New Sonos app removes key features - beware!

I'll just throw in my thoughts. Android app.

The upgrade is abhorrent.  Honestly thought it couldn't be any worse than the S2 updates.  My system is three stereo pairs (one with a mini-sub), a Roam and a standalone One SL.

I listen off Spotify (hundreds of playlists), a NAS and a handful of radio stations.  I'd love to know where the 'Your Sources' option is as it's not on my version.  I was thinking about adding a Victrola Turntable at some point.

Also, Spotify playlists, loads missing.  

The look and feel of the app is awful; this whole one size fits all thing stinks.  Realistically you need to simply be able to have an area for maintenance and set up and a primary/customisable front screen UI to access the services you use; selfishly for me, three (small/FFS) buttons, Spotify, Radio, NAS...I don't need recommendations.  That's it. Tap, search, play (then ask me where I want to listen).  Bring back the sleep timer.

God, this is awful.  Didn't it get beta-tested?

My thing is I have no idea how to add songs to a playlist. That one-click option is gone from what I can see.

There's not a single positive response to this release in (so far) 8 pages of complaints on this thread. It's now 12 hours since I was force upgraded and I've only become angrier about the disdain for their users the missing functionality (and Sonos' oblivious responses to concerns about it) demonstrate.

I've reverted to the previous app version courtesy of apkmirror (many thanks to the forum member who pointed us there), and have scheduled a Blusound demo at a nearby stereo store for this afternoon -- Blusound, for what it's worth, was recommended to me on Twitter by the tech reviewer who gave Sonos the only perfect score he's ever granted in his career back in 2005. But he, too, is aghast at what the company has done here, and is also abandoning them.

I've been in music tech since 1999, and have never seen an established company screw up quite so spectacularly. I will be watching the AMA with morbid fascination, as this whole thing is indefensible. But I have a sinking feeling they're gonna spend a lot of energy defending it.

Have you say. Show the power of the community…

I’ve never been a fan of the Sonos app, finding it cumbersome, confusing and user-unfriendly.  Too many similar screens which seem to have no clear purpose, and everything requires twice as many “clicks” as it should.

However, having experienced this disastrous “update”, I’m grateful that I was able to download the APK of the previous version and reinstall it (and of course disable all future app and system updates).  I cannot understand how something so appallingly designed has apparently gone through successful user testing and been rolled out.

Regarding the removal of functionality (alarms and a mute button being my personal deal-breakers), UK users may be interested to know that the Consumer Rights Act 2015 Chapter 3 Section 40 protects consumers against the removal of pre-advertised “digital content” (i.e. software functionality) after the point of sale.  I used this to get a full refund from John Lewis for a YouView box when some (to me) vital functionality was removed by an update a year after I bought it.

If I had been unable to revert to the previous app I would definitely have gone down this road.  For the time being I will just sit back and hope that somebody at Sonos sees sense and scraps this terrible update.

Apple user and I can’t revert back! 
take it back! 
 

volume numbers have gone

search is terrible ( I can’t even search my favourite song by title)  

would consider selling the speaker over this as it has more value as a paper weight
 

https://en.community.sonos.com/general%2Dfeedback%2Dand%2Dconversation%2D229090/don%2Dt%2Daccept%2Dthis%2Dapp%2D6892462

WHen they pre-announced they said you’d be able to ‘switch back easily’… Wrong!

The text of my email to ceo@sonos.com:

The new app released May 8th in UK is unfit for purpose as key features have been suddenly and unexpectedly removed. A vast volume of functionality has been removed making it difficult to access even the user’s own music in some cases. Removing these features with just a promise that they will be added in future updates is unacceptable; Sonos has treated its costumers with disdain bordering on contempt in releasing the new app in such a poor, unfinished and under-resourced state of development. 

The S2 app should be made available so that users can revert to a working UI which suits their listening habits and the new app should be withdrawn and reworked with the functionality of S2 included in its new UI. 

I've just sent the following email to ceo@sonos.com:

I've been a loyal Sonos customer and evangelist since the mid-aughts, but that ended yesterday when I was force upgraded to the latest version of the Sonos app. The new version of your app is an embarrassment to Sonos and an insult to your customers. I am shocked anyone at the company considered it worthy of release.

Simply put, you have removed some of the most basic functions that made customers such as I buy your hardware in the first place. Most egregiously: we can no longer search our local libraries, edit our queues, or even simply add more songs to what's currently playing. I cannot imagine any rationale that would lead a company to believe that degrading the user experience in this way is necessary -- especially without offering customers any way to roll back to a previous version of the app.

In addition to being a (formerly) satisfied customer, I've been a product manager and executive focused on music tech at companies such as Rhapsody, RealNetworks and Google, so I feel I have some relevant experience when I state that releasing this app, in this manner, is product development malpractice. I'd fire anyone on my staff who recommended releasing an app in a state like this, and then would likely resign in shame at the realization I'd created an environment where anyone on that staff could ever think such a course of action were permissible.

Please roll the app back until it can once again support the most basic music queuing actions that the kinds of music fans who spend thousands of dollars on stereo components consider fundamental requirements of any streaming system. 

And consider apologizing to your customers, as well. I have never seen a disaster quite this inexplicable in 25 years in this business.

Thank you for listening.