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Ryan S
Retired Sonos Staff
October 2, 2017

Now Available, the New Sonos App

Related content:Software



Sonos version 8.0 is introducing a brand new controller for iOS and Android. The new Sonos app makes it even easier to navigate, access, and control your music throughout your home. This new app comes side by side with voice control through Alexa devices, more about that here.

Check out our blog for the Remastered Sonos App. Full details on the new apps can be found here on their respective product guide pages. Let’s take a look at the new app:



Introducing Navigation with Tabs:


The Sonos app now has five tabs visible at the bottom when not in the full playing screen. The tabs are My Sonos, Browse, Rooms, Search, and More. See here:



Now your most used options are available with just one click, and Now Playing is always just one tap away.

My Sonos
We’ve consolidated all your personally curated Sonos Playlists, music service playlists, and Sonos Favorites into one, easy to use page on the Sonos app. You can edit fields to move around the order, or delete them entirely. You can now have up to 40 favorites total, up from 32.

Browse
Browsing your music is even easier as it no longer hides your other options. You can browse and move to different rooms all while keeping your place in the browsing menu. There’s also a dock on the bottom of the app that gives you easy access to the navigation tabs. You can swipe it up to reveal it at any time, then back down. We’ve separated browsing your music and the menu for Settings, so it’s even easier to find what you’re looking for.

Rooms
The menu starts highlighted on the active room, featured right on the app so that it’s even easier to see what’s playing in each room. There’s now an icon on that screen to show you where the music is coming from too. That includes if it was started by Alexa. The active room has a Group button to have it add others to the party.

Search
It hasn’t changed, just moved to an easy to find spot.

More...
All the settings and options are in here. You can add services, make alarms, get some help, and access all your settings. We think this will make it a lot easier to find what you’re looking for. And speaking of settings…


Explicit Language Filtering


Within Settings > Parental Controls, you can set a system-wide setting to filter songs with explicit content. Right now, this is working for Apple Music, and we’re hoping to add it for more services soon. Once the setting is on, Apple Music songs with the explicit tag will no longer play on your system.

Long Press to Group


Making it even easier to play music. With 8.0, you can press and hold the Play/Pause button (or mute on older players) to have your player join the most recently active player as a group. First, you have to start playing music on a player, (it can be from an alarm or any other source), and then just hold the button for a few seconds on another player. That second player will join the first one’s group and start playing the same music in sync.

There's another function of the long press, and that's being able to move recently stopped music to another room. First, stop playing music in any of your rooms. Then, press and hold the play/pause on another player for a few seconds. (Make sure that you don't start playing music anywhere else.) The queue or source will move to the unit you held the button for and start playing. The players won't group together and any existing queue will get whiped out in place of the new one.

iOS 11 and Android O Support


Lastly, version 8.0 has support for the latest operating systems from Android and iOS. This includes iOS 11 support for Trueplay on Sonos. Trueplay isn’t available on Android at this time.
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527 replies

October 12, 2017
I'm lost. Here's my level of ignorance: How do you downgrade? I show I'm on 8.0.
You can't - you're stuck with it - welcome to the wonderful world of Sonos.
Actually, that may not be true - IIRC, someone mentioned using an earlier apk to revert their phone. I have no idea whether this would work for a system wide 'downgrade'.
Enthusiast II
October 13, 2017

You can't - you're stuck with it - welcome to the wonderful world of Sonos.
Actually, that may not be true - IIRC, someone mentioned using an earlier apk to revert their phone. I have no idea whether this would work for a system wide 'downgrade'.


You aren't stuck with it and the download procedure described does work (on Android anyway: I neither know nor care about Apple). It only changes the app on your device and doesnt seem to do anything to the firmware in the Sonos units.
Enthusiast II
October 13, 2017
I came in this evening and in less than ten seconds of opening the app had my music library playing in the Living Room. How disastrous is that?

The disaster is that when you want to return to your music folders in order to play more music there doesnt appear to be any way of getting directly back to the folder you were in. You have to navigate all the way through the folder structure again starting from the browse screen. I have better things to do with my time.

I got round this by going back to the 7.4 version which does not have this feature/bug.
October 13, 2017
I came in this evening and in less than ten seconds of opening the app had my music library playing in the Living Room. How disastrous is that?

The disaster is that when you want to return to your music folders in order to play more music there doesnt appear to be any way of getting directly back to the folder you were in. You have to navigate all the way through the folder structure again starting from the browse screen. I have better things to do with my time.

I got round this by going back to the 7.4 version which does not have this feature/bug.
That is simply not true. Or I am misunderstanding what you mean. I just played some music from my library, swiped down the Now Playing screen, and there I am in the folder structure, not back at the top. Tapped another album by same artist. 7.4 is becoming a distant memory for me now, but I think that is just the same as it was. Even if I switch rooms and hit Browse I still end up in the folder structure. Just as before, as far as I recall.
Lyricist III
October 14, 2017
I use to be able to go to my favorites and see a nice list. Now I go there and I get these huge icons, the I have to tap it twice to play what I want, argh. Who tested this before rolling it out? I emailed your support asking how to go back to the previous version and it's been days with no reply. Come on Sonos! I was always singing your praises but something has gone wrong at your company.

I gave this app a few day ps as any new GUI takes some time but nope, still sucks. Everything is more steps to do what I use to do on a daily basis. Hate it!!
Contributor I
October 14, 2017
I was just forced to upgrade to your new ios app a few days ago and I hate it. Now ther's more steps to change music in individual rooms and other headaches. And it's much more confusing to navigate. I have no use for Alexa or Siri navigation as I use neither. I just want the old app back. i wish you didn't force unwanted changes on us. Not to mention I recently bought my 87 year old Mom a Sonos speaker that she quite liked and was able to navigate the old app quite well. She now tells me she no longer wants the Sonos after it forced her to upgrade, it's too complicated for her now and she's very disappointed. I'm no longer very happy like I was with my Sonos system, I may have to go with something else now.
Prodigy I
October 14, 2017
I was just forced to upgrade to your new ios app a few days ago and I hate it.

Who forced you to upgrade?
Chromatic Producer I
October 15, 2017
I sincerely hope that the development team and their leaders are reading these messages with their overwhelming negative responses to the app redesign (white background, over sized logos, menus etc).

Of course the frustration comes from the fact that we as customers have NO other option if we want to use a system that many of us have already SPENT HUNDREDS of dollars purchasing.

I had hoped that SONOS would not fall into the trap of 'we know best' and not asking the customer what they want or giving them an option to pick ... (was the white background shown in the beta? i cant believe there were no comments on it if so)

I have a long background in Customer Support (retail and IT Tech Support) and as a Manager for Tech Support for a software company my driving philosophy is 'the customer is right (even when i think he may be wrong)' Its about how you react to your customer that is the difference between good support and bad.

A customer PAYS money to buy your software or purchase your speakers and then when presented with something that overwhelmingly does not work for the CUSTOMER - who is the one using your product - the right response is not silence or vague promises to make changes.

So Sonos - you decided to change something that was not broken - why? - but then you are ignoring your customers' overall negative reaction ... in what comes off as arrogance. (The glare of the very bright background is particularly concerning - why insist on a feature that HURTS your customers?)

Yes there was a beta - which only a small portion of your customers took part - for something as big as a redesign of an app (that is the MAIN method of running your product) you could introduce a public beta BUT KEEP THE CURRENT APP available.

Please release an official statement with a timeline of changes to reflect your customers increasing requests.
Southern Gal
Contributor I
October 15, 2017
This is in response to jacob_7 who asked me "who forced you to upgrade."

I would say Sonos forced me to upgrade, if I wanted to use my Sonos system my only option was to upgrade to new app before it would allow me to play anything with it. Same thing happened to my mother. I don't know what you call it, but I call it being forced, I was given no other choice if I wanted to continue to use my Sonos system.
Lyricist III
October 15, 2017
This is in response to jacob_7 who asked me "who forced you to upgrade."

I would say Sonos forced me to upgrade, if I wanted to use my Sonos system my only option was to upgrade to new app before it would allow me to play anything with it. Same thing happened to my mother. I don't know what you call it, but I call it being forced, I was given no other choice if I wanted to continue to use my Sonos system.


Same thing to me. I did not want it but couldn't do anything with it, only option was to upgrade. Did you guys get hacked by the Russians and forced this out early. Ow two days and no response to my help email.....