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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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Where are each of you from? Hobbies? 


What was the thought process behind releasing the app update in an obviously unfinished state, instead of waiting for critical issues to be resolved?

The same process in calling an AMA and then not turning up. I have things to do tonight but was genuinely looking for a bit of clarity on some things. Not very helpful and kind of rubs salt in the wounds. Are they haveing server issues or something or just too many questions for them to deal with. Just answer one so we know you are there please


Has the AMA team been sacked?

 

Given that the job titles include Software Development, User Experience and Product Management, it would seem highly likely


So are we wasting our time here? Not very courageous...


Can’t activate new products using updated Sonos app??

 

After updating to new version, I was unable to activate a brand new Move 2 that I bought for my wife for Mother’s day. The only way we were able to get it to activate was another phone that had not been updated to new broken] version of Sonos app. 


It’s not just that search is broken; scrolling is broken, too. To wit.

My iTunes library goes back 20 years at this point, and has a lot of music in it. If I want to listen to, say, Shellac, and search isn’t working, then I have to scroll to there. But “Shellac” is so far down the alphabet that it’s just not practically reachable. 

With the old version, there were two sidebars: one for the linear list of artists/albums/songs/etc, and a second interface widget to jump directly to letters (and numbers). With the alphabetic sidebar, getting to “Shellac” isn’t as bad, because I can at least skip to “S” and scroll down, or “T” and scroll up. 

Will that alphabetic sidebar be coming back? It was a big help for scanning through large libraries.


Seems like the tail is between the legs heading south...


this AMA is a disgrace.

 

people have been stuck with an expensive unusable system for days.

 

You could at least pretend that you care


Diane, what’s your favourite band?


Re Queue Management: 

When this is updated in June will all the queue management features be brought back? The only ones listed so far are “add to queue” and “play next”. Many of us use other controls as well, such as removing items, rearranging items,  and saving the revised queue.


They'll probably only respond if you ask them what their favourite bands are...

Hope they don’t listen to them locally! 🤣😂🤣


Everyone should send an email to the CEO right now so he can watch this horrific failure: ceo@sonos.com


Heeeellloooooo! Where are the panelists? I'm gone, I have better things to do than just hang around in a forum. They got what they wanted: people leaving instead of staying and asking. 

But believe me: Next time I need new hardware, it will definitely not be from Sonos, no matter how this plays out. I will remember, you have lost me as a customer. 


Apparently crickets, nothing but crickets….  I will now go outside and weed my garden and listen to actual crickets….so much more rewarding.


You know what's probably happened, their dev team promoted a new bit of software they could use for this AMA. It would be faster, etc. etc. but they forgot to mention that they wouldn't be able to actually post anything!!


Well this is it, another public flop. I am in the process of moving and wondering if I should use my existing speakers in the new house. Nope. I don’t think mine are going to be the only speakers on FB Marketplace and Craigslist.


Re Muting speakers:

When will the mute function return?


Why did you describe inflicting this level of disruption on your customers as courageous?


This is a waste of time. Byeeee!


Can you give an update on when, or if, the following features will be brought back to the new app?

  • Shortcut to the EQ settings on the Now Playing screen
  • “HD” and “Hi-Res” icons on the Now Playing screen when streaming lossless or hi-res lossless music from your local music library
  • Number indicator on the volume slider on the Now Playing screen
  • Specific audio format displayed after “Audio In:” under About My System while playing TV audio
  • Alphabetical search/quick scroll feature for local music libraries
  • Local music library included in Search
  • Set Autoplay Room under the Line-In settings
  • Change the SonosNet channel
  • Add a music library and update it
  • Set Audio Compression settings for Line-In
  • Battery percentage listed for portable speakers under Your System
  • Set Amp to Dual Mono

I’m guessing that they could have prepared answers for most of the questions before hand.


If the last 24 minutes has not told the Sonos management what its loyal customers think of it, then nothing will.  9 screens of annoyed customers’ messages.

So, the question is “Will Sonos continue burying its head in the sand?” or will Sonos listen to its customers and provide 16.1 again as an official download?  It’s simple.  That will solve most peoples’ annoyance.


Be patient, Sonos folks overslept because they couldn't set an alarm clock 😅


Re Muting speakers:

When will the mute function return?

Seem to be working for this AMA ;-)

 


Hi,  the app just feels like it’s for a whole different product now; I would’ve thought you wanted to have your hardware be the center of it all, now it’s just so visually crowded that I cant bother opening it.

While watching TV, listening to Music or playing video games I would often go and adjust the Speech Improvement & Night Time modes, there were easy to access.