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Mike H
Retired Sonos Staff
May 14, 2024
Interview

Sonos App Redesign AMA

  • May 14, 2024
  • 770 replies
  • 65997 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

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

Tucker, you don’t have to roll back the App. You just need to place v16.1 back into the App store and download sites with a different name like S2.16.1

That way both Sonos and it’s Customers can have access to prior and new Apps simultaneously.

Trending Lyricist I
May 14, 2024

My sytem sound terrible.  Hard resetting. And adding the subs took all day. 
how can you release this terrible update. It ruined my sytem.  It sound like cheap sytem. 

You will lose allot of customers. This is outrageous!!!
 

 

May 14, 2024

Sorry Sonos, as a customer since 2006 with a large(ish) setup. My faith was knocked after S1 to S2 forced upgrade, then we didn’t see anything new from S2. Now my expensive new S2 system you forced me to buy, isn’t working. And the irony, my S1 system in my offices are working fine! How can we ever trust you?

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? 

@mdpeterman

A key part of this new app was using the newer Sonos APIs, which means we did indeed rewrite the volume experience entirely.  Until this new update, our app was using an older set of technology based on UPnP and SOAP.

Thank you for sharing the videos. I will make sure the team sees these so that we can continue to iterate and improve in upcoming releases.

 

Even if it was a rewrite, why was functionality removed that was present in the prior app?  In what world do you come from where existing functionality is not present in a subsequent release?

I’ve been a SW engineer for 35 years and I’ve never seen such a terrible release in my entire career.

Completely unacceptable

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

Please upvote this post: Can you please provide an immediate easy way to rollback the mobile app to the prior version for those who can’t make the current version meet their needs.

Thanks @bkk. Also, @nelliott and others had similar questions.

Rolling back to the previous version of the Sonos app is likely to cause issues. As Sonos continues to advance forward with new updates to the firmware, the old apps will fall out of compatibility quickly. Our priority is to release improvements to the Sonos app rapidly to address your needs.

Well, I rolled back to the previous version a couple of hours after the upgrade, and I have had no issues at all. 

Same here.  I rolled back and will stay rolled back.  The issue is that I will keep being told to upgrade.  I would prefer to not have that constant niggle.  However, I’m the same as you - rolled back and staying at 16.1.

 

Lyricist I
May 14, 2024

Where can I find the answers in the AMA? Is there a video or audio link?

VicentesMustache
Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

Why is it taking an hour to get an answer to a question?  Please upvote.  Looks like the metric is 25 upvotes to get an answer.

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

Tucker, you don’t have to roll back the App. You just need to place v16.1 back into the App store and download sites with a different name like S2.16.1

That way both Sonos and it’s Customers can have access to prior and new Apps simultaneously.

I don’t know that they CAN anymore.  They rolled out a firmware update today that limits what the old app can do.  Like, I can’t update my music library anymore with the iPad app.  

 

I think we’re stuck with “in the coming weeks” at this point.  Not great, but I guess AirPlay will work for now.  I’m not HAPPY with that result, but I’m a realist at this point.

Headliner I
May 14, 2024

What data did you draw on to justify this new design? Was there any information architecture analysis done? Was there any investigation at all, like user interviews, analytics, usage data, etc?

The marketing materials tout “no more tabs” as a selling point, but for me it’s one of the biggest UX regressions. The new home screen is worse than useless; it’s just a new barrier between me and the favorites screen, which is by far the most common place I’m trying to go in the app besides the now-playing screen.

 

Hello @f8dee28e-f9a0-4157-a141-ce8859 

We did go through multiple phases of assessing the current S2 structure, modified versions of it, and the tabless version that we have today. Our work has engaged existing and new Sonos users throughout, and we have pursued the path that felt the most useful and intuitive to the largest number of users overall. We understand that every user is an individual with unique needs and circumstances. My hope is that your specific needs can be addressed by personalizing your home screen so your Sonos Favorites module shows up front and center on your home screen. Doing so should make this the first thing you see when launching the app. A single tap should take you to the full view of that collection. 

 

Personalisation does not compensate for missing functionality.

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

As an app developer I would really like to know why you decided to release an app that was missing core features from the previous version. This is not Madden where you can introduce features take them away and then reintroduce them at a later date as a new update. You guys really thought you could ignore the accessibility features you had in your app and release them later, whats a few weeks of not being able to use your hundreds/thousands of dollars in sound equipment right? you thought you could take away search on your local library? Alarms and timers? QUEUES, how do you mess up QUEUES in your app, especially since the screenshots released to the public of the app had the same features for queues as the 16.x app prior to its release????? This is basic stuff that a UI refresh should not remove for the sake of it which means you actively chose to ignore these features and I for one want to know WHY???? If you didnt think they were worthy of the 80.x release we want to know why?  what was the reasons this didnt get worked out before release? What is your view on regression testing because clearly either you ignored major issues or did not do any regression testing before you put this out.