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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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If I use the Sonos app exclusively at home to mark favorites and create playlists, how do I leverage it when I’m away from home connected to a Sonos Bluetooth speaker? 

I would like custom streaming URLs to work properly again, as it does via the “old” TuneIn service, which is completely missing from the new mobile app, please see:


https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-and-music-services-229131/tunein-no-longer-supported-custom-urls-no-more-6878679?postid=16724689#post16724689

How is play.sonos.com connecting directly with my SONOS on my LAN?

I use the Sonos app in a continuous state on my iPad for my home speaker system. I have the currently playing item displayed in fullscreen so that I or my guests can see what’s playing. With this recent update, the full screen view is gone and has been replaced by a pop-up modal which doesn’t have the option to go full screen. The old version also allows you to turn the iPad to landscape mode and would show all of the upcoming tracks. This is now completely missing. This was noticed by me and others immediately. Can you please restore the full screen features to the iPad version of the application?

Did feedback from beta indicate it was ready to launch?

The new app has removed the functionality to control the SONOS Port Line-out settings. Fixed, variable and pass-through can no longer be selected and Ports are stuck on the setting previously selected in old S2 app.  There are NO work arounds when will this be fixed as the Port is severely degraded without control of Line-out. 

accessibility was broken

 

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. 

Did anyone on your teams speak up internally and voice the opinion that this app wasn’t ready for primetime?

How about restoring the prior app until the new app supports ALL missing features?

6 minutes in and not one question answered. 
 

 

Hello and welcome everyone,

Before getting started I’d like to thank you all for RSVPing and attending. This is the first of many events going forward where members of our Community can talk directly to members of the Sonos team and learn about the development and design behind our products. Keep in mind that @Mike H and myself will be heavily monitoring this topic to ensure we keep this train on its tracks. Please keep the conversation respectful and constructive.

It’s not lost on me (or the team) that this most recent Sonos app update has caused a torrent of feedback topics here on the Community and across the web. We want to make sure you get the most out of the next three hours, so we’ve decided to focus our efforts on the questions with the most likes. Please use likes to “upvote” the question you want answered. By combining similar topics and questions, we will be able to cover more and hopefully cover the wide breadth of conversation you are looking for.

Note: Be sure to check out our most recent update to the Future Feature Update post where we will continue to update you on the road going forward.

Thank you and see you around the Community!
Keith
 

Hey Keith, that page is not found currently as of the time on this post.

UPDATE: It’s live now.

How do we access this AMA webinar?

I am atotally blind Sonos user. I currently have a Sonos Play 5 and Sonos Move, and have been considering using Sonos to construct a home theatre. Until the release of the latest app update, I felt confident that Sonos, like Apple, had accessibility as one of its core commitments. Needless to say, my confidence was shattered by the latest app re-design, which rendered the app almost totally inaccessible. In this regard, I would like to pose the following 3 questions:

1) Does Sonos still have accessibility as one of its core commitments so that its products can be fully used by everyone?

2)If so, when will Sonos update the app to make it fully accessible for blind people using a screen reader so that they can have the same user experience as all other users?

3) How will Sonos ensure that no future app update renders the app inaccessible?

How do I get to live event?

 

Why can’t we roll back to previous versions?

The new app is very sluggish. I mean this in the sense that it can take a couple seconds (sometimes longer) for graphics to load when launching the app and changing pages within the app. This didn't happen with the old app. What has caused this change in performance, and is this something that will improve? 

Why won't you backout the recent "update" so that we can revert to the app that has the features we need?

Please address the failure to include features for using the Music Library. It is largely unusable as it is. 

Missing the join this event link… sigh

So many questions about the Sonos Dev team and process…

Does the Product Owner actually use Sonos?  Or do they just use Spotify and stream AirPlay audio to their Sonos products?

Did they promise an Exec that the team would deliver an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) by mid May, and were then obliged to just get something deployed at the expense of quality?  Did they get a bonus for delivering on time?

Did they not think that their MVP was non-viable without queue management?  Or did they just not care because, hey Spotify can do that, and AirPlay works just fine.

Has the Product Owner ever heard that people keep a music library on a NAS, and need to be able to search it?

(Pause to select some more music because the album I was listening to only had 9 tracks and I couldn’t add anything to the queue).

I have read that queue management may be delivered in July - how can that be so far down the prioritised backlog?

Was there any internal testing, let alone external testing? We are all just beta testers, on a product that should definitely not have been let loose on paying customers.

Does the PO still have a job?

 

Oh, and can I please have battery percentage back for my Roam and Move 2? Icons with 25% increments are not granular enough.

Will we be able to use products from Sonos in the future even if the Sonos servers are down?

Is this a live streamed event or just a forum style event? I’m very confused right now.

My favorite thing about the update is I can now ask my Sonos to play a song, album, genre, or artist using my voice. Thank you very much! 

This makes me happy!😃 

How do you respond to customers who say they feel strongly that the new app is a step backwards and that it removes core functionality? Do you empathize with this position? 

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