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Mike H
Retired Sonos Staff
May 14, 2024
Interview

Sonos App Redesign AMA

  • May 14, 2024
  • 770 replies
  • 65983 views
Sonos App Redesign AMA

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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770 replies

Trending Lyricist I
May 14, 2024

Hi AMA team!
I almost always use my Sonos devices in groups, and with the new app, handling of group volumes is worse. Not only does it not change in real-time like the former app, you end up with a UI pop-up on top of the volume slider I am using to adjust the volume. See the video below of before and after. Will this be fixed in a future app update? 
New app:

 

Old App:
 

 

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

why have you release something that clearly isn’t finished, full of bugs and gives a  terrible user experience?

Chromatic Producer I
May 14, 2024

It has been reported that beta testers questioned many of the features that were left out and also reported many issues and that these were not addressed in the beta testing. 

And that the missing features would be added in the future.   

And that there was feedback from the testers that this was not acceptable.   

Why were the beta testers ignored in their honest feedback? 

And they were never given a reason as to why the PUSH to get the halfbaked app published. 

 

Also WHY was the new app NOT released as a BETA to any user and the S2 app continued for those (especially iOS users) to continue to use if they chose?

Southern Gal
Prodigy I
May 14, 2024

Has anyone tested if the new app is able to correctly display the queue position of the currently playing track if there are 381 tracks in the play queue? Or will it always display "Unable to find current track." if the user has not scrolled to that part of the queue in the UI previously?

 

Does the app shuffle all the tracks of a 300+ track play queue or e.g. just the first 100 tracks?

Lyricist II
May 14, 2024

How do I explain the missing features to my wife? Specially the increased latency, increased disconnects?

Enthusiast II
May 14, 2024

Can’t figure out how to launch it..

Trending Lyricist I
May 14, 2024

When alarms was able to be added back as soon as today, why was the app released when it was in such an incomplete state nearly a week ago? 
 

Contributor II
May 14, 2024

Terrible disservice to many loyal customers who previously were able to serve local files from networked drives!  Streaming is nice, but it is not the entire universe!

Lyricist II
May 14, 2024

Please describe what the thought processes was, going into the re-design. I understand the value of launching something new, but as a designer, I also understand that function always outweighs design.

May 14, 2024

will the focus be on systems that  are now unusable, or will you first add lost functionality