The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App

As for existing desktop apps, such as the Sonos app on Mac? Sonos told us they will be sunsetting later this year, “giving Sonos customers ample time to migrate to the web controller.”

Sonos Unveils New App and Web Controls; Desktop App Sunsetting

I use the Mini Controller centered on my Mac’s desktop wallpaper that I airplay mirror to my Apple TV, so as to emulate a Now Playing screen on my living room TV. Annoyed that the desktop app will be phased out later this year.

I hope the new Sonos web app has a Now Playing option that I can airplay mirror to emulate the same effect. Be nice if the mobile app in landscape mode emulated a full screen Now Playing display, so I could just airplay mirror that to my TV instead.

Having to wait until a Sonos TV box is released in the future and potentially paying hundreds of dollars for it to get the same effect, again seems somewhat frustrating.

PS. Actually that’s something that always confused me about the Sonos Beam speaker, as to why it shows a simple screensaver via HDMI when it could have shown a Now Playing screen instead, with the album cover and content information centered on the screen.

Besides being able to customise the look and feel more, can the new App do anything the current S2 can't? We've established it does less (and I anticipate really pissed off people who update and lose the fundamental search ability) but what does the new app allow users to do differently/better?  Removal of this really demonstrates Sonos really haven't listened to customers (many of whom will be longstanding) who have mentioned time and time again that it doesn't work in the new search and they stick to the old one.  Sonos’ solution is to completely remove that and not take the feedback on board and incorporate it into the new search.

The suggestion to users who will no longer be able to search their local media to install Plex may help a small minority who have a NAS able to set up and run it but is a wildly over the top solution to just search for something.

There are many users who have issues now with access that is resolved by removing and re-adding Shares and re-indexing and even that ability isn't in the new version upon release.

Incredible, really.

How about rolling everything back to S1? But wait, new Sonos products can’t do that?

To be honest, I was stunned that they’re going to remove local access to music files by phasing out the Sonos desktop app. I thought this was one of their primary differentiating features, so much so that I thought their upcoming Sonos TV box would incorporate something similar for your own recorded movie and tv shows as well. But I guess that is primarily the domain of Plex right now, so why reinvent the wheel when you can just outsource it to them.

All said and done though, that doesn’t leave much differentiation for the S2 app. In fact, like some others have said, I agree it’s now easier using the music platforms app with integrated connectivity (i.e. Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect) rather than using the Sonos app. Like when Spotify Connect gets lossless capability, I might switch back to Spotify and be happy never to use the Sonos app again.

PS. Same with Sonos Voice Assistant. If Alexa got upgraded with lossless support, I’d never use the Sonos Voice Assistant again.

That’s going to require Sonos to develop the concept of having user profiles to start with.  It feels like this is becoming more and more necessary.  Besides showing different favorites to different users, the web app requires a log in since it can be used off network, or perhaps on your guest network.  It would be ideal to be able to setup a guest user account that has no admin privileges for these situations.

I’ve always liked that idea too, but don’t know what sort of footprint on speaker hardware it would take to do it.  It would also only read only, require frequent refresh of the screen, and perhaps not useful to many since it’s on a hdmi channel you would likely rarely use.  Regardless, some way you can view what audio is streaming, and hopeful control via remote, on a TV would be a big plus.

Lossless isn't audibly pickable, and even the head of Apple Music said so when promoting lossless, so perhaps you are denying yourself for an invalid reason.

Right now I am listening to lossless from my NAS, and it sounds no different from the same track played on Spotify on an Echo Show wired to a Sonos Connect Amp. Actually, what I don’t get just now is album art that the Echo provides, so I am minus on a net basis.

While I am not impacted by the loss of searching within local libraries, it’s perfectly reasonable to be upset with it’s removal.  I don’t think customizing the app is really the only benefit it looks like Sonos is attempting to resolve complains about the UI overall with this change.  It’s yet to be seen witht this change.

Plex doesn’t require a NAS, it’s server(s) can run on any PC/mac and even some streaming boxes.  I have a server running on a PC and one on an nvidia shield.  It’s an option for a bit more than a small minority I think.  Still, it does not make sense to me to offer playback from local libraries without the ability to search the content.

Isn’t that the point of an upgraded app though?  People find using the streaming apps more user friendly, so is it no surprise that Sonos is attempting to make their app more userfriendly, with the added bonus that you can aggregate your streaming sources in one place, better grouping and volume control, etc?  Sure, you may still prefer your streaming app if that’s what you use the majority of time, but I use several different streaming services and prefer a single place to control them all.

I like the grouping features with SVC, and that my requests aren’t sent to the cloud.  I am happy to use SVC for music, and Alexa for smart home control and general , till there is a good replacement for Alexa.

If you’re a person who can’t tell the difference with lossless, that’s great. But please don’t assume everyone cannot hear the difference.

I can tell the difference. It’s noticeable on my Sonos Beam and especially on my headphones. The midrange is almost completely flat, with no body, when listening to lossy music versus lossless (and no I’m not talking about Dolby Atmos songs). I even signed up for Spotify a month ago, just to compare again, and I cancelled a day later.

Hi @Nollind 

We are not removing access to local files. At launch, the new app will not have the settings needed to manage your local library shares, but this will be added later. Any existing share(s) set up prior to the app update will still work.

I hope this helps.