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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

Please address the rationale behind the removal of sleep timers and alarms. You must have telemetry showing that these were very heavily used features of the app. And yet now they are gone.

@CacheCoherence - we never intended to ship without Alarm Settings.

(I am copying this in since the threading is difficult to follow here)

On the morning of the app launch, we discovered a data corruption error around the new Alarms APIs. The corruption could cause alarms to go off in the wrong room at the wrong volume with the wrong content! In order to save your alarms, we made the difficult decision to remotely disable the alarm settings feature and then completely lock it out. It allowed us to make sure your alarms stayed as they were - but at the steep cost of taking away your ability to change them yourself.

The team rallied to make sure we could turn this feature back on safely. You can have Alarm Settings back right now!

  1. Update your app to:
    1. iOS: 80.00.08 - available now in the App Store
    2. Android: 80.00.05 - available now in the Play Store
  2. Update your firmware to 79.0-52294 - available now via the Sonos App:
    1. Tap the settings gear in the top right
    2. Select “Manage” next to your system name
    3. Select System Updates
    4. Select Check for Updates
  3. Launch the Sonos app twice in order to guarantee we fetch the latest feature flags:
    1. Start the Sonos app
    2. Force quit the app
    3. Start the Sonos app again

OK, I get what happened with alarms. But I have re-read your response several times, and I still don’t see an explanation of what happened to sleep timers in this release.

May 14, 2024

My question (as this is an AMA) is this: Do you factor in this loss of trust? Has this been costed? Was there a risk benefit analysis of releasing the app in such an unready state? Or did the the response to this app come as a surprise to you?

@superbob

We did factor in a risk analysis about delaying some features along with the timing of the release. That risk-benefit analysis was carefully done across many decisions about what to prioritize.

One thing I would like to restate from an earlier reply - we never intended to ship without Alarm Settings.

On the morning of the app launch, we discovered a data corruption error around the new Alarms APIs. The corruption could cause alarms to go off in the wrong room at the wrong volume with the wrong content! In order to save your alarms, we made the difficult decision to remotely disable the alarm settings feature and then completely lock it out. It allowed us to make sure your alarms stayed as they were - but at the steep cost of taking away your ability to change them yourself.

The team rallied to make sure we could turn this feature back on safely - and today we are so delighted to say that we have re-enabled alarm settings. To get this feature, you must do a full system update. 

We will continue to evaluate the impact of new and returning features, and have committed to a timeline for the short term.

Again.  Just the alarm as an example, and how well you’ve all done in getting that released today.  WHAT ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE WHICH IS MISSING?

Jeez can people stop with the BLOCKCAPS already, learn some netiquette.   Your answer has been posted multiple times:- 

 

Coming soon

  • Additional improvements to screen reader for visually impaired customers: May 21
  • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
  • Sleep timer: mid-June
  • Snooze alarms: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June
  • Update WiFi settings: mid-June
Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

App when not on network - no devices
play.sonos.com when not on network - here are all your devices you can play anything you want… 

WHY WOULD YOU ADD THIS?????

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

Great you fixed alarms but you still shipped without the ability to change the WiFi network, on a WiFi speaker!

Headliner I
May 14, 2024

My question (as this is an AMA) is this: Do you factor in this loss of trust? Has this been costed? Was there a risk benefit analysis of releasing the app in such an unready state? Or did the the response to this app come as a surprise to you?

@superbob

We did factor in a risk analysis about delaying some features along with the timing of the release. That risk-benefit analysis was carefully done across many decisions about what to prioritize.

One thing I would like to restate from an earlier reply - we never intended to ship without Alarm Settings.

On the morning of the app launch, we discovered a data corruption error around the new Alarms APIs. The corruption could cause alarms to go off in the wrong room at the wrong volume with the wrong content! In order to save your alarms, we made the difficult decision to remotely disable the alarm settings feature and then completely lock it out. It allowed us to make sure your alarms stayed as they were - but at the steep cost of taking away your ability to change them yourself.

The team rallied to make sure we could turn this feature back on safely - and today we are so delighted to say that we have re-enabled alarm settings. To get this feature, you must do a full system update. 

We will continue to evaluate the impact of new and returning features, and have committed to a timeline for the short term.

@DianeRoberts you said “we never intended to ship without Alarm Settings” but you did, why?

Can you also clarify why we need a “full system update” I assume that means the App and the Speakers and that sounds pretty drastic for something you are treating so casually. 

Collaborator I
May 14, 2024

With the new app is there any hope for a setting to enable the center speaker in the era 300s when paired in a surround configuration? 🤞🤞🤞🤞

Chris Devers
Contributor I
May 14, 2024

App when not on network - no devices
play.sonos.com when not on network - here are all your devices you can play anything you want… 

WHY WOULD YOU ADD THIS?????

What, you don’t regularly find it frustrating to be sitting at work or a coffee shop without a way to turn on the music back at home? You’re not elated that this long-unsolved problem now has a solution? Geez…

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

My question (as this is an AMA) is this: Do you factor in this loss of trust? Has this been costed? Was there a risk benefit analysis of releasing the app in such an unready state? Or did the the response to this app come as a surprise to you?

@superbob

We did factor in a risk analysis about delaying some features along with the timing of the release. That risk-benefit analysis was carefully done across many decisions about what to prioritize.

One thing I would like to restate from an earlier reply - we never intended to ship without Alarm Settings.

On the morning of the app launch, we discovered a data corruption error around the new Alarms APIs. The corruption could cause alarms to go off in the wrong room at the wrong volume with the wrong content! In order to save your alarms, we made the difficult decision to remotely disable the alarm settings feature and then completely lock it out. It allowed us to make sure your alarms stayed as they were - but at the steep cost of taking away your ability to change them yourself.

The team rallied to make sure we could turn this feature back on safely - and today we are so delighted to say that we have re-enabled alarm settings. To get this feature, you must do a full system update. 

We will continue to evaluate the impact of new and returning features, and have committed to a timeline for the short term.

Again.  Just the alarm as an example, and how well you’ve all done in getting that released today.  WHAT ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE WHICH IS MISSING?

Jeez can people stop with the BLOCKCAPS already, learn some netiquette.   Your answer has been posted multiple times:- 

 

Coming soon

  • Additional improvements to screen reader for visually impaired customers: May 21
  • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
  • Sleep timer: mid-June
  • Snooze alarms: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June
  • Update WiFi settings: mid-June

Apologies for the caps.  Sorry.

My question about the missing items was not asking ‘when’.  I was linking to the repeated alarm story and asking whether the other missing functionality was removed on the launch day.  Sorry for being unclear.

 

Lyricist II
May 14, 2024

This has been enlightening, but not the way I’d hoped.  

My next call will be to my money manager: Dump SONO, don’t buy another share.

Prodigy III
May 14, 2024

What about wrapping up? This AMA was a total disaster, as the new app.