Today we are introducing the most extensive app redesign ever, creating an unprecedented streaming experience that allows listeners to organize their favorite playlists, stations, albums and more from over 100 services on one customizable Home screen.
Home Screen
The new Home screen provides faster access to Sonos system controls with one easy swipe up, making tab to tab jumping a thing of the past. As a leader in sound experience that’s focused on creating a better way to listen, Sonos intentionally redesigned the app on a modern software platform for an easier, faster and better experience that can support more rapid innovation.
The reimagined app supports all existing S2 products and will be available globally through a software update for the S2 mobile app.
100+ streaming services, one Home screen
The redesigned Sonos app prioritizes a listening experience that’s human - allowing you to bring your true favorites front and center and giving you more control to make your streaming experience your own.
Get into your music (and off the app) faster: No need to tap between tabs —the new Home screen serves up all your favorite content and controls, all in one place. Quickly jump back into your recently played, browse libraries and recommendations from your preferred services, and fill your home with music and all the sounds you love.
Customize and curate: Enjoy unparalleled curation by designing your Home screen to reflect how you listen. Pin rows of your favorite content and services; then move, edit, or rearrange them to your liking.
Search every streaming library: Look for an artist, song, podcast, or audiobook across all your preferred streaming apps at once via an easy-to-use search bar that’s always available right on your Home screen.
Elevated system control: Swipe up from the bottom of your Home screen to seamlessly control your entire system and access a visual overview of what’s playing on each of your products, quickly group speakers, and dial in on the perfect volume from anywhere in the app.
Accessible from any modern web browser, a brand new web app allows listeners the same seamless system control as the mobile app.
The new Web App
The Web App will be available alongside the redesigned mobile app on May 7, 2024.
Want to find out more about the new Sonos App? Have a look at the Info Hub section of the community for a complete rundown of the new user interface.
Why every time I launch the app it asks me to turn on Bluetooth settings WHEN I DON’T WANT OR NEED BLUETOOTH TO BE ON since I only use all my eight (4 pairs) of Sonos speakers on WiFi! I could not find any setting to turn off the launch banner and IT IS ANNOYING!!! The prior version NEVER did this and PLEASE FIND A WAY TO STOP THIS.
Does the new design no longer have a snooze function and an alarm clock? If it's all about the design and not the function, I'll be looking for another system as soon as possible. It's cheeky not to point out the missing functions before the update. This makes the app completely unusable for me.
Your UX team should be embarrassed to have their names attached to such a massive misstep. Shame on you.
Most of us early adopters have been b**tf***ed by Sonos for over 10 years now. It’s only fair that this is now affecting everybody else. /s
They are the typical company that is convinced it knows better than their users. And that it can sh*t on their original supporters and userbase without consequences.
I sincerely hope the outrage leads to a similar effect we just have seen in the last ten days with Escape From Tarkov as well as with the Helldivers/Sony debacle, in both cases the consumers revolted and won over corporate greed.
I for one have deactivated Updates on my system and app and blocked the corresponding ports on my firewall.
Your UX team should be embarrassed to have their names attached to such a massive misstep. Shame on you.
There’s a lot of fire and brimstone on here, but I actually disagree. I think the underlying design is solid, with a few rough edges, but it is overall more attractive and easier to use.
Of course there are many elements missing. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that there are clues that this is due to the app being released too early / rushed, which of course is inexcusable, as opposed to those elements being actively removed altogether. I’m not defending it — I just think there is good work to build on here, the fundamentals are good — but the product is unfinished. I don’t know why it was released in this state, but as long as there is momentum in putting things right, I’m prepared to wait and see.
The new app does not feel “at home” on iOS at all. It does not follow the conventions of an iOS app with the navigation bar at the bottom (4 or 5 buttons to get to different sections). The fact that you have to click “Your System” at the top left to bring up your list of devices in the system from the bottom (rather than just touching on the pill at the bottom) is crazy. And on an iPad, so much white space rather than having your music on the left and the list of devices in your system along the right which would make for a Buch better user experience and more efficient use of space.
Please make the app feel like a native iOS app (even better if you actually make it using the native iOS UI elements rather than a “code once run everywhere” garbage that this appears to be). Sonos was once the “Apple” of music devices and this is a big step backwards for your Apple / Sonos customers that expect our apps to feel like they were built for our platform of choice (iOS/iPadOS).
Also the lack of alarms support and music queue management is unforgivable that this was allowed to be released before those were ready. I have 9 Sonos Amps (it's my whole-house audio solution) plus 2 Sonos Ports. I’m fully invested in Sonos for my music listening and am questioning if that was a good idea if the user experience is not at the forefront of the Sonos team.
The app is an absolute abortion, particularly if you have a large local library. I am constantly getting the error message “Something went wrong” when trying to access my library. The error message is absolutely correct, something has gone wrong for this bug ridden, feature reduced pile of excrement ever to be released.
Your UX team should be embarrassed to have their names attached to such a massive misstep. Shame on you.
I’m not defending it — I just think there is good work to build on here, the fundamentals are good — but the product is unfinished.
I think there are some severe fundamentals missed here. iOS apps should feel like iOS apps, iPadOS apps should take advantage of the larger screen and still feel like an iOS app. The new iPadOS app is just a scaled up iOS version - it doesn’t change the layout to take advantage of the larger screen.
It seems Sonos has fundamentally changed to a “code once run everywhere” mentality which is frankly terrible for user experience. Most users aren’t running Sonos on iOS and macOS and Windows and Android. It's usually one platform (and sometimes two) and the software should feel at home on the platform the user uses. Having it look exactly the same between OSes is good for Sonos, not the user.
"We felt now was the time to reimagine our app experience,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said in a press release. “After thorough development and testing, we are confident this redesigned app is easier, faster and better. It once again raises the bar for the home music listening experience, and sets up our ability to expand into new categories and experiences.”
I was looking forward to the boosting connectivity part:
“Sonos is ready to shake things up! On May 7th (subject to change, of course), they’re set to release a major revamp of their mobile app for both Android and iOS. Screenshots leaked to The Verge reveal a sleek new look and improved functionality, geared towards simplifying setup and boosting connectivity across their speaker lineup.”
But with no firmware update to the actual equipment how would that even be possible? Or is that something that is still in the pipeline?
"We felt now was the time to reimagine our app experience,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said in a press release. “After thorough development and testing, we are confident this redesigned app is easier, faster and better. It once again raises the bar for the home music listening experience, and sets up our ability to expand into new categories and experiences.”
1984 Doublespeak
The new app does not feel “at home” on iOS at all. It does not follow the conventions of an iOS app with the navigation bar at the bottom (4 or 5 buttons to get to different sections). The fact that you have to click “Your System” at the top left to bring up your list of devices in the system from the bottom (rather than just touching on the pill at the bottom) is crazy. And on an iPad, so much white space rather than having your music on the left and the list of devices in your system along the right which would make for a Buch better user experience and more efficient use of space.
Please make the app feel like a native iOS app (even better if you actually make it using the native iOS UI elements rather than a “code once run everywhere” garbage that this appears to be). Sonos was once the “Apple” of music devices and this is a big step backwards for your Apple / Sonos customers that expect our apps to feel like they were built for our platform of choice (iOS/iPadOS).
Also the lack of alarms support and music queue management is unforgivable that this was allowed to be released before those were ready. I have 9 Sonos Amps (it's my whole-house audio solution) plus 2 Sonos Ports. I’m fully invested in Sonos for my music listening and am questioning if that was a good idea if the user experience is not at the forefront of the Sonos team.
I envy you for still doubting. I am afraid I have now concluded my extensive Sonos equipment (and investment) just went down the drain ….
"We felt now was the time to reimagine our app experience,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said in a press release. “After thorough development and testing, we are confident this redesigned app is easier, faster and better. It once again raises the bar for the home music listening experience, and sets up our ability to expand into new categories and experiences.”
1984 Doublespeak
‘Thorough development and testing’… gosh …
Don’t do it - the new app sucks. It’s faster than the old one, but you can’t find anything. I really love NO ABILITY to search for a song, band, or album. That’s right, you need to scroll through your library to find something.
I don’t know who designed this, but I’m pretty sure they’ve never used it.
“If it ain't broken, keep fixing it until it is”
Wow - This is a total nightmare of an update. How embarrassing. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t leave the S2 app in full availability while they worked on this half-baked garbage for the next three or four months while they polish this turd.
They still have the old S1 app on the iOS App Store. Why not do that with S2 as well?
I have Roon and other music services but I always thought that Sonos was different. I thought they really understood the product niche. I was sadly mistaken.
I’m hoping that the future eBay, Craigslist, and OfferUp buyers of my connect, amp, port, play fives, play ones and play three are not reading these comment forums. They will be in for a treat with all of the feckless developers here!
Oh well. Had a good run. I can’t support this company. Fool me once…
Your UX team should be embarrassed to have their names attached to such a massive misstep. Shame on you.
There’s a lot of fire and brimstone on here, but I actually disagree. I think the underlying design is solid, with a few rough edges, but it is overall more attractive and easier to use.
Of course there are many elements missing. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that there are clues that this is due to the app being released too early / rushed, which of course is inexcusable, as opposed to those elements being actively removed altogether. I’m not defending it — I just think there is good work to build on here, the fundamentals are good — but the product is unfinished. I don’t know why it was released in this state, but as long as there is momentum in putting things right, I’m prepared to wait and see.
There’re no excuses. The app right now is useless for many loyal customers who payed for a system and functionality what is not there right now without the chance of a rollback to the old version.
There’re no excuses. The app right now is useless for many loyal customers who payed for a system and functionality what is not there right now without the chance of a rollback to the old version.
S2 users that have broken Connect Amps and Play 3 because of Sonos recklessness are able to solve their problem via a roll back to S1.
Can folks here with a broken UI/experience not do the same and roll back to S2, if not S1?
Sonos kit should be about music, not about faffing around with a new remote. The S1 remote remains perfectly adequate, and has been left undisturbed by this firestorm. But even so, I will not update my kit even to the next S1 update, I just don’t trust Sonos anymore.
Your UX team should be embarrassed to have their names attached to such a massive misstep. Shame on you.
I’m not defending it — I just think there is good work to build on here, the fundamentals are good — but the product is unfinished.
I think there are some severe fundamentals missed here. iOS apps should feel like iOS apps, iPadOS apps should take advantage of the larger screen and still feel like an iOS app. The new iPadOS app is just a scaled up iOS version - it doesn’t change the layout to take advantage of the larger screen.
It seems Sonos has fundamentally changed to a “code once run everywhere” mentality which is frankly terrible for user experience. Most users aren’t running Sonos on iOS and macOS and Windows and Android. It's usually one platform (and sometimes two) and the software should feel at home on the platform the user uses. Having it look exactly the same between OSes is good for Sonos, not the user.
You’re simply running away with yourself here. Yes the app is unfinished. Yes I am having issues with it too. No, there are no excuses.
but don’t embellish your arguments with untruths. The IPad version has always been a poor version of the Sonos app with acres of unused space — in that regard it has never been optimised for tablet devices. And yes the new version does of course ‘feel’ like an IOS device, and every developer uses cross-platform development tools — both platforms (Iphone and Android) use the same instruction set after all afterl; Sonos is no different from any other developer out there in this regard. There is very little in the way of design language for IOS anyway, and in terms of how it ‘feels’, it ‘feels’ like any other app I have on my phone. I k ow I’m swimming against the tide here but for goodness just pause and breathe, and stick to the facts.
There’re no excuses. The app right now is useless for many loyal customers who payed for a system and functionality what is not there right now without the chance of a rollback to the old version.
S2 users that have broken Connect Amps and Play 3 because of Sonos recklessness are able to solve their problem via a roll back to S1.
Can folks here with a broken UI/experience not do that same and roll back to S2, if not S1?
Sonos kit should be about music, not about faffing around with a new remote. The S1 remote remains perfectly adequate, and has been left undisturbed by this firestorm. But even so, I will not update my kit even to the next S1 update, I just don’t trust Sonos anymore.
I think only android users can rollback by sideloading 16.1 from apk mirror.
IOS users are stuffed, as far as I know.
This is a hard lesson to switch off anything 'automatic'.
I think only android users can rollback by sideloading 16.1 from apk mirror.
IOS users are stuffed, as far as I know.
iOS users of S2 can roll back to S1 today via a Sonos provided tutorial; but those that have moved to this brave new world of Sonos cannot go back to either S2 or S1?
Why would anyone want to stay on this corporate greed fuelled bandwagon? I opted out in 2020 and my user experience of music play via Sonos has been serene since then, using S1, so I am always surprised at people who will dance to the Sonos music like snakes before a snake charmer, and waste time and energy learning how to use the latest Sonos remote every season or so. For what?!
What an update, will not search my local NAS as it did previously, seems most control is lost now, the app is clunky and designed from an IT perspective and not an end user one
looks nice though that is about it, I have lost all my saved playlists based on my local files, can’t find them and the manage aspect is poor to say the least
Something that worked truly messed up …..why
Wolfy
The reason the app had to come out yesterday, no matter how buggy, is quite simple.
What an update, will not search my local NAS as it did previously, seems most control is lost now, the app is clunky and designed from an IT perspective and not an end user one
looks nice though that is about it, I have lost all my saved playlists based on my local files, can’t find them and the manage aspect is poor to say the least
Something that worked truly messed up …..why
Wolfy
Why not? Nobody cares, anyway
On the off chance that any Sonos employees are reading this thread, one of the very important take-aways here is that the vast majority of these posts are not “I don’t like the new color scheme or layout,” but rather core functionality that (a) works badly, (b) is broken, or (c) is flat-out missing.
“Hello Sonos, we users would like a word”
In other words, this thread is invaluable feedback and ought to be acknowledged as such.
