Sadly SONOS have enough on trying to get the buggy voice integration software stable and addressing users being disappointed and underwhelmed by the lack of functionality.
The competition are almost upon them....
From CNET this morning...
Sonos executives must be looking at vast tech companies making smart speakers and resisting the urge to hum a dirge.
Amazon launched its latest Echos last week. Google on Wednesday presented its new Homes -- including a charmingly unattractive Max that claims to offer quite a boom. Then there's Apple, whose music-based HomePod comes to market in
Common sense would be to heed the adverse feedback on the new app and revert to the old version, which had few issues being raised. Or at least give the user the choice.
I know that 'Sonos knows best' is value often perceived by customers but carrying on regardless over this issue could be huge distraction and add to what must be a worrying time for the company.
Show some courage Sonos... Withdraw the new App
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Thanks for that. Glad to have my sanity back when using my sonos.
@Sonos
Why oh why oh why did you do this? You only made things more difficult, especially the most common stuff.
When using my Sonos there's basically 2 things I do, and both of them you just made harder
1 change what's playing in the current room
2 switch to another room
and maybe
3 add another room
On the now playing screen, both of these features used to be available
1 To change what's playing, I could just tap the top left and from there go back up, or access the overview menu. With your new system I now have to click on the top to minimize the now playing, then go to the bottom to click browse and there I only have one option, instead of 2. That's not easier, that's harder.
2 To switch to another room (or add one) I could simply use the drop down at the top. But now I need to minimize the now playing and than click on rooms to do so, because if I use the dropdown, I can only add a room. How's that an improvement?
For the graphics, I'm personally ok with the white even if it's rather bright, especially at night. These big visuals however are really annoying. I used to be able to have 3 rooms on a screen, but with the new version I only have 2 because you added visuals for the now playing, also making it harder to see which room you are going to click on. And if it's not selected and you have some sunlight on your screen it's even worse.
Just revert this to the previous version and try again, because annoying your customer every time they use you app is kiling their loyalty. It sure is with me.
Exactly (ish). With some tweaks this could be awesome (imagine if the "My Sonos" screen just showed all our favourites and all our playlists?). But it's not awesome. I don't judge software by "what the vendor wanted to ship". I go by what they actually shipped. Thankfully, there are workarounds (ignore "My Sonos" screen and browse for favourites or use 3rd party controller, avoid the mis-labeled "play" buttons, etc).
I commented fully in another post-just want to say that I haven’t commented on this forum for 2 years-it took this HORRIBLE update for me to search and find my password.
I am bewildered as to what Sonos was thinking to put this pile of garbage interface out to replace something that worked so well
My wife also thanks you- she will not be struggling with this anymore.
So much for recommending Sonos to anyone else I know.
I am bewildered as to what Sonos was thinking to put this pile of garbage interface out to replace something that worked so well
My wife also thanks you- she will not be struggling with this anymore.
So much for recommending Sonos to anyone else I know.
The new app has its flaws (more on that in a minute) but basically it is really simple to use. New things take a bit of getting used to. Most of those who have slammed the new app seem to have based their views on 2 minutes effort. The Sonos bar is key. I want to pick a room? Tap the Rooms button. Then a source? Tap Browse. The one inconvenience is that the bar doesn't appear on the Now Playing screen, but I hope that will change. But I just swipe down and there is the bar (and usually either the Rooms or Browse screen, saving me one of my button presses).
I came in this evening and in less than ten seconds of opening the app had my music library playing in the Living Room. How disastrous is that?
It is logically organised. Instead of a jumble of things on the main menu, Browse contains just sources (wish they had called it Sources), More contains the things I need much less often, like Settings and Setup. Search and Rooms are self evident. 'My Sonos' contains the things I have chosen myself and want to get at quickly. What is so ****** difficult?
Yes, the icons are too big. Yes the Sonos bar should be on EVERY screen. I'd like to see Playlists on the Browse screen and just selected playlists in My Sonos.
But come on guys. Get with it and make a bit of an effort. With a few tweaks this is going to be way better than 7.4. If you want to be left behind, that's your call.
I came in this evening and in less than ten seconds of opening the app had my music library playing in the Living Room. How disastrous is that?
It is logically organised. Instead of a jumble of things on the main menu, Browse contains just sources (wish they had called it Sources), More contains the things I need much less often, like Settings and Setup. Search and Rooms are self evident. 'My Sonos' contains the things I have chosen myself and want to get at quickly. What is so ****** difficult?
Yes, the icons are too big. Yes the Sonos bar should be on EVERY screen. I'd like to see Playlists on the Browse screen and just selected playlists in My Sonos.
But come on guys. Get with it and make a bit of an effort. With a few tweaks this is going to be way better than 7.4. If you want to be left behind, that's your call.
It seems like they fired the previous team and hired all new people who have never actually used the system before. Some of the stuff is pure style over substance like not having a list view of favorites instead of those worthless icons.
absolutely hate the new interface. I loved Sonus for the old one, but if this doesn’t change, I am going to sell all of my Sonus units on eBay and move to a system with a better interface. Alexa et al may not have such good sound, but the UI is so much more important. What do you all recommend?
I feel I need to add some balance! I'm sure this will infuriate those that don't like/resist change, but....
The new app is great.
The voice integration is perfect.
Sonos have done a great job.
If you are experiencing issues, I'm sure they are working overtime to resolve them. Please, stick with it and stop yer moaning.
I don't doubt that some people love the new app. Some may find it intuitive. Hell, you may even use the "favourites" feature and think it's perfectly fine. Some people on this forum are just moaning because they don't like change. Many of us are however legitimately questioning design choices Sonos chose to make regarding the "user experience", and wondering whether Sonos took the decision to ship an app they were proud of and considered "ready", or just "ship whatever the state of the code was on a designated release date".
Some of us on this forum design and build software for a living. It's really hard. We know the trade-offs involved. We know when you should design for the users (spoiler: almost always), and when other business requirements take priority. Sonos chose to build and ship this product in its current state. Some of us have opinions about this.
Snap - same profession! 🆒
I feel I need to add some balance! I'm sure this will infuriate those that don't like/resist change, but....
The new app is great.
The voice integration is perfect.
Sonos have done a great job.
If you are experiencing issues, I'm sure they are working overtime to resolve them. Please, stick with it and stop yer moaning.
I don't doubt that some people love the new app. Some may find it intuitive. Hell, you may even use the "favourites" feature and think it's perfectly fine. Some people on this forum are just moaning because they don't like change. Many of us are however legitimately questioning design choices Sonos chose to make regarding the "user experience", and wondering whether Sonos took the decision to ship an app they were proud of and considered "ready", or just "ship whatever the state of the code was on a designated release date".
Some of us on this forum design and build software for a living. It's really hard. We know the trade-offs involved. We know when you should design for the users (spoiler: almost always), and when other business requirements take priority. Sonos chose to build and ship this product in its current state. Some of us have opinions about this.
Does anyone know if Sonopad still works for IOS?
Is there an equivalent Android offering?
Sonopad still works on iOS 10 (yeah, I haven't upgraded to iOS 11 yet). Been jumping between that (for favourites) and Sonos (for browsing) recently. I should really check out the state of Zoneplay too.
The competition are almost upon them....
From CNET this morning...
Sonos executives must be looking at vast tech companies making smart speakers and resisting the urge to hum a dirge.
Amazon launched its latest Echos last week. Google on Wednesday presented its new Homes -- including a charmingly unattractive Max that claims to offer quite a boom. Then there's Apple, whose music-based HomePod comes to market in
Common sense would be to heed the adverse feedback on the new app and revert to the old version, which had few issues being raised. Or at least give the user the choice.
I know that 'Sonos knows best' is value often perceived by customers but carrying on regardless over this issue could be huge distraction and add to what must be a worrying time for the company.
Show some courage Sonos... Withdraw the new App
I feel I need to add some balance! I'm sure this will infuriate those that don't like/resist change, but....
The new app is great.
The voice integration is perfect.
Sonos have done a great job.
If you are experiencing issues, I'm sure they are working overtime to resolve them. Please, stick with it and stop yer moaning.
I’m only moaning because I’ve gone overnight from a system that suited my needs perfectly to one which just doesn’t. It’s hard to accept that hardware you’ve bought over the last 8 years has suddenly become bad due to software. I’m hoping that Sonos will sort it but I just feel it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
I have zero interest in voice control by the way so that makes it doubly annoying that my working system has been broken due to something i just don’t need or want :)
Having said that, if you read my post above, I have tried to post something a bit more positive 🙂
The competition are almost upon them....
From CNET this morning...
Sonos executives must be looking at vast tech companies making smart speakers and resisting the urge to hum a dirge.
Amazon launched its latest Echos last week. Google on Wednesday presented its new Homes -- including a charmingly unattractive Max that claims to offer quite a boom. Then there's Apple, whose music-based HomePod comes to market in
Common sense would be to heed the adverse feedback on the new app and revert to the old version, which had few issues being raised. Or at least give the user the choice.
I know that 'Sonos knows best' is value often perceived by customers but carrying on regardless over this issue could be huge distraction and add to what must be a worrying time for the company.
Show some courage Sonos... Withdraw the new App
I feel I need to add some balance! I'm sure this will infuriate those that don't like/resist change, but....
The new app is great.
The voice integration is perfect.
Sonos have done a great job.
If you are experiencing issues, I'm sure they are working overtime to resolve them. Please, stick with it and stop yer moaning.
As to the app itself, this is a solid foundation that we're going to be building on. A lot of basic steps had to be taken, and now with that done, we can work on more improvements. You can expect to see the app change as we continue to work on it. Keep on sending in constructive feedback, we'd love to send it along to the development team so they can build an app that as many people as possible enjoy using.
I don't doubt that the team is trying to improve things. But... the new approach to navigation, especially favourites, has issues (why are the first 8 favourite "others", sorry, "artists", more important and easier to access in a feature that is specifically designed for quick access?). The play/queue interaction is still completely broken and unintuitive, 15 months on - seriously, try explaining "play all"/double-click (replace queue and play) versus "play all->play now/play next" (insert into queue whether running or expired) to a new user. We shouldn't have to learn which buttons to avoid, or whether hitting something as simple as a "play" button is going to add/insert/replace.
I don't doubt that Sonos do user testing. The user is not always right. This user is not always right. I also assume that there's a "new features not bug fixes" approach in Sonos, and getting fixes out is hard, especially given the infrequent waterfall release schedule Sonos stick to. Design is hard. Software is hard. We get it. But people built this thing, and people decided to ship it. Maybe a blog post explaining how to use the software and why it's designed that way (as opposed to what you intended to build) would help us. Of course, if you have to explain your software, you already failed...
I'm still not pleased with the new version of the app due to reasons I've already outlined but I am more pleased with Sonos as a company. I'm currently in conversation with a couple of people from Sonos and with their support team.
Because these people have taken the time to reply to my emails I am feeling more like a valued customer and I'm starting to believe that things might get sorted so that the majority of us will be happy again.
I have a bit of a workaround for my problems with the app which, whilst not ideal, do allow me to continue using the app (with fingers crossed for a better version to come 🙂 )
That's encouraging news.
just as an update and to post something more positive than I have been doing over the last few days!!
I'm still not pleased with the new version of the app due to reasons I've already outlined but I am more pleased with Sonos as a company. I'm currently in conversation with a couple of people from Sonos and with their support team.
Because these people have taken the time to reply to my emails I am feeling more like a valued customer and I'm starting to believe that things might get sorted so that the majority of us will be happy again.
I have a bit of a workaround for my problems with the app which, whilst not ideal, do allow me to continue using the app (with fingers crossed for a better version to come 🙂 )
I'm still not pleased with the new version of the app due to reasons I've already outlined but I am more pleased with Sonos as a company. I'm currently in conversation with a couple of people from Sonos and with their support team.
Because these people have taken the time to reply to my emails I am feeling more like a valued customer and I'm starting to believe that things might get sorted so that the majority of us will be happy again.
I have a bit of a workaround for my problems with the app which, whilst not ideal, do allow me to continue using the app (with fingers crossed for a better version to come 🙂 )
It might be worth telling Sonos how much better it is!!
Cheers. I might give that a go myself.
Does anyone know if Sonopad still works for IOS?
Is there an equivalent Android offering?
Sorry JohnG666 its unlikely to fix your NAS issue
Just checked out SonoPad and it still exists. The developer still maintains the app. It was last updated last July. I just bought the app for €1.09. Works like a charm on my iPad. I feel immediately at home on it. It's not perfect, but it feels nicer than the current Sonos controller app.
Thanks for the tip, Lozboz!
Userlevel 7
+17
Android users just google 'sonos 7.4 apk' and download it, delete 8.0 and install 7.4 again
There's a great opportunity for third party developers to provide a good alternative UI.
Does anyone know if Sonopad still works for IOS?
Is there an equivalent Android offering?
Sorry JohnG666 its unlikely to fix your NAS issue
Does anyone know if Sonopad still works for IOS?
Is there an equivalent Android offering?
Sorry JohnG666 its unlikely to fix your NAS issue
This is a copy of the email I sent to Patrick Spence yesterday. I thought I'd post it here in case it got lost amongst hundreds of other emails in his inbox :)
I have got a bit heated over the last couple of days on the forums and I don't like that. I usually like to remain positive about software because I know what it's like to put your whole life into a software package and then people pick fault with it.
At the moment I feel like I'm trapped by Sonos and I don't like that feeling. I have no option but to accept the latest ios app which has completely spoiled my enjoyment of the hardware that I've bought from your company over the last few years (since 2009). At the moment I've resorted to using my old CR100 and CR200 controllers due to the problems with the ios app.
I've just been for a long walk to think over if I should sell all my Sonos gear, I wouldn't do this lightly but I would if I can't get rid of this feeling of Sonos not caring about existing users and treating them badly by not keeping them informed about anything and forcing unpopular updates on people. I have no option but to use Sonos software as far as I know because it's a closed system.
My current problems with the app are that it's not as quick and intuitive to use as the previous version. I liked the previous version and used to show it to visitors proudly. The My Sonos page is virtually useless for me because it only shows up to 8 favourite radio stations and then you have to click on See All. The main problem I have with the My Sonos page is that it keeps starting my NAS drive up to look for the album artwork for my FLAC playlists. I want to be the one who decides when to access my NAS drive - that should only happen on the evenings when I want to listen to my own music. At the moment it's starting the drive up every time I go to the My Sonos page and I find that unacceptable.
I'm hoping that there's something that a lot of users don't know about, and that we're using the app wrongly.
Regards
I have got a bit heated over the last couple of days on the forums and I don't like that. I usually like to remain positive about software because I know what it's like to put your whole life into a software package and then people pick fault with it.
At the moment I feel like I'm trapped by Sonos and I don't like that feeling. I have no option but to accept the latest ios app which has completely spoiled my enjoyment of the hardware that I've bought from your company over the last few years (since 2009). At the moment I've resorted to using my old CR100 and CR200 controllers due to the problems with the ios app.
I've just been for a long walk to think over if I should sell all my Sonos gear, I wouldn't do this lightly but I would if I can't get rid of this feeling of Sonos not caring about existing users and treating them badly by not keeping them informed about anything and forcing unpopular updates on people. I have no option but to use Sonos software as far as I know because it's a closed system.
My current problems with the app are that it's not as quick and intuitive to use as the previous version. I liked the previous version and used to show it to visitors proudly. The My Sonos page is virtually useless for me because it only shows up to 8 favourite radio stations and then you have to click on See All. The main problem I have with the My Sonos page is that it keeps starting my NAS drive up to look for the album artwork for my FLAC playlists. I want to be the one who decides when to access my NAS drive - that should only happen on the evenings when I want to listen to my own music. At the moment it's starting the drive up every time I go to the My Sonos page and I find that unacceptable.
I'm hoping that there's something that a lot of users don't know about, and that we're using the app wrongly.
Regards
The last major UI update caused a much larger kerfluffle. Dozens of whiners back then. This thread is nothing in comparison, lol.
Very true and in that instance a lot of it was resistance to change accompanied by some minor usability issues. It took Sonos some 12 months to accept there was an issue and fix it. You think that they would have learned from that experience.
The current new app I am sure is getting some whining because it is different. However, it is fundamentaly a very poor design visually and has flattened the navigation drastically. This is fine for a single room/speaker application but has made multi room control very clumsy and non-intuitive.
Given that good multiroom audio is starting to be the only differentiator that Sonos has from the growing competition it does look like an own goal.
I have seen the claim made that they have loads of positive feedback. I have to say that this is very difficult to give any credibility. Many of us are professional designers and can recognise this as a lamentably poor design that would never see the light of day in any organisation with the lightest usability testing in place.
I know that Sonos won't have the courage to pull this, they don't respond to user feedback. This used to work OK when they were the only good option available.
The dogs are almost upon them and this is not a good time to alienate their loyal customers for the sake of principle.
Very true and in that instance a lot of it was resistance to change accompanied by some minor usability issues. It took Sonos some 12 months to accept there was an issue and fix it. You think that they would have learned from that experience.
The current new app I am sure is getting some whining because it is different. However, it is fundamentaly a very poor design visually and has flattened the navigation drastically. This is fine for a single room/speaker application but has made multi room control very clumsy and non-intuitive.
Given that good multiroom audio is starting to be the only differentiator that Sonos has from the growing competition it does look like an own goal.
I have seen the claim made that they have loads of positive feedback. I have to say that this is very difficult to give any credibility. Many of us are professional designers and can recognise this as a lamentably poor design that would never see the light of day in any organisation with the lightest usability testing in place.
I know that Sonos won't have the courage to pull this, they don't respond to user feedback. This used to work OK when they were the only good option available.
The dogs are almost upon them and this is not a good time to alienate their loyal customers for the sake of principle.
I liked the previous version of the app right from the start so there's either some serious miscommunication going on here and we are all using it wrongly or Sonos are deluding themselves.
The last major UI update caused a much larger kerfluffle. Dozens of whiners back then. This thread is nothing in comparison, lol.
I really don't care about that. What has that got to do with people having problems with the new app? I'm not out to cause problems or anything like that, I just want my 5 zone Sonos investment to be enjoyable again.
I am now using my CR200 and CR100 controllers instead of the ipad app because they are more usable to me at the moment and that is not a good thing.
Removed the rest of my post here as I don't want to stoop to the level of the insulting people on here.
I liked the previous version of the app right from the start so there's either some serious miscommunication going on here and we are all using it wrongly or Sonos are deluding themselves.
The last major UI update caused a much larger kerfluffle. Dozens of whiners back then. This thread is nothing in comparison, lol.
Hi Phil,
I'm sorry to hear that you're not enjoying the new app. I hope you'll give it some time, as it's fewer clicks to play your favorites (and do most things) now.
We tested with thousands of customers to make sure it was going to allow people to get their music playing faster (and easier to group rooms, etc.). We're confident it's a step in the right direction so I hope you'll give it a chance.
Best Regards,
Patrick
______
Patrick Spence
Sonos | Chief Executive Officer | patrick.spence@sonos.com
If it is quicker with the new app will you please prove and explain that to the majority of us who are finding it more fiddly and more steps to be able to do things. I've mentioned this before but I've been writing commercial software for over 30 years now and so I'm not thick, but I'm struggling with this new app. I'm also struggling at the moment how anyone involved with it could have thought that it was good enough for Sonos.
I liked the previous version of the app right from the start so there's either some serious miscommunication going on here and we are all using it wrongly or Sonos are deluding themselves.
Profound comment. Thanks for the input.
I supply what is fitting. You are quite welcome. 😉
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