'On this iPhone or iPad' No Longer Available

Thank you. I just tried and music from my phone plays to the Beams. But, all the Play One’s I bought  within the last 9 months do not even show up on the phone as an option. And those are all over the house. 

Right, they don’t have the processing power to accept the AirPlay 2 signal and process it, but you can certainly group them with your Beam in the Sonos controller,  and they would play your content. 

And problem solved. Not the most elegant but works.

Thank you.

At the risk of getting flamed for piling on, and folks stating’ “it’s not Sonos’ fault, it’s Apple’s”, the customer ire generated by this poorly-communicated change is 100% valid. I like many iOS device owners bought Sonos products over the years because they were way better than the alternatives available at the time. The brand promise (to me) came down to three key things: 1.) the quality of the sound, 2.) the Sonos app’s integration with music services and my own media and 3.) the simplicity of setup and operation. All these combined to make a superior solution to the vast array of Bluetooth and other wireless speakers out there. What I found over time was that I enjoyed listening to my own music more than streaming services. And I discovered I didn’t need to pay for what is, in effect, online radio when I own a fantastic and vast collection of music I really like. 

So, with this change, Sonos has taken away most of the brand promise that attracted me to their products in the first place. Yes the sound quality is still great, but the app is no longer usable with my music collection. Yes, I hear you now saying, “BUT you can use an NAS”, “BUT you can upload or use an online service”, “BUT, BUT, BUT….” However those ‘solutions’ all violate the last brand promise for me; the ease of setup and use. I carry my music in my pocket because I just want to listen from where ever I am, and Sonos just worked without hassle.

So I hear some of you saying, “so what, you have old hardware and should upgrade anyway”. Perhaps, but understand that I, like many customers, really don’t like being forced to dole out MORE money to a company when they suddenly turn my (expensive and fully paid) devices into non-functional bricks. My products no longer work like they did when I purchased them through no fault of my own and that’s the bottom line for me.

I think Sonos may be missing something here. There are probably thousands like me that have been long-time strong promoters of their products who are fully invested in iOS devices for music, and they have made the choice to abandon us. Worse, by not broadly announcing it, they are making  loyal customers chase around support forums to find out that this was not just a “bug” that could be fixed with an upgrade or simple setting switched on/off, but a conscious decision to remove functionality.

So now that there is much less value to me in the Sonos solution I own, I am kind of being forced to consider purchasing more current technology to listen the way I want. Therefore I’m going to go out and research both Sonos’ and their competitors’ products. As where before I would have bought another Sonos unit without hesitation, they now have a major strike before I even start looking - they have demonstrated they are willing to abandon legacy customers rather than do the hard work to develop new and creative technical solutions. 

I doubt this missive will change any minds of the forum participants, or the Sonos powers-that-be, but from a business viability perspective, you cannot take your long-term customers for granted. I was once a vocal promoter of Sonos, and now I am looking for alternatives. And will certainly tell anyone that asks me why. I spent many years in customer service management roles and one thing always rung true;  “It is way more costly to get new customers than it is to keep your current customers happy.”

To be fair to Sonos, they communicated via email and in App many times for months leading up to the change. 

@jhduckw.  That is at least an articulate and calm explanation of your dissatisfaction, and that is to be welcomed.  Where i think you are mistaken (and I respect your right to think that it is I who am mistaken), is in believing the alternatives to be anything other than simple.  There is a bit of up front hassle in setting up a NAS or a Google Play Music account, but thereafter these approaches are very straightforward.

I can still play from my phone, as it is an Android device.  I never do.  Playing from my Sonos Music Library, maintained on a NAS, could not possibly be simpler, and has other advantages over playing from a device.  I still sync any music I wish to take with me to my phone.  (Sonos was rightly claiming simple set up before it even added playing from the device as an option.)

We are all different, but I am not sure how you can complain of the complexity of something you haven’t tried.

You are right that you will not change my mind, and i don’t suppose I shall change yours.  I could try to debate whether you have been ‘betrayed’ but there is little point for either of us.  At least we have remained polite and i wish you well in whatever solution you adopt - even if that is to sell your Sonos.

Didn’t know that because somehow I didn’t get them… not at all sure why now. So I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they at least tried on that front.

But it still doesn’t change the fact that they made a conscious choice to not to develop functionally equivalent alternatives for customers with older products. And many of us will now consider products from competitors and not recommend Sonos anymore.

At the risk of inviting ridicule, I guess I don’t understand the issue with the Sonos app not being allowed access to the music library on iOS phones. I have music player apps (ie Ecoute) that work just fine with my locally stored music files. 

Without looking at Ecoute (I’m assuming this is a French app?), I’m willing to bet that the difference is that the Ecoute app is a player app, i.e. the music is being played on the iPhone. In the Sonos system (and Bluesound, who also had to discontinue this feature), the app is a remote control, that contacts the software running on the speaker, which is the actual player.

So in this case, Ecoute is playing directly on the phone, and grabbing the data inside the system. Sonos is playing on the speaker, so it’s reaching out to get the data from the phone, as if the phone was an NAS or HD. Apple changed it so that outside requests of this type could no longer stay connected, so while the Sonos would connect for a minute or two, as soon as the phone “locked” or “slept”, the connection would be cut.

That’s my interpretation of the way that this changed. I’m not a programmer, so I could be slightly wrong in some specifics, but I’m willing to bet that I’m correct in the generalities.

It’s in this thread already several times, but Sonos was aware of the issue in the Summer of ‘18, and spent a year trying to resolve the issue.  I think it’s pretty safe to assume they looked at fixing the issue and what alternative functionality was possible.  Like @Airgetlam stated already, it’s my understanding that the issue was tied to the fact that iOS would not allowed the Sonos speakers to access a stream of data off the iOS in order to play music consistently.  I don’t think an alternative could get around that roadblock.  Besides that, airplay already exists as does many other alternatives you’re already aware of.

Sonos tried hard, I believe, to accommodate the change in iOS that triggered the problem.  (FWIW I don’t think it was Apple’s ‘fault’ any more than it was Sonos’ ‘fault’ - just accidental collateral damage.)  If Sonos had succeeded, who is to say the next change in iOS wouldn’t have broken it again?

Given the simple alternatives available, it was a reasonable decision to stop wasting resource on a probably futile exercise over which Sonos had incomplete control, and devote that resource to improving the system in other ways.

I respect your right to see things differently, but I don’t think the facts support your extremely low opinion of the company.