Will the Windows11 Desktop application be updated?

Yes, it is "only" an app, but what Sonos is doing is not courageous or ignorant, but highly damaging to their business:

Since the software is an existential part of the product, the manufacturer cannot simply reduce advertised functions that have been available for years under common law unilaterally and without reason. If the functions are not usable again after a deadline (here I see 21.05), all devices still under warranty should be able to be returned. Even with older devices, I see good opportunities here under European law.

Sonos has completely gambled away its reputation as a premium provider with this business conduct. With the best will in the world, you can't recommend such a dubious manufacturer to anyone.

The announced new products (headphones etc.) will also suffer from this disaster.

As far as i am aware,later in time, the Desktop app will be terminated as it is replaced by the web app. But someone correct me if i'm wrong.

I believe from what they have said you are correct. Also they say they are dropping SMBv1 in favour of 2 and 3. Most home routers only provide SMBv1 so that will mean a purchase of a NAS device and as of today Sonos version of SMBv2 will not index large libraries without crashing out with an error. I have been using SMBv1 with Sonos for close on 20years without being hacked by the Chinese as it is all sitting behind my router's firewall. That will just complete this car crash of an "update".

I have not invested in any more equipment recently (except a Roam for the garden) then last being two Gen 2 Play 5s so I have been able to revert to S1. What a breath of fresh air S1 is with it's uncluttered design and total reliability. I am happy to sacrifice the Roam integration (does not do S1) and will use it as a Bluetooth speaker now.

A Raspberry Pi would be a cheaper option than a fully fledged NAS device.

Depending on how many albums, and how much time on your hands, you can always upload to IBroadcast 😏⌚

Indeed I have just configured a Pi4 with Openmediavault which allows for SMBv1 2 3 and that works well with S1 on SMBv1. 

Thanks for this. Took me a while to understand it but i got it working on mine and my wife’s android phones. Both now set to not automatic update. Incredibly, almost at once I got a message that a new version was available and encouraged me to download it! So the rubbish update is still up there waiting for unsuspecting peeps to copy it down! Words fail.

Genuinely one of the worst app updates I have ever seen. It made everything require more taps to do, is less intuitive, no longer allows pandora to queue music, etc. This app update alone is making me reconsider Sonos as a whole and I have been using them for the last 13 years. Please offer a Sonos classic app at least for people who don’t want this terrible update. If only I was on Android and could side load the old version.

How to ruin my weekend?   Use this updated app.  My world of music has been crushed and yeah woke up late thanks to no alarm feature.  How is this better?   And I realize I am not alone,   The hype about “new app coming” I assumed users had beta tested it.  This “upgrade” is a major downgrade.  Thankfully my JBL Bluetooth speakers were charged.  My Era 300s along with my subwoofer are basically door stops.

i have to assume some fixes are on the way ,but this really is a ridiculous turn of events.  Nothing about this new app seems new or improved.  

Probably my last time buying anything Sonos.  

Paraphrasing… “Today we are going to treat all our customers like sh*t and ruin their systems and Sonos experience. We are going to take away a perfectly good app and replace it with complete rubbish which takes away most of the functionality we have advertised and upon which you made your purchase decision. We will continue to completely ignore all our customers by putting our fingers in our ears and going “la la la la la la...” We will say “so sorry so sorry” but we won’t actually do anything about it. Because we don’t care about you!

Wow, thank you so much! I haven’t been able to use my speakers at all with the new app. I was stuck in a continual loop of “your speakers need updating” and “your speakers are up to date”… only took a couple minutes to implement this fix, rather than the usual hours of running around and unplugging stuff and trying to figure out what’s wrong. 

I’ve actively been telling people not to buy Sonos for over a year now, all because of the software. And somehow… somehow they made it even worse than it was before. At least I’m back to having 5 of 7 functioning speakers. Thanks again!!

This new app is a big disappointment,  lots of error messages, really slow and often multiple attempts to get something to play. I want to go back to the previous version 😩 

I’m just thankful i didn’t upgrade my wife’s app too.   The frustration level is high enough in the house.  A comprehensive reply from the company seems essential right about yesterday.   

I don’t know how to call this new app. Madness? Company suicide? Someone inside Sonos must hate its customers or the company or both. 

It’s basic but I find navigation throughout the new app experience to be worse. A quick tap to go back to previous now requires a swipe from the top and down (and you need to make sure to really swipe or else it bounces back to the top). When doing it frequently to navigate, you really start to notice that a back button would feel more responsive than having to swipe constantly.

Sorting favorites has always been a bit of a challenge in the app. I had been renaming items like my favorite stations to “{1} Station Name”, “{2} Station Name”, “{3} Station Name”, etc. But now that doesn’t even seem to help… ugh.

Windows and MacOS desktop apps for S2 and S1 can be downloaded here:

https://support.sonos.com/en/downloads

Since SONOS has decided to move to a cloud base system of control of your SONOS products they most likely will not be supporting these desktop apps nor updating them. Hopefully they leave the desktops Apps up on the SONOS download page for those who do not want to downgrade to the 80.0 version of their platform or have decided to stay on S1 or upgrade from S2 to S1… yeah I know it sounds backwards and yes this is the first time in my 60 years on this rock that I am actually saying that I upgraded my system by rolling back my firmware! Think about it! How many other pieces of electronics have you had to rollback to an earlier version? Usually I love updating my software and firmware on ALL my electronics but this time, for the first time in my history I have rolled it back on a product! Go figure!  🤦🏼

Thanks, some really useful info. I have sent an email to the ceo@sonos.com and I will attempt to join the AMA on Tuesday (US time). 

Thanks. I’m in Australia. All the features were there and accessibility was a major deciding factor when I choose Sonos initially. The company should have just stated their app no longer met minimum accessibility standards and provided a way to avoid upgrading.  

I would even put up with a small amount of loss in accessibility support, but as it stands, the app is completely unusable when VoiceOver is enabled. Claims by Sonos that they tested with VoiceOver are either nonsense, untruths or indicate Sonos is incompetent at software testing.   Take your pick. 

I have 35 years experience as a software developer. My guess is that someone came up with a new visually ‘exciting’ app and nothing was going to get in the way of that visual design.  I cannot believe a company who previously implemented an app with good accessibility support could screw this up so spectacularly by accident. Software accessibility does not happen by accident. It has to be part of the design goals for the application. You cannot ‘tack it on ‘ later.  Some companies fail to make their software accessible because of a lack of awareness of accessibility issues. Given previous app versions worked well wrt accessibility, one can only assume lack of awareness is not the cause here and that dropping accessibility support must have been a conscious decision. 

We'll they also failed spectacularly with the 'visually exciting' 😎 part too!

Reminds me of the famous Tate Gallery artwork

Honestly Sonos. Are you happy with the new update? Let us know your response to all angry customers. Don't hide under a rock and hope it will blow over. It never will. This is war.

Whoever approved this update must be stupid.

Removing useful features like queue management and alarm/sleep timer is dumb, but removing accessibility functions is cruel.

It’s 2024 and Sonos are actively making their devices less accessible. Incredible. 🙃

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS UPDATE! This new app is a train wreck. All of my playlists are gone and there does even appear to be an option to show user created playlists. The system will not hold speaker selections and plays in rooms I do not want it to play in. It is cumbersome and annoying to be kind.

The Sonos Playlists are now in the Sonos Favorites ‘Pinned Category’, you probably just need to expand it.

I’m not seeing any issue with the App holding onto speaker selections in either the ‘room picker’ or ‘grouped rooms’ screens? For me, it’s more about the missing features, as widely discussed here in the community.