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Mike H
Retired Sonos Staff
May 14, 2024
Interview

Sonos App Redesign AMA

  • May 14, 2024
  • 770 replies
  • 65992 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

Contributor I
May 14, 2024

Ich bin mir nicht sicher ob ich dieses Format der AMA verstanden habe, aber ist das ernst gemeint, dass es kein zoom, teams oder ähnliches gibt, sondern nur über diese Beiträge hier läuft? 

In welchem Zeitalter findet diese Veranstaltung statt? 

Zu dem update kann ich nur sagen, ich bin kein alpha Tester. Wenn ich das machen soll, möchte ich Geld dafür haben. 

Das update ist ein Rückschritt in allem, außer dass es besser aussieht. Wie kommt man nur auf den Gedanken so etwas zu veröffentlichen? Wenn das fehlen der Funktionen nicht aufgefallen ist, dann liegt organisatorisches Versagen vor. Wenn es nicht an den Entwicklern liegt, dann geht die Verantwortung dafür nach oben. Hier wurde den Kunden ein ganz schlechter Dienst erwiesen. Fehler können passieren, aber bei der Menge ist die Frage wer dafür die Verantwortung trägt und welche Konsequenzen das hat. 

Ist ja nicht so, dass ein Totalversagen das erste mal ist. 

Der Zeitplan ist jedenfalls unmöglich, um alte, schon vorhandene Funktionen zurückzubringen. Genau genommen totales Versagen auf allen Ebenen. 

Wann ist damit konkret zu rechnen eine funktionierende neue App zu haben, oder alternativ die Funtkiotnsfähigkeit mit der alten App auch bei iphones herzustellen. Bei Android gibt es Möglichkeiten.

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

I’ve only observed up till now.  There are only three respondents to, what — 400 users here ?  While the Sonos replies are too few and too infrequent, they each generate further exponential posts, many just to get in a snarky response.  This was never going to work.  There have been plenty of pertinent questions posed, but also far too much mud-slinging which was never going to add anything.  Maybe next time, a different platform for the Q&A, and hopefully a few more adults in the room.  

I feel like majority of the thread has been valid concerns and complaints, with minimal responses. It doesn’t help when the answers warrant further questions. Sonos didn’t read the room.

Also helps no one that you have to sift through every page and comment just to see where responses lie. This was poorly thought out.

Lyricist II
May 14, 2024

When will the PRO Apps

become available outside the US ?

Contributor I
May 14, 2024

Any news on when the lockscreen and notification control will be back on Android?? 

 

For now I rolled back to the old version, since I don't want to unlock my phone and start the app just to pause skip or control something.

PS. Pocket Cast sync doesn't work either

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

Two hours into this AMA and @tuckerseverson has offered a total of three replies, THREE, to the hundreds of posts here. 🙄
 

 

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

I have huge problems with adjusting volume between devices and unbelievable delays on track recognition - up to 30 seconds! 
I’ve tried adjusting group volume, it just does one device, then I just do that device and the whole system crashes and no music plays. What the actual f@ck have you done to my listening experience? Absolutely destroyed it, that’s what. You need to fix this very quickly or those buying new products will be getting their money back and going to Bose. 
this is a bigger clusterf@ck than the transition From S1 to S2 and the lack of support for older products. 

You are so right.  All we are getting in the way of feedback is how things fell apart on the launch-day for the alarms, and how everybody pulled togethere, blah, blah, blah.  No mention of all the other mess, including your above volume issues.  I thought that that was just me - glat it wasn’t.  I went back to 16.1 and everything worked fine immediately.

Will Sonos apologise?  Obviously not.

DianeRoberts
Sonos Employee
May 14, 2024

What has been the general mood of the Sonos team/staff since the new app was released? Was the team surprised at the negative reception or was it expected?

@GuitarSuperstar 

Thanks for asking. We have all been deeply invested in this project for a long time. We are all Sonos owners. Many people on the team had Sonos in their homes before they joined the team. We all use the experience every day. 

Any time we change an experience or delay a feature, we know that some people will have negative sentiments. We also saw in our usability testing that people appreciated the new user interface, adaptability, and faster time to music. 

We have been reading your posts and seeing your feedback.

Once the release went live, the mood could be described as “energized.”  The activity on the team is high as people share what they’ve built for the next releases. We are excited that we can bring these continuous regular updates. It’s easier and faster now for us to share what we’ve built with you. That started with today’s release and will continue on May 21st with releases to follow.

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

Two hours into this AMA and @tuckerseverson has offered a total of three replies, THREE, to the hundreds of posts here. 🙄
 

 

Member since May 13, 2024
Lyricist III
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.

@tuckerseverson But rolling forward to a new release is certain to cause even more issues. So why not just package the v16.1 app as a seperate legacy release and leave us all to decide for ourselves?

@webmink Its because they want everyone on the new architecture for their new APIs, and im assuming they wanted it out when they did for a new product launch coming up that the big wigs were unwilling to move back to accommodate the new app to finish baking first.

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

This reminds me a bit of my former Wink home automation system. Worked great until they went belly up and all of the equipment went in the trash. 

Someone needs to figure out how to build a localized server platform that could hijack communication from Sonos equipment and speakers before it gets to the Sonos network to create an open ecosystem. Or hijack the firmware update mechanism and develop an open firmware. 

I am wondering what ultimately happens when Sonos goes bankrupt and I have 32 audio bricks in my home?

 

Anyone want to try and reverse engineer this?