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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

Prodigy II
November 4, 2017
Another thing I noticed is that the Windows app needs an update to match the android and iOS apps in terms of My Sonos. I added a podcast on my phone and it doesn't appear anywhere in the windows app. So my feedback now would be in no particular order

1 a dark mode.
2 the menu bar at the bottom to be persistent when viewing now playing
3 an update for windows to give it My Sonos.
"I saw the Stooges and the MC5"
Guy_19
Enthusiast II
November 4, 2017
Another thing I noticed is that the Windows app needs an update to match the android and iOS apps in terms of My Sonos. I added a podcast on my phone and it doesn't appear anywhere in the windows app. So my feedback now would be in no particular order

1 a dark mode.
2 the menu bar at the bottom to be persistent when viewing now playing
3 an update for windows to give it My Sonos.

Please spare us that. What the iOS and Android apps need is something that works easily and with a nice dark background - like the Windows app 🙂
7 rooms: One SL Stereo Pair, One SL x 2, Move, Play:5 Gen2 & Port into Arcam AVR with AE floorstanders, Port into Denon microsystem.
Lyricist I
November 4, 2017
I'm sorry, but my wife and friends all HATE the new app! It's not intuitive at all and it takes forever to figure out how to do things that were once simple. Don't complicate my music!
Prodigy II
November 4, 2017
Another thing I noticed is that the Windows app needs an update to match the android and iOS apps in terms of My Sonos. I added a podcast on my phone and it doesn't appear anywhere in the windows app. So my feedback now would be in no particular order

1 a dark mode.
2 the menu bar at the bottom to be persistent when viewing now playing
3 an update for windows to give it My Sonos.

Please spare us that. What the iOS and Android apps need is something that works easily and with a nice dark background - like the Windows app :)


I have no issues with using the app, I've only been using Sonos for about 6 months but it seems fine to me otherwise.
"I saw the Stooges and the MC5"
Prodigy II
November 5, 2017
Another thing to add. I reordered my favourite albums under My Sonos today. It's nice to be able to re-order the categories so easily. It would be good to be able to do the same with my favourite albums without having to edit the names. I suspect some people would have a lot more than I do.
"I saw the Stooges and the MC5"
November 5, 2017
Given that the first tap only shows eight selections of favourites, consider making playlists of favourite albums by type/genre and adding these playlists to Sonos favourites. You would get a lot more content accessed by the first tap this way.
November 5, 2017
[quote=Guy_19]Another thing I noticed is that the Windows app needs an update
Please spare us that.

Someone could say that about the Mac app as well, and I would say the same thing: let there be some comfortable constants in a world with few such.
Prodigy II
November 5, 2017
[quote=Kumar]Another thing I noticed is that the Windows app needs an update
Please spare us that.

Someone could say that about the Mac app as well, and I would say the same thing: let there be some comfortable constants in a world with few such.


I don't know. I have a podcast in My Sonos that I can't seem to access in Windows. I would be happy to have the Windows app favourites updated to My Sonos though I suspect it won't happen until other stuff gets done of course.

Having said I don't have much problem with the new apps for the most part.
"I saw the Stooges and the MC5"
Enthusiast II
November 5, 2017
I absolutely loath the new app. Beyond belief backwards step.I will never want Voice activation - it should be a separate product.
"Alexa, show me album art"
"Alexa, I want to browse all my Zep albums to remind me what I own"
"Alexa, I always pronounce StormZ as "that Grimey bozoid", can you cope with that?"
Pointless wast of time.
Guy_19
Enthusiast II
November 6, 2017
I absolutely loath the new app. Beyond belief backwards step.I will never want Voice activation - it should be a separate product.
"Alexa, show me album art"
"Alexa, I want to browse all my Zep albums to remind me what I own"
"Alexa, I always pronounce StormZ as "that Grimey bozoid", can you cope with that?"
Pointless wast of time.

I agree that the app is FUBAR, - but to clarify, it couldn't remind you which Zep albums you own, because Alexa can't see your Music Library - she/it only knows about Apple Music at the moment (and Spotify soon), so all my tracks on NAS and the full extent of Deezer premium streaming service are a mystery to her/it.
7 rooms: One SL Stereo Pair, One SL x 2, Move, Play:5 Gen2 & Port into Arcam AVR with AE floorstanders, Port into Denon microsystem.