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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

Contributor I
May 14, 2024

What security designs and measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access to Sonos devices through your web app?>

Contributor I
May 14, 2024

I didn’t get an answer to my question ☹️

Lyricist I
May 14, 2024

Yeah, I have to say Sonos.. you really dropped the ball with this fiasco. What a sad way to disgrace your system that worked well which I was proud to own, use and share with others. 
 

The answer is there, so clearly that it’s maddening. All of this work you’re doing fixing these bugs, when you can let the user roll back. Fix this hot mess of a UX/Internet of Things system that removed many features and introduced new problems. 
 

I would still be with you when you got the new app locked up tight! It would be so great! And it’s not too late. But I promise your team that if digging your heels in is the way you’re going to do this.. it’s going to be remembered and do damage to your brand. Every minute that you hold the features back that we bought our systems for under the guise of this being the future.. it’s just convincing me that I don’t like your future. I don’t like this app now. I don’t like this AMA and I don’t like the answers I’ve been given. I don’t want to own my Sonos system because I was lied to. And that’s the part that saddens me the most. 

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 think if they would have come out and apologized right away and then laid out some semblance of a plan to make it right - they could have changed this trajectory quickly. 

Oh come on, I’m an adult — I don’t need an apology from someone I’ve never met.  And an apology would be derided on here as insincere — the staffers here have been put in an absolutely impossible situation, that absolutely anything they say will be copied, pasted and shot to pieces.  The release schedule up till mid-June already shows some semblance of a plan to make it right.  It’s a bloody app, for god’s sake - it was released too early, it’s buggy and bug fixes are coming.  Many in here need to learn how to behave.  

It’s not just the app though. Many people have non-functional systems right now and can’t use things that were previously available. I’m sorry, that’s just unacceptable for the price we pay for these products. Nobody here is asking a lot. The task at hand is what Sonos put themselves in by releasing some half-baked app.

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

Is it not possible to roll back the app because the main functionality has already been moved to the cloud?

Enthusiast II
May 14, 2024

Regarding http://play.sonos.com/, I would rather not have to login every day if possible.

I would love if the sonos app redirected to this experience when not on my network. Home Assistant does something similar, using local network access when on home wifi, then switching to URL when off home wifi.

Just interested, @bstephens16 , what is the use case for using your Sonos system when not at home? (by the way .. this is a serious question, as I can’t think of a use case off the top of my head… but maybe there is one that could be useful).

 

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

Three hours in and we're at the end of the advertised window for the AMA.

Final numbers then, though of course people will probably continue posting in the thread (numbers in brackets are the count at 2 hours and 1 hour)

@DianeRoberts  - 9 (4, 0)

@KateW  - 6 (5, 3)

@tuckerseverson  - 4 (3, 2)

Total Sonos Responses - 19

Total Comments - 742

Average time between replies: 10.47
 

Looks like tucker got a little tuckered out at the 2 hour mark.

EDIT: Looks like Tucker woke up from his nap!

 

And some stats of my own counting:

Respect shown to customers - 0

Horrific discoveries - 2

  • Data corruption issue in alarms didn’t stop a release.
  • All speakers now available on the public internet protected only by a users password.

Feedback/suggestions actually taken by Sonos - 0

Awkward questions Sonos didn't want to address ignored - All of them

Commitments to do anything other than they'd already announced - None

Time wasted - 3 hours of my life anyway and I'm sure plenty of other customers

Also a piece of advice for anyone who side-loaded the 16.1 APK on Android, remember to turn off auto-updates in both the play store AND for the speaker firmware in the app.  The first will stop the new app overwriting 16.1 and the second will stop your speakers downloading new firmware, you never know when Sonos will break compatibility with the 16.1 version.

Well, I was really interested in the romoured Sonos headphones, but I won't be buying them and I'll probably be looking elsewhere for hardware in the future.

 

Contributor I
May 14, 2024

What user personas do you use to model your use cases?  Which of these personas were ok with not knowing about lost features in the “upgrade”?

Lyricist I
May 14, 2024

Let's call it a day. Great job answering all the questions!

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

Let's call it a day. Great job answering all the questions!

That’s a joke, right? Right? ...