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Ryan S
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

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    John B
    November 7, 2017
    @John B. Definitely, having the navigation bar permanently would help. I also tend to think that the red menu is misleading. It would be easy to merge the two interface, or to support all features in both places. For instance: clicking on the name in the red menu would change the display of the room, keeping the checkbox for grouping. Currently, I see also a bug in the fact that you cannot "move" music using this menu (actually it doesn't work for me, it just shuts down music).
    And then we have the My Sonos which seems just a matter of icon size to me. It could become a very convenient interface just as the "App Panel" should they lower the size of the icons and adopt a convenient 4 x 4 or 4 x 5 grid.    I've abandoned the red room menu. If the nav bar were visible all the time it would seem pointless to me. I seem to be one of the few who believe this is a few tweaks away from being a really good app. Sonos have said that they are working on a number of aspects in light of constructive feedback like yours (unlike much of the 'this is a pile of garbage' criticism there has been).
    FlorentBL
    Contributor III
    November 7, 2017
    Honestly, it is not the ergonomic that bothers me the most. This can be fixed rapidly. What's more a concern to me is instability. See https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/8-1-update-completely-unstable-and-broken-6793707. I used to have a rock solid infrastructure, and I don't know why, but it is now becoming a nightmare. I spent the last four days investigating, but I must miss something, or there is really some nasty bug or incompatibility somewhere.
    Eric_1
    Contributor I
    November 7, 2017
    Well done on the new app. Really like it. Still can't use it without my reading glasses, but that's ok! Looking good, boys!
    You have got to be kidding ... you must work for Sonos. Are you one of their developers....... This new app is a complete disaster.
      Airgetlam
      Airgetlam
      November 7, 2017
      So, what your saying is that everyone who disagrees with your viewpoint must work for Sonos? I'm pretty sure that the company requires all employees to have "SONOS" by their accounts. If you look at Ryan S, or Keith N, you'll see these indications.

      I'm fairly comfortable in saying none of the folks who you've suggested are Sonos employees are that. Just other users who have a different opinion than yours.
      Bruce
        John B
        November 7, 2017
        Honestly, it is not the ergonomic that bothers me the most. This can be fixed rapidly. What's more a concern to me is instability. See https://en.community.sonos.com/troubleshooting-228999/8-1-update-completely-unstable-and-broken-6793707. I used to have a rock solid infrastructure, and I don't know why, but it is now becoming a nightmare. I spent the last four days investigating, but I must miss something, or there is really some nasty bug or incompatibility somewhere.Sorry but you really are mistaken here. Every single update I have seen - whether it involves a controller or not - leads to a handful of 'update broke my Sonos system' posts. If there were a genuine bug in the update there would be hundreds of posts about it. In fact I know of only one significant bug in an update and that did lead to hundreds of posts in a couple of days. Sometimes the rebooting of units causes a problem with IP addresses. And with hundreds of thousands of systems out there a few go wrong any day. Most days this leads to 'my system has stopped working' posts. When there has been an update, it's 'update broke my system'. Finally, the app is just a controller, and blaming it for system instability is like blaming your TV remote control because your TV has gone wrong.

        Have you been investigating alone or with Sonos Support? Your problem is clearly real but the solution is going to be specific to your system, e.g. a faulty unit, some sort of network problem.
          Kumar
          November 7, 2017
          Finally, the app is just a controller, and blaming it for system instability is like blaming your TV remote control because your TV has gone wrong.
          That should have been said somewhere a long time ago, and I envy you for being the first to, particularly the TV remote analogy. I shall copy it in future when I have the energy to do so, though.
          John B
          November 7, 2017
          Finally, the app is just a controller, and blaming it for system instability is like blaming your TV remote control because your TV has gone wrong.
          That should have been said somewhere a long time ago, and I envy you for being the first to, particularly the TV remote analogy. I shall copy it in future when I have the energy to do so, though.          Don't think it is my original, but still appropriate.
          Kumar
          November 7, 2017
          On another thread on the Sonos sound quality subject I was told to get my ears checked. Since I am quite ok with the new white app background, I can now anticipate the response to that statement.
          FlorentBL
          Contributor III
          November 7, 2017
          I never said the system was instable, only the wifi. I believe there is something weird between the way the most recent Android handle wifi, and the Sonos controller. This could explain some of the posts I see here and there. Regarding Sonos support, I'm in touch through French community. But I wanted to sort out the WiFi stuff before going to them. We'll see what they find.
          Kumar
          November 7, 2017
          I believe there is something weird between the way the most recent Android handle wifi, and the Sonos controller.
          No trouble in a 5 zone Mac + Android device controlled set up in my home after 8, 8.1, or 8.1.1, so the high probability is an issue with your install. See my reply to your post in your thread on the subject - the English one.
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