Update on the Sonos App from Patrick Spence

It certainly manages to look even worse without internet access 😂

The signed out message is nothing to do with no internet, it is because I have signed my Sonos account out, so certain things won’t work or be useable.

This is a far worse look than the old app when there was no internet or you sign out of your Sonos account. Someone needs to talk to the developers about what graceful degradation is and why they should use it. Without internet access those sections should show a message regarding internet being unavailable, similar idea to the logged out message, and even better make them collapsible.

There’s no reason they couldn’t be collapsible anyway, so people could hide the row details if they aren’t interested. Below I don’t care about recent sources, so have it collapsed. While the sources at the bottom can’t be collapsed, I can fully edit and reorder them to hide anything I don’t want if I could be bothered.
 

The iOS app more often than not says “No Music - Queue is Empty”… but I know that there IS music (I can hear it) and the Queue is NOT empty.  This new app was released back in May… surely it should be fixed by now even if there were some issues at the start???  The whole system is pretty much unusable like this.  Not good enough, Sonos!

Are you continuing to update the app from the App Store, and trying Settings - Manage - System Updates - Check for Updates, to ensure the ongoing fixes are being implemented on your device and speakers?

The *one* thing I do like about the new app is you can edit to a degree the home page, so I have my local music library along with recently played at the top. I thought I’d deleted some items, but now I’m not sure as there’s no add option, and another feature of the new app seems to be when you edit your home page on one device, it gets picked up on them all. I’m not sure I want that necessarily as you might have different preferences for phone/tablet depending on available screen estate. 

However as you point out, unless you’re ‘connected’ and/or signed in, it’s not a great look. The recently played needs to include local stuff too, at least if you’re on the local network. Even if you are signed in, unless all your listening comes from streaming, it’s a pretty bland disjointed looking thing. 

The whole thing just smacks of being done by people with little or no knowledge of the previous code and all the little bits that were in there to make life easier. 

I get that swiping these days is in fashion, but after so many swipes I don’t know if I’m going to get music or a shag. (Maybe the developers hoped if they swiped a Taylor Swift cover enough their dreams would come true...)

The swiping does need some work. It seems to sensitive in the vertical in some screens so requires a very horizontal swipe to go back, so it doesn’t just bounces the inner contents box up and down.

For the first time today in my past 24 hours of using it, it actually went back from the “your system manage” to the “system settings” screen. In most screens the same swipe that causes the system manage to bounce actually goes back.

The most jarring aspect of the swiping so far for me is that unlike every other app I use, swiping back doesn’t eventually get me back to the screen I started from. It doesn’t matter whether they want to display the content of services, settings as badly animated pop-up cards, enough back swipes or a very small down swipe at the top card should always get back to the main screen.

I have always primarily held my tablet like a book, in the bottom half. With the size of tablet screens it is the most comfortable position while having easy access to the keyboard and bottom app tray without having to constantly reposition my hands. I have long fingers, but not long enough I can reach the top corners of my screen. Having to reposition my hands to click on the “< Sonos” in the top left is jarring, unnatural and requires unneeded repositioning of my hands for something so commonly needed when navigating. The long down swipe to actually close rather than bounce content requires excessive thumb movement so looks like it doesn’t actually work.

For S1, there is no difference in how things look when the net isn’t there and local library is in use. For the new app does the UI look/feel markedly different with/without the net? That is what I understand from the above posts. 

Brave new world, in that case:-).

I suppose that for the large majority that uses streaming services, this does not matter because the net has to be there for music to play.

Yes @Kumar , with the new app when there is no Internet you get lots of grey placeholder icons so a very odd looking main screen. It’s an unusual design choice for sure 😂

No way in hell I am ever buying anything else from Sonos again. New app is broken on so many levels that it would never go through testing phase in any half decent company. Even the handling of the situation was  pathetic ,shows complete disregard of the customers and really poor leadership. CEO should immediately step down and  re-evaluate his career choices. Destroying second strong brand (Blackberry,Sonos) can't be a coincidence...

Apps were published in May. We are now mid August and it is still the same big mess.

I agree with Houmer: 

New app is broken on so many levels that it would never go through testing phase in any half decent company. Even the handling of the situation was  pathetic ,shows complete disregard of the customers and really poor leadership.

I have been working in the computer world for over 35 years but NEVER seen a so bad release of a new software version!!!!

No beta testing in the world would have released this lousy version!!!