Hi,
I never had an issue with my Sonos System and I never had to ask questions since the system ran smoothly for me since the early days in 2005 with my ZP100. I am writing now since for some reason this update and new user interface has been an epic fail. I’m sure you’ve had many questions regarding user interface since the new app was introduced.
Key issues since new app.
- Adding to que is gone.
- No option to clear que.
- rooms will play automatically if que is still listed in respective rooms ( odd). was this on purpose?
- Loading time is ridiculously slow or eternal.
- Limited Sonos favorites , never had this as an issue before.
- Not able to add one song to current que while playing current playlist
- User interface was fine the way it was why revamp the whole thing and make it a cluster for the Sonos community?
Recommendations:
- Revert to the old version user interface until you fix all the bugs or most of the issues that make the app functional, Most IT teams would validate and test to clear main bugs before releasing. Nothing is perfect but this is unacceptable.
- Fire the team that created this new version
- Use previous version as a framework and just add features that make it easier vs. deleting simple options like “adding to que” or “clearing que”. ( why you would take this option out is mind blowing)
Long time Sonos user for 18 years first time not happy but will navigate through this epic fail of an update.
While I understand the frustrations and bafflement, I’m not so sure about the recommendations
- It’s past that point now, with both app and firmware updates, the window where roll back should have happened is gone. Downgrading device firmware and apps is unlikely to be a simple flip that switch and cause even more confusion and things breaking further.
- I'd be surprised if the team who created this version had much say in the decision to release it, so you’re asking for the wrong team to go. If anything, having worked in software companies for 20+ years, I’d expect the team who created the app to have been against it being released when it was.
- Without seeing the internals of the previous app, I’d take a guess that given its age it could have become a bit of a mess of fragile code and spaghetti which was both time consuming and risky to keep extending and updating.
Given Sonos devices and apps have been reporting metrics data back to Sonos for years, I would hope feature development and priority made use of that data to identify how people use Sonos devices and the app.
I truly hope the version of app released was not the originally intended version and with how quickly some features were initially added back suggests the development was either already complete or in progress on those features when the first version hit.
The new app feels like a project which slipped and rather than moving the release date, development and test got thrown under the bus.
