If Apple made the move that disabled "on this phone" access, then Sonos should let their consumers know that it was not their fault. And tell us about such a dramatic change in the App itself, not on a message board! How Lame - So many customers are wasting their time trying to figure out WTH happened. Shame on Sonos for not being forthright and transparent.
Actually there was a message appearing once a day, making customers aware of the imminent removal of the feature.
There is no free option that mirrors the ease of buying a new song / album from itunes on your iphone / ipadand being able to play it immediately to your Play:1.
Things move on but a) other brands are seemingly still able to still offer this functionality b) why disable it even if its not working 100% as expected - let users decide if they want to keep using it.
Jeez, this is getting so boring.
Amazing how many people bought such a versatile piece of kit with the ‘sole / only’ purpose of doing just one and only one thing it. No other things, like ever. No, just that one thing.
Glad when this is all over.
Andrew
Its also boring that people who dont use that one function keep chiming in. If it doesnt affect you then why are you bothering to reply on threads like this?
Its also boring that people who dont use that one function keep chiming in. If it doesnt affect you then why are you bothering to reply on threads like this?
Perhaps it’s so that those that still haven’t seen the announcement or the options available to them aren’t left wondering why their system “isn’t working”?
Its also boring that people who dont use that one function keep chiming in. If it doesnt affect you then why are you bothering to reply on threads like this?Perhaps it’s so that those that still haven’t seen the announcement or the options available to them aren’t left wondering why their system “isn’t working”?
This is the annoucement post...
Best Buy shuts down Insigina Connect app, rendering most of its smart devices useless.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/6/20853671/best-buy-connect-insignia-smart-plug-wifi-freezer-mobile-app-shutdown-november-6
Lowe's shut down its Iris smart home platform earlier this year, rendering most of its smart devices useless.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/2/18208407/lowes-iris-smart-home-platform-shutting-down-march-2019
Unlike Sonos, neither of these was caused by changes by Apple to IOS...
Seems the only answer to the problem given here is to use android devices instead of apple ios. Seems like an incredibly bad startegy for lack of a technical solution from sonos. I now have 2 amps that make nice boat anchors , guess Ill sell them to an android user and move to a different system .
what incredibly poor customer service ....ohh seems the song skipping issue wasnt wifi interference after all.....
I have a Playbar, 3 Sonos One (gen 1) and 2 Play 5 (Gen 1). This update seems to mean I can only play my favourite podcasts & stream music from my phone if I attach a wire and buy a new piece of kit. Correct me if I am wrong but none of my devices are compatible without airplay2.
4 years after buying I just lost a load of functionality.
Sonos, you just went from my favourite to most annoying piece of kit. I have spent the last few years evangelising about you to my friends. Unless this is corrected I shall spend the next warning people not to buy your equipment.
I note a post above saying that future buyers should not be advised against buying Sonos, they should “just buy Airplay2 capable devices.” I shall not be advising them that way, partly because I am highly annoyed but mainly because I perceive it to be bad advice: when Apple upgrade airplay2 they’re likely to be as frustrated as I am.
Sonos, if you are reading this, please invest time ensuring old kit can have a software upgrade to be Airplay2 compatible, or give a very detailed explanation as to why it is impossible for you to do, or provide me with the kit free of charge.
Technology moves on, we all get this. But find a way to return the functionality of my perfectly good speakers or I shall never buy another Sonos product.
I also have a Bose portable speaker and it is outstanding.
Good point Dock, forgot to mention the fact that Sonos clearly lied when I repeatedly sent them my diagnostic information. They clearly knew exactly what was causing the skipping but kept giving me BS....and correct it by removing my most important functionality.
I am am not giving up here.
Seems the only answer to the problem given here is to use android devices instead of apple ios. Seems like an incredibly bad startegy for lack of a technical solution from sonos. I now have 2 amps that make nice boat anchors , guess Ill sell them to an android user and move to a different system .
what incredibly poor customer service ....ohh seems the song skipping issue wasnt wifi interference after all.....
@JonnyA Your Sonos One’s are Airplay capable. When grouped with one of your other Sonos devices you van use Airplay on those devices too. You problem is not as big as you think it is......
@Dock Your Connect:Amps (Sonos also has an “Amp” that is Airplay capable) are indeed not Airplay capable, so you reallye have lost functionality, so I can understand you’re annoyed. Would the free Google Music option or buying a 99 dollar Ikea Symfonisk (that is Airplay capable and can be grouped with your Connect:Amps) not be a solution for you?
Moving away from Sonos - it is nothing like it was. I loved the combination of having all my music available from my harddrive but I also loved being able to play my favorite playlists from my iPhone and the newest music I bought (on my phone). That's no longer possible and the Sonos App has gotten worse and worse in its design. You started out with something fantastic and then degraded it year over year. In ten years time you no longer in the market. At least I know for sure that in ten years time I have no Sonos devices left in my house. (currently 8...)
I guess I don't understand how it's not possible. All you have to do is sync your phone with your iTunes on your hard drive, something I do on a daily basis. Any music I purchased on my phone since the last sync is copied over to the hard drive, and is now available to play on the Sonos.
I don't have any response to your UI issues. UI is indeed a personal thing. While it's taken a bit for me to get used to this new one, I don't find it any more challenging to use than any of the older ones, it's just a muscle memory adjustment. All the functionality has remained, it's just in slightly different places. But, as I say, this is all personal opinion. My view on it is not better, or worse than yours. It's just different.
However, the fortunate thing is that Sonos continues to hold great value in the sales market, so if you do take the decision to get rid of yours, you'll likely get a significant amount of your investment back.
However, in my occasional looks at the marketplace, I've not found anything as good as Sonos out there. There are some products that do a few things extremely well, for sure, but none of them match up to what I get out of my Sonos system (18 speakers at last count).
But that's the conundrum we need to face with softare driven devices, such as the Sonos computer/speakers that Sonos makes. They'll always have a new UI person who wants to make their mark, and so we'll see slight modifications to the controller app. And new features will continue to be added, so some areas will get more data put into them, which might require UI changes as well.
Things were simpler back when you bought a receiver and a pair of speakers. No firmware updates, no changes.....but no new features. It's what we pay for when we talk about progress.
I am thankful that Sonos provides this forum for us to complain in, and give them suggestions. I've not seen anything like it in many other areas of my technological life.
Best of luck, whichever way you choose to go. It's a big decision.
Another option to play music store on an iPhone might be a DLNA server / controller App. I was just looking through an old (Android) tablet and came across a DLNA server, gave it a quick whirl and it will still happily request that a Sonos device renders (plays) music stored on the Tablet, I tried the same using Windows media player and that will also request a Sonos device to play the specified music. I do not have an IOS device so cannot confirm the same is true for that but there are a number of DLNA apps sitting in the Appel Store so it might well be possible.
Here is an idea. Why doesn't Sonos set up a 'Streaming Service' which only offers the ablity to play own content which is free to use and can be added via the app that way? This way customers can play their music from their own device easier. Problem solved
Here is an idea. Why doesn't Sonos set up a 'Streaming Service' which is free to use for its customers with their device in order that they can play their music from their own device easier?
Why should they, when Google Play Music already does it?
Here is an idea. Why doesn't Sonos set up a 'Streaming Service' which is free to use for its customers with their device in order that they can play their music from their own device easier? Problem Solved
Why should they, when Google Play Music already does it?
1) Because Sonos have a duty of care to it's customers. 2) People do not like giving Google their data as it is sold on to the other lot of big corp who want to sell you stuff. 3) Because with Google Play you still have to use a middle manager to upload your content from IOS to Goole Play. If you regularly buy music then this has to be repeated time and time again. How laborious. 4) Because you could simply log onto to the Sonos streaming using the same log on as you use for this site....
You want any more?
Here is an idea. Why doesn't Sonos set up a 'Streaming Service' which is free to use for its customers with their device in order that they can play their music from their own device easier? Problem SolvedWhy should they, when Google Play Music already does it?1) Because Sonos have a duty of care to it's customers. 2) People do not like giving Google their data as it is sold on to the other lot of big corp who want to sell you stuff. 3) Because with Google Play you still have to use a middle manager to upload your content from IOS to Goole Play. If you regularly buy music then this has to be repeated time and time again. How laborious. 4) Because you could simply log onto to the Sonos streaming using the same log on as you use for this site....
You want any more?
Well, one single, sensible and valid reason would be good.
Here is an idea. Why doesn't Sonos set up a 'Streaming Service' which is free to use for its customers with their device in order that they can play their music from their own device easier? Problem SolvedWhy should they, when Google Play Music already does it?1) Because Sonos have a duty of care to it's customers. 2) People do not like giving Google their data as it is sold on to the other lot of big corp who want to sell you stuff. 3) Because with Google Play you still have to use a middle manager to upload your content from IOS to Goole Play. If you regularly buy music then this has to be repeated time and time again. How laborious. 4) Because you could simply log onto to the Sonos streaming using the same log on as you use for this site....
You want any more?Well, one single, sensible and valid reason would be good.
You got four already
1) Duty of care doesn't mean provide yet another option when there are plenty of practical ones already. Sonos is a speaker manufacturer.
2) Privacy can be protected if you want. Sonos aren't responsible for paranoia
3) Life can be tough
4) Ditto. But I think you can stay logged into GPM anyway
No reasonable person could think there was a snowball's chance in Hell of Sonos being distracted by this sort of development for just a trivial gain.
1) Duty of care doesn't mean provide yet another option when there are plenty of practical ones already. Sonos is a speaker manufacturer.
2) Privacy can be protected if you want. Sonos aren't responsible for paranoia -
3) Life can be tough.
4) Ditto. But I think you can stay logged into GPM anyway
R1) Yes. They are a speaker manufacturer who sold devices to Apple Customers who said you could play content from your device straight to the speaker. Now this is not possible they need to remedy this. The easiest way would be for them to develop my idea.
R2) It is not paranoia. Read up on it. Privacy through Google and Amazon and Facebook is never safe. There have been several data breaches last year alone.
R3) Yes life is tough. But "tech" shouldn't be. You don't buy an apple iphone because it is difficult to use! That would be a one way ticket to administration
R4) It isn't about staying logged in... it is about only having to share your data with Sonos and not adding another third party into the mix.
No reasonable person could think there was a snowball's chance in Hell of Sonos being distracted by this sort of development for just a trivial gain.
You think keeping customers happy.... the millions that own an apple device "trivial?"... I do hope that you do not have a customer base. It's unlikely you do with that mentality.
You think keeping customers happy.... the millions that own an apple device "trivial?"... I do hope that you do not have a customer base. It's unlikely you do with that mentality.
Millions? As has been discussed, streaming of local libraries is only 7% of the usage on Sonos. Approximately 50% of those are iOS users. What portion of those are "On this iDevice" users is unknown, but given that the original use case for Sonos was streaming from a PC/Mac/NAS, it is most certainly less than 100%.
As to a free streaming platform, Sonos is a small company, and maintaining a free streaming platform for such a small benefit would bankrupt them. After all, that's why Google sells your data. Besides, Sonos already offers a solution, the same solution they had long before "On this iDevice" existed. Set up a file share on a PC/Mac or NAS (which can be as inexpensive as a < $20 thumb drive connected to your router).
You think keeping customers happy.... the millions that own an apple device "trivial?"... I do hope that you do not have a customer base. It's unlikely you do with that mentality.
Millions? As has been discussed, streaming of local libraries is only 7% of the usage on Sonos. Approximately 50% of those are iOS users. What portion of those are "On this iDevice" users is unknown, but given that the original use case for Sonos was streaming from a PC/Mac/NAS, it is most certainly less than 100%.
As to a free streaming platform, Sonos is a small company, and maintaining a free streaming platform for such a small benefit would bankrupt them. After all, that's why Google sells your data. Besides, Sonos already offers a solution, the same solution they had long before "On this iDevice" existed. Set up a file share on a PC/Mac or NAS (which can be as inexpensive as a < $20 thumb drive connected to your router).
Just because the stats have been discussed it does not mean it is fact. I would like to see where this data has come from. Links please? (to the actual data and not someone saying exactly what you said above).
It doesn't have to be a streaming service. Note the 'quotation marks' hinting at it being in name only. As I said after my initial post the service could be set up in a way that allows you to add 'your own content only' by adding as a service on the app. This way there is only a small development cost and would bypass the apple changes.
You are assuming everyone has a computer or NAS or wants to have to go through a drawn out process to sync their music library everytime they purchase new music on their device. People want convenience. Especially when they have been sold this.
Sonos has stated the 7% figure. Believe them or not, I don't care.
As to not going through the "a drawn out process to sync their music library everytime (sic) they purchase new music on their device", wouldn't the same process be required with a Sonos supplied 'streaming solution'? Doesn't that also fail your convenience requirement?
