The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App

Why every time I launch the app it asks me to turn on Bluetooth settings WHEN I DON’T WANT OR NEED BLUETOOTH TO BE ON since I only use all my eight (4 pairs) of Sonos speakers on WiFi!  I could not find any setting to turn off the launch banner and IT IS ANNOYING!!! The prior version NEVER did this and PLEASE FIND A WAY TO STOP THIS.  

Does the new design no longer have a snooze function and an alarm clock? If it's all about the design and not the function, I'll be looking for another system as soon as possible. It's cheeky not to point out the missing functions before the update. This makes the app completely unusable for me. 

Your UX team should be embarrassed to have their names attached to such a massive misstep. Shame on you.

Most of us early adopters have been b**tf***ed by Sonos for over 10 years now. It’s only fair that this is now affecting everybody else.  /s 

They are the typical company that is convinced it knows better than their users. And that it can sh*t on their original supporters and userbase without consequences.

I sincerely hope the outrage leads to a similar effect we just have seen in the last ten days with Escape From Tarkov as well as with the Helldivers/Sony debacle, in both cases the consumers revolted and won over corporate greed.

I for one have deactivated Updates on my system and app and blocked the corresponding ports on my firewall. 

There’s a lot of fire and brimstone on here, but I actually disagree.  I think the underlying design is solid, with a few rough edges, but it is overall more attractive and easier to use.

Of course there are many elements missing.  I’ve mentioned elsewhere that there are clues that this is due to the app being released too early / rushed, which of course is inexcusable, as opposed to those elements being actively removed altogether.  I’m not defending it — I just think there is good work to build on here, the fundamentals are good — but the product is unfinished.  I don’t know why it was released in this state, but as long as there is momentum in putting things right, I’m prepared to wait and see. 

The new app does not feel “at home” on iOS at all. It does not follow the conventions of an iOS app with the navigation bar at the bottom (4 or 5 buttons to get to different sections). The fact that you have to click “Your System” at the top left to bring up your list of devices in the system from the bottom (rather than just touching on the pill at the bottom) is crazy. And on an iPad, so much white space rather than having your music on the left and the list of devices in your system along the right which would make for a Buch better user experience and more efficient use of space. 

Please make the app feel like a native iOS app (even better if you actually make it using the native iOS UI elements rather than a “code once run everywhere” garbage that this appears to be). Sonos was once the “Apple” of music devices and this is a big step backwards for your Apple / Sonos customers that expect our apps to feel like they were built for our platform of choice (iOS/iPadOS). 

Also the lack of alarms support and music queue management is unforgivable that this was allowed to be released before those were ready. I have 9 Sonos Amps (it's my whole-house audio solution) plus 2 Sonos Ports. I’m fully invested in Sonos for my music listening and am questioning if that was a good idea if the user experience is not at the forefront of the Sonos team. 

The app is an absolute abortion, particularly if you have a large local library. I am constantly getting the error message “Something went wrong” when trying to access my library. The error message is absolutely correct, something has gone wrong for this bug ridden, feature reduced pile of excrement  ever to be released.

I think there are some severe fundamentals missed here. iOS apps should feel like iOS apps, iPadOS apps should take advantage of the larger screen and still feel like an iOS app. The new iPadOS app is just a scaled up iOS version - it doesn’t change the layout to take advantage of the larger screen. 

It seems Sonos has fundamentally changed to a “code once run everywhere” mentality which is frankly terrible for user experience. Most users aren’t running Sonos on iOS and macOS and Windows and Android. It's usually one platform (and sometimes two) and the software should feel at home on the platform the user uses. Having it look exactly the same between OSes is good for Sonos, not the user. 

"We felt now was the time to reimagine our app experience,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said in a press release. “After thorough development and testing, we are confident this redesigned app is easier, faster and better. It once again raises the bar for the home music listening experience, and sets up our ability to expand into new categories and experiences.”

😭

I was looking forward to the boosting connectivity part:

“Sonos is ready to shake things up! On May 7th (subject to change, of course), they’re set to release a major revamp of their mobile app for both Android and iOS. Screenshots leaked to The Verge reveal a sleek new look and improved functionality, geared towards simplifying setup and boosting connectivity across their speaker lineup.”

But with no firmware update to the actual equipment how would that even be possible? Or is that something that is still in the pipeline?