Your feedback on the new Sonos App

A simple question though, why wasn't there (and still isn't) ANY mention of the removal of these key pieces of functionality in any communication (in fact the communication said the opposite) and we should assume the App would allow users to continue as before?

Specifically, we were told:

“We've taken great care to ensure that this update only enhances your Sonos experience. Your products, features and services will work as they always have, and all your settings will be saved.”

This isn't true.

I really hope that the local music library gets fixed asap. Reading the posts, many others use this feature as well. I paid a lot of money for all my Sonos products and expect a good product. 
Thank you!

Lots of the feedback relates to the depreciation of the local library functionality.  I really hope the strength of this feedback highlights to Sonos how strong the feeling is regarding this and how important it it to a key, albeit smaller, userbase.

We need to be able to search it and scroll through it properly, and it should be up to us to decide where we see it on the main screen.  We don't want to go to a sub menu of Inputs to get to it.  If we want to see it on the main screen and make it the top option, we should be able to.  If we want Spotify above or below it , that's up to us to decide and simply drag them in the order we want.  They're all legitimate ways of accessing music and should be treated as such, not arbitrarily relegated to a hidden screen.

One of the main reasons for the UX change was customisability, let us do that then.

I’ll be honest but just don’t like the new app as doesn’t feel intuitive and can’t easily find what I want. Eg play my favourite playlist from My Sonos or just access the sound for my TV through my cinema set up.  It’s just taking far too much effort from the old app. In fact can I have the old app back please 

Hi,

I'm a developer and I just don't understand how did you manage your new app publication with so many functionality regressions.

You should have waited to finish implementing the most essential elements before releasing your new version. I have a feeling something weird was going on under the hood with the dev team that you didn't tell us.

Anyway, I reinstalled the old app with aptoide and I advise all unhappy users to do the same.

Good luck to the devs for the * they're going to face, certainly because of management decisions that went wrong somewhere.

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

Thanks a lot for this feedback. It is actually the first time I see Local Music Library searching explicitely refered to by the various communications by Sonos. If I may advise something, it would be very worthwhile to have an official communication from Sonos on this matter outside of this forum - as you said, this thread can be easily lost among all the others… even if it is sticky.

Rather than push this new unfinished buggy new app as an update, please explain why the decision to keep the existing S2 app as it was and release a new S3 app separately wasn’t chosen?

Sonos has instead chosen to cause existing loyal customers so much inconvenience that a large proportion will never trust you again, let alone buy any more products?

Your marketing emails told us that the update only enhances the experience and the products will work as they always have, which is clearly not the case.

“How will this affect my system?

We've taken great care to ensure that this update only enhances your Sonos experience. Your products, features and services will work as they always have, and all your settings will be saved.”

Where were the release notes that explained the changes?

Why are our speakers now controllable remotely with no option to turn this off, and no two-factor authentication to protect the accounts?

Why was it shipped when it’s not accessible to the blind? There are international laws governing accessibility.

Why are users that don’t subscribe to streaming services and use local music libraries being treated as second-class citizens?

Aesthetically the new app isn't going to win any prizes compared to competitors such as Bluesound, etc. It's jumbled, has weird overblown rounded corners, and a bizarre horizontal misting effect for items on the home page 😎.  Static promo photos give a false impression of the app's overall visual and ergonomic effect.  Pity.

Also lost the ability to save a song directly to a Spotify playlist

Well I’m perhaps going to play ‘devils advocate’ here, as I like the layout/concept of the new App. Yes there are features missing, but I accept they’re on their way. I can wait patiently for those.

I agree with @sjw’s comment that it’s a real shame that users were not told about the missing features in advance, particularly as some screenshots of the controller on Sonos.com show some of the missing features in situ in the App.

It’s clear the controller notes & published App preview-screens, were for the finished product and so that infers a decision was made to get the software out, sooner rather than later.

I guess there were technical reasons for why the new App could not be released as a ‘preview (beta) app’ alongside the S2 App - it’s quite disappointing though that that was not considered in the early days of development in case there were development delays. There was no clear ‘plan B’, I suspect.

Anyhow, I will just choose to look forward, rather than back, as there are far more important things going on in the world these days and truth be told, I can still play my chosen audio to all my speakers. Everything I need still works with all my hardware.

I have large-ish local libraries running on NAS boxes, each with the secure SMB 2/3 protocol, so still see those tracks and in most cases, I browse my folders by artist/album and, in the past, have created my own .m3u playlists and so don’t miss/need the library search, but it would still be a ‘nice to have’ option to search for local tracks… again I have Plex and use iBroadcast too, so I have lots of options.

The S2 App on iOS is stable, but I find it slow to launch from a fully closed state 15-18 seconds compared to 8-10 seconds with S2. Its horizontal misting effect, as mentioned by @castalla, is not something I like either. That in itself, creates a feeling of having to wait, as I navigate about the App.

Clicking buttons, such as to play/pause etc. gives no audio/haptic feedback and so feels unresponsive and somethings just feels quite slow to react. An amount of App Optimisation needs to be (re)considered to make launch and navigation ‘feel’ quicker - even leaving the opening ‘Sonos’ screen displayed for a little longer, as things open in the background, might make things ‘feel’ quicker to the end-user.

As far as the iPad controller is concerned, I don’t like the size/position of the ‘now playing’ or ‘room grouping’ screens - they overlay the room in focus, situated at the top of the ‘room selector’.

The slide-up ‘room selector’ screen goes right to the top of the App/screen display and I find that occasionally, I either slide-down the iOS ‘lock screen’ by accident, or I hit the ‘split screen’ (…) ellipsis iOS feature, situated top-centre screen.These things mentioned though are perhaps just personal gripes and I may find things improve with continued use and more familiarity.

If asked what would I like to see put back in the new App first by the developers? - I can answer that easily. I just want the features on the attached screenshot, followed by the restoration of queue management.

Anyhow my Sonos glass still remains half-full, looking forward, rather than half-empty.

This is quite questionable since a significant number of users have rolled back to the previous version of the app, without specific issues.

It’s already catered for with iOS … see screenshot of the Apps I’m currently using here.

I'd like to be able to reorder my Sonos Favorites. It's not even alphabetical any more.