Hey Siri, ...

Agreed on deadlines but you need goals and this really is a matter of discussing resources and the most efficient management of said resources. It gets complex for a company even the size of SONOS.
Not to mention that the human factor is such a pain to deal with... are people really as productive as they can be (they all have personal lives/ own motivations etc), do you have the best talent you can possibly get, how complex is technical project etc.

SONOS' implementation of voice command will be centered on Music.

They have given Spotify the ability to send the music to SONOS directly from the Spotify app.
Perhaps it will be the same for Voice Command platforms and Airplay2 & HomeKit.

@jgatie, attacking the arguer instead of the argument. Yet another one who knows nothing about debate.
(PS - software developer here) :D

Ok, if you are a developer. then tell me how Sonos can give a definitive delivery date for a software package that is wholly reliant on coordinated development with a third party, aka Amazon? That is, without opening themselves up to missed deadlines due to factors beyond their control?

By the way, ask Denon what happens when you give deadlines as to when Google Cast, Windows app, or Alexa functionality will be delivered. Then ask yourself if you would be any happier if Sonos gave a date of release and then failed to deliver years/months later.

sidenote: As a developer of sorts, I never liked deadlines. It's done when it's done right. You give people a date and they assume you screwed up if it's late, which usually isn't the case. If it's done early, they think you either lied to them, or you are some genius, which isn't the case.

I am good without having a date for delivery. I would be curious to know how the development is going and what it's going to be, but I also understand that people will not understand setbacks and could question feature changes and all that. So go ahead and don't tell me.

There will always be those who complain. Most people who I see complaining about no definite release dates would be the very first one in here on that release date to complain it's not here. It's what they do.

Hell, there was one guy in here complaining that Sonos announced the Alexa integration too soon and I have no doubt he'd be in here complaining about Sonos having no plans for voice control if they had kept it secret.

@jgatie, Yes, in software development nobody, no matter how good they are, can give a release date and a feature set both with any accuracy. On the other hand, many companies seem to be able to predict this within a quarter or two reliably. Certainly, this far into the development cycle, they should be able to say "Coming in Q4 2017".

And even if they are only 80% confident in that date, from a marketing perspective they should be "holding the market" to keep us Sonos customers from kicking the tires on another platform.

The fact is, in the time since Echo came out, Google, Microsoft and now Apple have all developed products in this space, and numerous other "speaker companies" have built interfaces to those platforms. Heck, Sonos hired an enthusiast who had already coded an Echo/Sonos hack to be a product manager. And that was two years ago.

To put it plainly: I'm not buying any more Sonos gear until I know their strategy to extend their products beyond the functionality they introduced a decade ago.

Presumably Sonos/Alexa development is in private beta right now. Sonos never talks about private beta. In fact, the joke around here is when things get real quiet, you know something is coming. That is their way. Accept it or not.

As to refusing to buy? Meh. I'm sure if they thought their product sales were suffering due to their tight-lipped policy as opposed to being verbose and missing/cancelling deadlines like Denon, they'd change the policy. Personally, in my forays into the public sector, the ones who complain about no deadlines given are the very first to complain about deadlines that are missed, and the ones who publicly threaten to boycott or sell on e-Bay are the ones who never do.

Honestly, I can't imagine the people who want SONOS and want Homepod is probably rather small since there is a lot of feature overlap.
By that argument, why would anyone want Amazon Echo or Google Home alongside Sonos since they also have a lot of feature overlap. I do want Sonos and want Homepod, but what I would like is an Apple HomePod "Dot" that allows me to control my Sonos setup, as well as my Nest thermostats, my Schlage smart locks, my Somfy blinds and awnings, my Hue lights, my PowerBOT vacuum, my etc; However, neither Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, Somfy or any others have an all encompassing offering, because right now they are all jockeying for market share in the Internet-of-Things control space to see who comes out as indispensable.

I would also imagine (I don't know) that of the 3, Amazon, Google, and Apple...Apple would be the one who least wants to do business with Sonos because of the feature overlap (which Apple created by the way).
If by feature overlap, you are talking about music services, both Amazon and Google have music services too. They too don't share across every platform, nor are they available in every country, but I accept that Apple is the most closed of all the content and computer companies.

I'm just not seeing why Sonos needs to drop everything and do whatever Apple fans want, at the expense of everything else, or fear going out of business.
I am both a Sonos and Apple fan. I'm not expecting Sonos to drop anything. Quite the contrary, I believe that the survival of an independent Sonos is widespread compatibility. And for the record, I'd like to see Sonos continue as independent. Nest, for example, was bought out by Google (who could resist $1B offer as a startup), and so now it also doesn't support Apple HomeKit. Had they remained independent I believe they too would be more widely compatible.

Could that perhaps be on account of planned obsolescence by the manufacturer? Now, I wonder which company immediately springs to mind... hmm....

I still use an iPhone 6, iPad Air 2, iPod Classic and 2012 MacBook Air, and they all work fine.

I, too, am getting rather impatient with Sonos. For better or worse, I'm locked into the Apple eco-system, and if Sonos won't play nice with it, I'm going to drop Sonos, sell the 9 units I have (after 8 years) and move on. It's not even that I'm all that sold on Apple - and I sure don't need everything to be Apple-stuff; but I need it to work with it. I first got into Sonos, after my efforts to build a multi-room system based on a set of Airport Express units turned out to be unsatisfactory. I liked Sonos, but I was never blown away by the audio quality of the speakers (especially considering the price). I find them satisfactory, nothing more. Without the recent developments in voice control, I would probably stick with them for much longer, as I'm not willing to pay what it takes to upgrade to high-end multi-room audio. But voice control is a game-changing innovation that addresses a what I feel is a serious interface short-coming in the Sonos system. The best solution would be to have Siri on Sonos itself. Or for Sonos to be be controllable by Siri. I understand that the main obstacle there may be Apple itself. But, as I said, I need Sonos to work with my Apple stuff, and if it doesn't, then Sonos goes. I'm willing to accept some less than perfect work-around - but if all I get offered is the Amazon or Google option, then I'll sell. And I want something pretty soon from Sonos. As of December, I'll have new options. I'll wait until summer next year. If nothing is out that works for me (or is at least officially announced) then that's it. Alright, call me an Apple fanboy - I won't bite back. All I want is that Sonos take notice.

These "drink the Apple kool-aid or the bunny gets it" posts from recent registrants are quite fascinating. A system which has evidently reproduced multi-room music impeccably for 8 years is now destined for eBay or the skip? A sense of proportion is surely in order.

Nicely put - but yep, that's how it is. The lack of voice control was always annoying, but not a big deal as long as there was no alternative. At this point, what bothers me is that Sonos seems to be dragging their feet. If they don't prioritize this issue, I think it will hurt them badly. Btw, I had registered when I first got my Sonos system, but not had the need to bother with the Sonos forums for five years or so, since I haven't had any problems after the initial set-up. Not sure why the website forced me to update my registration at this point.