (in Q) or if trying to add to a Q you get a long list of options to choose from.

I tried to play a TuneIn radio station today using the sonos app and it was just a grey box with a grey spinning circle going round and round. I opened the sonophone app, clicked the station and it played. Sonos sucks and deserves to feel some pain for this debacle.

D

DerrenC2

Lyricist I

Trying to add 2 new surrounds (One Gen2) to a Beam having been forced on to the new app. Getting stuck in a doom loop with one unit repeatedly playing a chime then reporting a problem / try again. Is this another bug? 55 minute wait for support line, no agents available via chat. 🤬

Z

Zapatero

Contributor I

Wish I read this before the upgrade. The Desktop app (MacOS) remains fully functional. On the phone, it’s just broken. A few stations play, features are gone, TuneIn for example disappeared. Most Sonos stations don’t play but a few do. They messed this one up bad

J

JSWolf42

Trending Lyricist II

Does SonoPhone allow you to adjust the volume of the rear speakers like the 16.1 app did?

C

Cashee

Lyricist III

As far as I can tell, it doesn’t. With SonoPhone, I can see Arc but not the ability to control rear speakers associated with Arc. Unlike the old Sonos app you can’t “fine tune” Arc or rear surround sound speakers in the SonoPhone app, as far as I can tell. That said, all the “fine tuning control” of Arc and surround sound speakers is now back in place with version 80.01.11 of the Sonos app. Hope this helps?

S

Swanz99

Trending Lyricist II

Anyone else having the 1002 error when updating a speaker? I’m trying to set up my first Sonos product and I can’t get passed the update?

D

Dr. Douglas 615

Lyricist III

Blown away that Sonos is not addressing this implosion of their app on their site or on this message board. Dead silence. . .

Either this gets fixed in the next few weeks or loyal customers like me are going to bolt. And I feel terrible about introducing Sonos to my family and my work.

There will be a point of no return and Sonos will disappear into obscurity and will become a HBR case for a failed app launch that killed off an entire company. Won’t be the first nor the last.

Few more weeks and then I need to find a system that actually works.

LOCKSTEP

Lyricist II

The new app absolutely sucks! I cant even get any of my speakers to work. It was totally fine before I downloaded the update. Now my $5K system is totally useless!! Do I need to remove my system from the account and then add it back? I got it to play yesterday for about an hour but had to turn on all 5 sets of speaker for it to work. I can’t believe this! How the hell can they not be aware of this and not just go back to the version until this one is perfected? I have a party planned for Memorial Day and now I won’t have music the way I planned it. I’m furious!

J

JSWolf42

Trending Lyricist II

As far as I can tell, it doesn’t. With SonoPhone, I can see Arc but not the ability to control rear speakers associated with Arc. Unlike the old Sonos app you can’t “fine tune” Arc or rear surround sound speakers in the SonoPhone app, as far as I can tell. That said, all the “fine tuning control” of Arc and surround sound speakers is now back in place with version 80.01.11 of the Sonos app. Hope this helps?

Thank you. It does help.

C

Cashee

Lyricist III

Yes, complete “radio silence” from Sonos. Unbelievable really. I’ve seen most, if not all, message boards, since the app was updated earlier this month and absolutely nothing from Sonos, nothing, and not even any replies from them to the many complaints/comments in the reviews section in the App Store. It just comes across as if they don’t care. The app is absolutely awful (understatement) they should take that onboard, own it and fix it, and, at the very least, they should put back in place on the App Store the old app so that we can roll back to that until they fix (if ever) the new one. I’ve lost all trust with Sonos over this. The work around for me (for now) until I can afford to buy something else (maybe Bose) is to use the SonoPhone third party app (though it’s not perfect) and the Spotify App (as that’s where all my playlists are and I can see them there, unlike the new Sonos app, where I can’t). That said, we shouldn’t be put in the position of “work arounds” by Sonos. Their official app should just work 100%. Why they have seen a need to alienate their user base is beyond comprehension. A statement from them would certainly be helpful along with a timeline of when things will be fixed.

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