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Today is the day of the AMA!

The new app design has been out for a week, and most of you have had a chance to get used to the new UI.

Some of you might have questions when you have had a week to get to know the new Sonos App interface. Because of that, we want to give you all a chance to ask some of the people who were integral in its creation and design, the questions that have come to mind while you have used the app.

As we mentioned in the event.

Our panelists will be:

  • Diane Roberts, Senior Director of Software Development
  • Kate Wojogbe, Senior Director of User Experience
  • Tucker Severson, Director of Product Management

It will be hosted on the 14th of May from 11:00 until 14:00 GMT -07.

But instead of me telling you what they do and what their role with the app update has been, here are their own introductions:

 

Diane

Diane Roberts is the Senior Director of Software Engineering and Product Management at Sonos responsible for the Sonos Apps. Her group of cross-disciplinary teams build Configuration, Control, and Content experiences on a foundation of Core mobile application technologies. She received dual Bachelors’ of Science in Computer Science and Music from WPI. Diane holds 6 granted patents as a co-inventor.

 

Kate

As Senior Director of User Experience, Kate leads the UX team responsible for Sonos’ home audio hardware, software, and app user experiences. This includes user interfaces on speakers and soundbars, setup for hardware and services, first and third party content experiences, and a variety of methods of control of the Sonos system. Kate graduated from the University of California Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Design.

 

Tucker

Tucker Severson is the Director of Product Management and leads the PM team responsible for the Sonos Apps. Tucker received his BA from Bates College and his MBA from the University of Vermont.

 

We will do our best to answer as many of your questions as possible within the 3-hour window, but we can’t promise to answer every question, especially those you know we can’t discuss.

But if we see a question repeated or a reply getting a lot of likes, don’t worry. We will prioritize those to ensure that many people get the answers they seek.

 

Remember, we can’t talk about things on the roadmap - but if you have questions or feedback about the app redesign, want to know more about our panelists, like their background or favorite band, then the sky is the (cough cough.. NDA) limit!

Thank you, everyone, for participating. We covered as many of the most asked questions as possible. We know tracking the responses wasn't as easy as we had hoped. But we wanted to let the community air frustrations and have their questions answered.

I got a lot of DMs during the AMA, and I will be sure to answer them when I can. Thanks for reaching out!

Keith and I will work on recapping all the questions and feedback we have responded to, and we will update the post here when that is complete. If we didn't get to your question, don't worry. Keith and I are grabbing all the feedback from this thread, even the things we didn't respond to, and ensuring the right people will see the message. This was the first time we created a live AMA in the community, and we learned a lot for future AMAs.

We appreciate all the feedback and questions you gave through this AMA. It helps us understand your most significant feedback and your reasoning. We hear you, and we will ensure the right teams get your feedback. They are listening.

We look forward to rolling out the updates with features (new and old) as soon as they are ready. Keith shared an overview of the timeline for expecting these features to return to the app. Today was the first update, reintroducing alarms and improving the iOS voiceover.

We look forward to seeing your reactions to our future app developments. We hope you all appreciate the work our developers are putting into making the app as fast and easy to use as possible for the general user.
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Please upvote this post: Can you please provide an immediate easy way to rollback the mobile app to the prior version for those who can’t make the current version meet their needs.

Thanks @bkk. Also, @nelliott and others had similar questions.

Rolling back to the previous version of the Sonos app is likely to cause issues. As Sonos continues to advance forward with new updates to the firmware, the old apps will fall out of compatibility quickly. Our priority is to release improvements to the Sonos app rapidly to address your needs.

THIS NEW APP SURE FEELS LIKE WE HAVE FALLEN OUT OF COMPATIBILITY OVERNIGHT WITHOUT ANY IMMEDIATE SOLUTION. TRYING TO REINVENT THE WHEEL WAS FAR YOUR WORST DECISION YET.

I just want to say there has been allot of negativity surrounding the new app launch. I just want to say the app is fantastic. I've been using it everyday since it came out last week. I know there is some future additions coming in the next weeks and will just be patient with the future roll out. Thank you Diane, Kate, Tucker, and the rest of the Sonos development team for everything you do. 

This is a joke - correct? We should be patient while we wait to get back to where we were? 

No Derrick it is not a joke. 

Sonos now claims that some of the most serious defects will be corrected in the 21 May release, but hopefully the panel can understand that there are a lot of blind people who can’t trust Sonos anymore. Given that Sonos got it so horribly wrong with this current release, why should we expect anything better in the next?

Will Sonos offer an apology to its blind users and accept that it got this wrong, and will Sonos commit to creating a Chief Accessibility Officer as a tangible commitment to ensuring this never happens again?

 

@jmosen

Thank you for your heartfelt feedback. 

 

We invested our user experience and engineering energy on supporting VoiceOver throughout this project. Unfortunately near the end, we took our eye off the ball and missed a couple of key bugs. Those bug fixes have been shipped in a release today.

 

That doesn’t mean we’re done. We have more that we want to do and will do to fine-tune the experience. This is the same kind of fine-tuning we are doing for the visual experience. In a visual UI that means adjusting the gutters between items on screen. In a spoken UI it means adding more hints about how to navigate. We look forward to tweaking those and making the experience get continually better.

I understand that we have to rebuild your trust. We will only be able to do that by improving the experience. Any words we say will be incomplete. I am sorry that we missed this.

 

Our next step involves building a hearty beta community of vision impaired users. Today we have 30 visually impaired users on the beta of the next version of the app. The next version already has several improvements beyond the bug fixes we shipped today.


 

Well, damm.  You all should let Diane answer all of the questions from now on. Not very hard to say “we got it wrong, and we’re sorry” while also telling us about future fixes.  Nice work, Diane.

 

Mod Edit: Removed profanity

Please describe what the thought processes was, going into the re-design. I understand the value of launching something new, but as a designer, I also understand that function always outweighs design.

@Bliss752 The refreshed UI design is rooted in the needs that we’ve been hearing from our listeners for years. We heard from users that the information architecture of the S2 app felt like work, particularly in navigating between multiple tabs to get core jobs done. The intent of the new app home feed is to put the most useful content and controls immediately within thumb’s reach, offering quick access to the content that means most to users, and enabling them to drive what is prioritized in their personal home experience.

This business-speak is likely making your participants frustrated. Why did you release this on the world? If it needs to stay this bad, please have a good answer. 


 

thank you 

I've never known a company release an app "upgrade" with so many existing KEY FEATURES missing, with the promise that they'll return over time. Bonkers!

Yup it defies logic. Careful about the next update, who knows what else it will remove 

 

Please describe what the thought processes was, going into the re-design. I understand the value of launching something new, but as a designer, I also understand that function always outweighs design.

@Bliss752 The refreshed UI design is rooted in the needs that we’ve been hearing from our listeners for years. We heard from users that the information architecture of the S2 app felt like work, particularly in navigating between multiple tabs to get core jobs done. The intent of the new app home feed is to put the most useful content and controls immediately within thumb’s reach, offering quick access to the content that means most to users, and enabling them to drive what is prioritized in their personal home experience.

Weird @KateW. I've never seen such requests on the community forums.

You’ve made our speakers open to the internet via the new web app without our consent and without two-factor authentication for security.
You’ve demoted local library music so much that it’s practically impossible to find our music (no search, poor A-Z scrolling) plus there is no way to update the index of the library.

 

Is this legitimate? Can you provide more info on how this is happening? Highly concerning.

It’s shocking and a little exciting to see a company dig its own grave like this. If only some of the so-called working classes would destroy themselves so sportingly.

Please upvote this post: Can you please provide an immediate easy way to rollback the mobile app to the prior version for those who can’t make the current version meet their needs.

Thanks @bkk. Also, @nelliott and others had similar questions.

Rolling back to the previous version of the Sonos app is likely to cause issues. As Sonos continues to advance forward with new updates to the firmware, the old apps will fall out of compatibility quickly. Our priority is to release improvements to the Sonos app rapidly to address your needs.

What issues are expected to occure in case of a app roll back?

because if this is true, than the lack of informing us about the missing key functionalities is a big mistake, You shoudl have offerd us a choise,

 

Sonos has lost my trust

Sonos now claims that some of the most serious defects will be corrected in the 21 May release, but hopefully the panel can understand that there are a lot of blind people who can’t trust Sonos anymore. Given that Sonos got it so horribly wrong with this current release, why should we expect anything better in the next?

Will Sonos offer an apology to its blind users and accept that it got this wrong, and will Sonos commit to creating a Chief Accessibility Officer as a tangible commitment to ensuring this never happens again?

 

@jmosen

Thank you for your heartfelt feedback. 

 

We invested our user experience and engineering energy on supporting VoiceOver throughout this project. Unfortunately near the end, we took our eye off the ball and missed a couple of key bugs. Those bug fixes have been shipped in a release today.

 

That doesn’t mean we’re done. We have more that we want to do and will do to fine-tune the experience. This is the same kind of fine-tuning we are doing for the visual experience. In a visual UI that means adjusting the gutters between items on screen. In a spoken UI it means adding more hints about how to navigate. We look forward to tweaking those and making the experience get continually better.

I understand that we have to rebuild your trust. We will only be able to do that by improving the experience. Any words we say will be incomplete. I am sorry that we missed this.

 

Our next step involves building a hearty beta community of vision impaired users. Today we have 30 visually impaired users on the beta of the next version of the app. The next version already has several improvements beyond the bug fixes we shipped today.


 

You have a healthy Beta community, you simply ignored them and went ahead with a really bad decision to release a problematic product. You should have started with beta testers this time last year. I signed up for beta testing and have never gotten and invite to test anything.

Hello?

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me

Is there anyone home?

I miss my pink Floyd, it’s on my NAS drive 🥲🥲

Ouch! Well said. 

Please upvote this post: Can you please provide an immediate easy way to rollback the mobile app to the prior version for those who can’t make the current version meet their needs.

Thanks @bkk. Also, @nelliott and others had similar questions.

Rolling back to the previous version of the Sonos app is likely to cause issues. As Sonos continues to advance forward with new updates to the firmware, the old apps will fall out of compatibility quickly. Our priority is to release improvements to the Sonos app rapidly to address your needs.

I was able to roll back on android without issue and I’m staying rolled back.

 

SJBill, could you please post for everyone how you rolled back to the earlier version.  I’m sure most customers would prefer to do that at this point.  I think I’ve heard that only works for Android, but let’s at least get the word out how to do that.  Hopefully someone can also figure out a way for Apple users too.

I just want to say there has been allot of negativity surrounding the new app launch. I just want to say the app is fantastic. I've been using it everyday since it came out last week. I know there is some future additions coming in the next weeks and will just be patient with the future roll out. Thank you Diane, Kate, Tucker, and the rest of the Sonos development team for everything you do. 

This is a joke - correct? We should be patient while we wait to get back to where we were? 

I suppose if you have one speaker and use Sonos Radio alone, it’s probably a great release.  

 

When you have 20 speakers, a NAS, and multiple streaming services, it is...not so much.

First off you obviously have no idea how to click on a persons profile to see how many Sonos products a user has or you would of not made such a ridiculous statement. Also if you had clicked on my profile you would known I DON'T use Sonos Radio. So next time do your homework. 

Second over 20 speakers? Bro you don't have 20 speakers so stop over exaggerating your circumstance. You ain't Peter Pee. 

Third, no this not a joke. I've have multiple Sonos products also multiple streaming services. Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Sirius XM, Home Theater setup, etc. All of them are working great since the 80.0 update. 

Fourth, people are complaining about the missing features like the alarms, personal playlists, etc on the Sonos app. Who uses Sonos speakers for an alarm when we all have cell phones where we can customize what we wake up to in 2024? Many streaming services have personal playlists that you can customize for yourself. Why the heck would anyone want to take up tons of memory on their phone with music when it's available on streaming music services?  Also who the heck buys music anymore?  This isn't 1994 anymore. These features that are missing are for people that don't know it's the 21st century. 

Alarms isn't just about waking up; its the ability to set radio programmes to start automaticity - particularly repetative ones.

@DianeRobertsApps

@KateW

@tuckerseverson

 

If you got in to your car tomorrow and a little dialog popped up on the screen:

“Hi, We’ve updated the OS of your vehicle with a funky new UI.  Unfortunatly this OS version doesn’t support driving your car, but these features will return in future updates!”


Would that be acceptable behaviour for the car company?  If not, why do you think it is for Sonos?

You’ve made our speakers open to the internet via the new web app without our consent and without two-factor authentication for security.
You’ve demoted local library music so much that it’s practically impossible to find our music (no search, poor A-Z scrolling) plus there is no way to update the index of the library.

 

Is this legitimate? Can you provide more info on how this is happening? Highly concerning.

Go to play.sonos.com, log in. See your speakers. Do it from outside your network, still see your speakers. 
There is no tfa or mfa options, only password. This is not good security practice. 

Please upvote this post: Can you please provide an immediate easy way to rollback the mobile app to the prior version for those who can’t make the current version meet their needs.

Thanks @bkk. Also, @nelliott and others had similar questions.

Rolling back to the previous version of the Sonos app is likely to cause issues. As Sonos continues to advance forward with new updates to the firmware, the old apps will fall out of compatibility quickly. Our priority is to release improvements to the Sonos app rapidly to address your needs.

So @tuckerseverson you are saying we have to live with reduced functionality until you catch up? Surely you can see that this is not working for us.

So having ‘rolled back’ myself (via Android apk) I need to make double sure that none of my hardware is inadvertently upgraded until the new app has the functionality that I used to have, and I have seen that there are contented users?

Please upvote this post: Can you please provide an immediate easy way to rollback the mobile app to the prior version for those who can’t make the current version meet their needs.

Thanks @bkk. Also, @nelliott and others had similar questions.

Rolling back to the previous version of the Sonos app is likely to cause issues. As Sonos continues to advance forward with new updates to the firmware, the old apps will fall out of compatibility quickly. Our priority is to release improvements to the Sonos app rapidly to address your needs.

These are needs that you created and could resolve by rereleasing the old app.  And you know that you can do that just fine since it works just fine on my iPad that I thankfully did not update to the new app.  Stop updating the firmware and digging yourself into deeper holes.  Rollback to the old app, bring the new app into parity with the old app, test the new app, then start new rolling things out.

1. When will local library update, search and album art be available (again)?

2. When will playlist features (adding, editing, play next, play last, etc) be available (again)?

I just want to say there has been allot of negativity surrounding the new app launch. I just want to say the app is fantastic. I've been using it everyday since it came out last week. I know there is some future additions coming in the next weeks and will just be patient with the future roll out. Thank you Diane, Kate, Tucker, and the rest of the Sonos development team for everything you do. 

This is a joke - correct? We should be patient while we wait to get back to where we were? 

I suppose if you have one speaker and use Sonos Radio alone, it’s probably a great release.  

 

When you have 20 speakers, a NAS, and multiple streaming services, it is...not so much.

First off you obviously have no idea how to click on a persons profile to see how many Sonos products a user has or you would of not made such a ridiculous statement. Also if you had clicked on my profile you would known I DON'T use Sonos Radio. So next time do your homework. 

Second over 20 speakers? Bro you don't have 20 speakers so stop over exaggerating your circumstance. You ain't Peter Pee. 

Third, no this not a joke. I've have multiple Sonos products also multiple streaming services. Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Sirius XM, Home Theater setup, etc. All of them are working great since the 80.0 update. 

Fourth, people are complaining about the missing features like the alarms, personal playlists, etc on the Sonos app. Who uses Sonos speakers for an alarm when we all have cell phones where we can customize what we wake up to in 2024? Many streaming services have personal playlists that you can customize for yourself. Why the heck would anyone want to take up tons of memory on their phone with music when it's available on streaming music services?  Also who the heck buys music anymore?  This isn't 1994 anymore. These features that are missing are for people that don't know it's the 21st century. 

Your Apple playlists work? Mine haven’t worked correctly for over a year. I have to attach an old speaker/amp to the group in order to play my Apple playlists without tracks skipping. That is the suggested work around directly from Sonos. 

Hello?

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me

Is there anyone home?

I miss my pink Floyd, it’s on my NAS drive 🥲🥲

Ouch! Well said. 

Folks they have a Sonos Radio station just for this occasion that they would be happy to sell you. 

Sonos now claims that some of the most serious defects will be corrected in the 21 May release, but hopefully the panel can understand that there are a lot of blind people who can’t trust Sonos anymore. Given that Sonos got it so horribly wrong with this current release, why should we expect anything better in the next?

Will Sonos offer an apology to its blind users and accept that it got this wrong, and will Sonos commit to creating a Chief Accessibility Officer as a tangible commitment to ensuring this never happens again?

 

@jmosen

Thank you for your heartfelt feedback. 

 

We invested our user experience and engineering energy on supporting VoiceOver throughout this project. Unfortunately near the end, we took our eye off the ball and missed a couple of key bugs. Those bug fixes have been shipped in a release today.

 

That doesn’t mean we’re done. We have more that we want to do and will do to fine-tune the experience. This is the same kind of fine-tuning we are doing for the visual experience. In a visual UI that means adjusting the gutters between items on screen. In a spoken UI it means adding more hints about how to navigate. We look forward to tweaking those and making the experience get continually better.

I understand that we have to rebuild your trust. We will only be able to do that by improving the experience. Any words we say will be incomplete. I am sorry that we missed this.

 

Our next step involves building a hearty beta community of vision impaired users. Today we have 30 visually impaired users on the beta of the next version of the app. The next version already has several improvements beyond the bug fixes we shipped today.


 

“Eye off the ball” means that the app was not ready but was still released on a set date regardless. 

“ We decided that now is the moment to bring you the new app. “

 

Narrator:  “It wasn’t”.

I.e. project manager's bonus was dependent on release date

What has happened to Trueplay settings on the Android app?

Why does my Sub not display any of its settings?

Why can I only add one song at a time?

Why did I sign up for this event?

Was there even a beta programme for this new app?

Will My Library be added back to Global search?

This is also my most pressing issue! Much of my local files are mine, not streaming. They don’t exist anywhere else and now I don’t have the front-end to access them. 

Are you deleting comments? 

 

Mod Edit: We are not removing comments unless they are personal attacks or trolls. We want to allow everyone to ask their questions, provide feedback, and let other users like the comments to show the panelists that it is essential for the community to answer the questions.
​​​​​​​Mike H

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