Update on the Sonos App from Patrick Spence

jgatie says: You really think “restoring edit mode for Playlists and the Queue” actually means something besides being able to edit Playlists and the Queue as you could before?  That really stretches the bounds of belief.  

I honestly do not know what it means. As far as I am aware — and perhaps I’m misinformed or using the wrong terminology — there are prepackaged or user-generated ‘playlists’ that some Sonos users pull down from streaming services; there are ‘playlists’ that some users seem to create and save on local networks/servers; and there are ‘Sonos playlists’ that users like me created and saved, and subsequently edited and re-saved in the Sonos app.

I’ve seen others indicate the first two categories of ‘playlists’ are already somewhat functional in the latest versions of the Sonos app. The third category — ‘Sonos playlists’ — is not functional at all, other than via a 3rd party app, and then in a very limited way.

Berate me if you wish. But I still do not see a plain, unadorned, direct statement that ‘Sonos playlists’ are going to be restored and will function essentially as they did prior to May 7. For that matter, ‘restoring edit mode for Playlists’ — when Sonos playlists do not display and cannot be accessed at all in the app as it exists today — doesn’t address my question at all.

So my question stands: are ‘Sonos playlists’ coming back or not? Pretty simple question. Not sure why it can’t be answered, even if jgatie in his infinite wisdom seems to think it’s a stupid question.

The full ability to edit / save playlists is the main update I’ve been waiting for. I use those functions on a daily basis. Sonos keeps moving the goal post on this one. First it was July, then August, now not until September or October. The ability to edit and save lists is such a basic function of any music service, that I don’t understand why this hasn’t been given more priority. 
 

Yes, I’m stuck doing this too, on four devices. Frustrating to think it may still be several months before I can use “Update All” again.

I think you are being deliberately obtuse.   The only playlists able to be “edited” in the Sonos app were Sonos Playlists (as opposed to playlists in the individual services or Imported Playlists).  Also, seeing as Sonos Playlists were created/saved from the queue, it would stand to reason that “restoring edit mode for Playlists and the Queue” would mean they are restoring the ability to “edit” (i.e. create, save, change, delete, etc.) both the queue and playlists.  

If I’m wrong, I’ll sincerely apologize, but it makes no sense to me any other way. 

For me what's missing from the letter is any admission that they misjudged how minimal a product their customers would willingly accept. Even if the release of additional features had gone according to plan, it would still have left customers with a seriously degraded ability to use their Sonos speakers for several months.

Do you honestly think developers are making the decisions?   As already stated, management decided to rebuild the app from scratch essentially. Management set the deadlines and priorities. 

This is pretty much like building a new home.  When you find out that the kitchen sink isn’t working in the new home, does it makes sense to claim that they removed the kitchen sink because the sink in your old home worked?  I get that the old house and new house are the same house as far as you may care, but they just are not the same. It may be semantics to some, but if someone reading this doesn’t know that the application was actually rebuilt from scratch, it paints a completely different picture.

To be clear, putting out the code before it’s ready is a huge problem, but is not the same thing as deliberately removing features.

far too little too late.

add to the list, the latest app update drains battery on IOS. only way to absolve this issue, is fully close out the app.

I love that it’s your personal challenge to get the Patrick Spence letter thread closed to comments by page 3! 😁

Nothing about easing the possibility to downgrade to earlier working versions (app & controller).

I'm beginning to think SONOS uses us as unpaid QA personnel…

This is quite literally worth about as much as the pixels it’s written in.  You could *today* re-release 16.2 as a branch until your terrible app is fixed, but you didn’t. And you won’t.

Why?

Ego. That’s it. That’s the only reason you are stringing this obscenity along. The furor and malcontent would cease overnight if you put 16.2 on the app stores while you clean up your mess.

You have a larger problem though. Even if the technical challenges vanished this very instant, you still have an app that was designed so terribly, that the plebes and boomers (The non-technical users that I and many others convinced to get into Sonos) will still HATE trying to listen to music.

As my own boomer mother said, “Trying to make music work on this thing makes me dizzy and ill because nothing makes sense.”

I guess you all will probably assume that the morale will improve though, if you just keep up the beatings, and pretend there aren’t brand-destroying conflagrations all over the globe.

So the eMail I received from Sonos today that had no subject line and no content other than Patrick Spence's signature was meant to reassure me that the technical issues are being sorted under his leadership...you couldn't make it up !