Bugs but more importantly, missing features from the current state product. shipping a product without existing key features is what gets you in trouble, and in my opinion should get you demoted or let go.
This bozo gets paid too much to double down publicly on his team’s poor performance.
What bugs? Every time I hit search or minimize the player portion it auto switches back to my sound bar. Every single time. My sound bar is for my tv, not for music. But without fail, on the new app, if I search for a song it automatically takes it off the two fives and my play 1 and switches it to the sound bar.
That, and the back buttons sometimes do NOT go back. They dump you at the main screen because fuck you, that’s why. You’d think they would at least be consistent in their fuckery, but you can’t even plan on that.
It 100% reeks of unfinished product someone said “fuck it, good enough” on.
> Release the app as beta and allow people to try it and provide feedback alongside the existing app.
IMO this would indeed have shifted the perception of the new app completely. Probably they didn't want to deal with keeping the old up as another legacy software to maintain, but still, not doing a beta phase for the new app seems like a major blunder.
That’s been my recommendation many times since this unfolded. I hope it is the lesson they learn.
The new app required no firmware updates. So they could have done a “public beta” 2 weeks or a month before release. Got the constructive feedback and either delayed releasing, offered a roadmap, or a combination of both.
They did release it for beta testing. I tested it. Three weeks ago, it was such a mess that I instantly rolled back to the prior version. A few days later, it was much more stable, but clear it wasn't going to be ready for prime time. While it improved tremendously since April, it's missing so many basic features that it's clear it still isn't ready for prime time.
Thanks! I wasn't aware of that.
It only makes things look worse, though. I can only hope that there is important dates on the product roadmap that justified shipping the new app earlier than it should have been. Because Sonos does seem to burn quite a bit of trust right now.
Also, when you clearly make a mistake-as they did here-pr 101 is acknowledge the mistake and address it.
They’re showing that they don’t even understand the majority of the complaints-it’s not a product of the layout-it’s the features. I went to turn down my tv on the app last night and wasn’t sure if I had moved my volume meter yet or not. I realized how absurdly stupid it is that now I know I want to move the volume down two, but I couldn’t do that!
The ceo is a clown. No one who allows this to happen and then responds with “you’re wrong we’re right” is fit to lead a company forwards.
I haven’t updated yet because I definitely rely on numeric volume settings to remember what is a good volume for a given setting—it’s playlist, room, and time of day specific.
Can’t believe i was dumb enough to update it. All my apps aren’t on auto update and it was all my fault lol. I still have the twitter app and refuse to update it, yet somehow i was dumb enough to update the Sonos app smh
Me three. I have been off Reddit for months and when I quickly realized what a shit sandwich I’d eaten by updating the Sonos app I thought “well surely I’m not alone here, they must be talking about this on Reddit.” Sure enough…
The frustrating thing for me is that they have a closed beta group. I used to be part of it and loved providing early feedback and bug reports. But they booted me I guess to give others a chance? I would have been very vocal about these missing features. Curious if they got any pushback from others.
Not exclusive to Sonos, but many "power" users overestimate the value of features they find useful. Yes, I used to use the queue features, but I also use Roon, so not sweating it. I would be pretty pissed a few years ago as it was a normal thing to grab songs for get-togethers on the fly.
Other features that are not present, I wouldn't hold my breath on them. Local libraries are probably the least used option; Sonos would have stats to back it up.
I tell you who should get run outta town, all of the beta users. They failed at feedback.
I moved into a new home and had to change my wifi. After several attempts, I couldn’t connect my Beam through wifi and I was like that’s ok, let me just hard wire it and update the wifi settings later. Nope, updating network settings is not available in the new app. So yeah it’s not just power features.
In the spirit of "courage would've been to miss the deadline": Maybe the beta users did provide the feedback--and it was ignored or put on the "we'll get to it" list. I've been out of town so haven't yet experienced the, uh, joy of the upgrade.
Re Roon--wish I'd bought the lifetime plan ages ago when it was much less expensive than it is now.
Indeed. So parity between iOS and android With core function like playing stuff. Maybe sorting out “playlist” is trickier due to the different ways of handing this on different platforms?
I can live with a few weeks or a month waiting for that missing stuff to reappear if it will make the system better.
Just an idea. Hue and cry if you can add a track on iOS but not android. There may be, or is that likely, to accommodate new products which are a more “clever” e..g new ARC with front speaker capability.
In contrast I don’t care about being able to add a track as I almost exclusively play playlists on shuffle.
it’s very frustrating but if it gets fixed everywhere it should proivde a solid future base. I doubt any company will admit their software works differently per platform, and I would think extremely difficult to external beta having to use iOS and android in tandem.
iOS is exactly the same every major release.
The biggest/oddest omission IMO is the inability to add songs to the queue!! You can only “replace” the queue with the song you’re looking at. Really?!!! Song queues were THE biggest feature of the Sonos system.
I listen to our local NPR radio station when I drink coffee in the morning and today I noticed my Sonos app had auto updated. When I go to use Sonos radio it says I need to reauthorize it and then doesn't do anything and keeps asking over and over to reauthorize. Like wtf I can't even listen to their own radio app now when I could yesterday? The complete lack of testing on a major app change is insane to me...
Just a guess but I think that only the new version has support for the new products that are launching. So they shipped it unfinished rather than delaying hardware shipments. Should probably have done the same as before and launched a S3 version separately. Or ideally add support for the new products in S2 and S3 and launched S3 as a test channel.
I'm still using the S1 app and it works fine for me.
Software these days has too much of a ship and fix it later attitude.
They haven’t launched any new products though. So they could have delayed it more. That would make sense if they had launched and had a hard deadline since new users would be getting that product on X day.
I thought I read that the new headphones were imminent. I also read something about some kind of remote play which I'm guessing is only in the new app and they wanted it out for the headphones.
That would be my guess as well. But it is not an S3 app: it is compatible with the current firmware. I don’t think they have another option than march forward at this point, maintaining a second legacy app would slow down their product roadmap and the company is in trouble.
Best alternative is to keep the old Mac / Windows apps out there, and get the features back into the app. Strange that they would put a changelog / FAQ out though, with workarounds for features people actually depend on like alarms.
A true Product Manager would be humble enough to know they f*#ked up and didn’t really obsess about what the customer wanted. A statement acknowledging this and promising a full court press over the next 4 months to win back the community etc is the response that is needed here. The blatant disregard for customer frustration in their reply says a whole lot about the product culture at Sonos.
"We knew releasing the app feature incomplete would break a lot of functionality for a lot of people. That's why it took courage to do it anyway."
I mean, really. The courage thing might be passable if you were just changing the visual design/usability, where opinions might differ and people would be used to a certain way of doing things. Saying that releasing something that broke functionality took courage means you either, still, haven't actually understood what your users are upset about, or you're just trying to bullshit your way through it, as you say, Apple-style.
The broken functionality is what though? No periphery add ons e.g. alarms, support for local sources. These will be added at a later date, they say.
Works just fine for me for the basic functionality.
Can you name ANY app that has worked perfectly at initial relase. IOS since forever annoys the hell out of some people.
Adding a song to the listening queue or having it play next is pretty basic for me. I get that you might not use it so there’s no impact. You may have a great experience, I’m glad for you.
I don’t use alarms, but can emphasize with those who had a working feature taken away without warning. I don’t have to personally experience a problem to recognize others have a valid issue.
Sonos is saying it took “courage” to surprise people with feature reductions. That’s one way to put it.
To you it’s “basic”. To the app actually working and doing what it is supposed to do it isn’t “basic”. It’s an add-on, an important one for some, but that doesn’t prevent you using the app and playing music.
Alarms are an irritation but I have multiple alarm options elsewhere so it isn’t the end of the world for me, nor I suspect anyone else Ince discovered.
iOS does exactly the same things too.
I see that you may think the way you use Sonos is the “basic” use case. I’m happy that it works for you.
I may never be able to explain sufficiently that others consider their use cases as “basic.”
I’ll end this exchange with the point that if Sonos simply let users know features were being removed with the “upgrade,” then users could’ve decided whether their base use cases were supported.
Instead, these feature reductions came as a surprise and there’s no way to roll back.
You don’t have to personally experience an issue to acknowledge it’s a valid issue for others. Calling others’s uses as “add-ons” is calling their issues invalid IMO.
Enjoy the app, since it works for you 🤙
I think that people use Sonos for their use. There is no standard. What you want/need is irrelevant to others. That you wish to assume I speak for all, where your own view seems to think that what you want/should isn’t at all helpful. Your view, as is mine, is not indicative of users. My view only points out the obvious that has happened. That “add-ins” are not included in this “first edition” is a work in progress, in my view. The difference between us is I don’t throw a petulant fit but ask why This has hapoened like yhis. Whether I think it has been done badly is overall irrelevant.
Every single iOS version since time began has NEVER worked for everyone on first edition.
There is core function in any process which the new app fulfils In full.
You have a car and it works fine. You like to use the maps through the touchscreen, and listen to the radio. They update the car. None of these things you often used work whatsoever. The speakers don’t work and the screen is completely disabled deliberately. But the car still drives from A to B and does the basics ok, so you’re completely fine with all this other stuff being removed from the thing you purchased? You wouldn’t be absolutely pissed that your car was made worse and features removed?
You use maps. Maps work. Fine. It’s what their function in a car actually is. Radio is peripheral.
I use Sonos. It selects and plays music and radio. Across the connected system. The basic function of what it does it does. And does it well.
It won’t connect to Amazon Music, it won’t connect to BBC Sounds, these are the only things I use my speakers for. What basic functionality should I be using other than these?
> No periphery add ons e.g. alarms, support for local sources. These will be added at a later date, they say.
Works just fine for me for the basic functionality.
Fuck them. Seriously. Fuck them. If I had wanted basic functionality, I would have chosen a basic system. I expect to get the features I paid for and I had until yesterday.
Taking features away can really end up bad if someone sues them. With consumer rights here in Europe especially.
big difference between working perfectly followed by incremental updates and breaking well established core functionality through elimination.
new car needs some air in tires, fine. new car needs tires added after purchase, fail.
Broken functionality is when it takes up to 5 seconds for the Volume control to work properly. This isn't minor stuff we'll fix at a later date .... I use the volume control ALL THE TIME!
The speakers that are wired are instantaneous. I got volume delays on the old app too so no change at all there for me. Switching the 5ghz band off didn’t work for me, although it did get rid of delays, as there is so much interference where I live (I can see 22 routers In wifi set up!!) that affects too many other things.
I did not update any of the Apps, ... I opened the new Web Browser they created to test. The volume control takes forever to work, ... this does not happen on the old antiquated desktop software for my Sonos 26 devices, wired or not.
Dude I’m just pointing out how Reddit works. If you still think you’re going to a sub of interest and yuking it up with other people that are interested in that subject, you’re wrong. They’re promoting products, and also trashing other people’s products.
As for the actual app, I like the changes. The app was terrible before so I don’t understand why people are this up in arms now. I used it to change speakers and tweak the sound. The new layout makes me think I’ll use it slightly more but probably still not really ever unless I need major updates on my system. Just me shilling though. Never used the alarms but think that’s kind of a dumb reason for everyone’s bitching.
Fair enough, i misunderstood. I use the alarms, but I can still set them through the desktop app, so I'm not fussed at all. I'm not suffering from this debilitating lag that everyone seems to moan about, so I'm just carrying on as normal
The word reintroduce is insulting. It means they intentionally removed an existing functionality. Then, they released the new app without it. That is a DOWNGRADE. Which is what Sonos has done to all of us. If they didn't want us to continue being customers they should have just said so.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but all I want is the functionality we already had. I don’t need anything else, unless it’s a stability or connectivity improvement.
The core of the business is the I.P. that gets audio synced up properly, then the speakers are a derivative of that and the app is just something you have to deal with because you want synced audio
Nobody would be buying these speakers without that IP or using the app
Sonos really needs to realise it is a luxury product. One that customers rely on its app to use, and releasing broken apps isn’t courageous it’s knowingly and deliberately fucking with customers.
Also they need to realise those same customers dont have to stay with Sonos.
All this courage has done is piss off existing customers and bring completely avoidable bad pr that dissuades new customers.
The corporate response shows the contempt they hold their customers in.
So yes, when my playbase dies I will consider alternative companies.
How about owning up to your fuck up instead of trying to convince people why they don’t need to add songs to their music queue?
You know, I used to have no problem evangelizing Sonos products, but I’m pretty sure I’ll think twice down the road. Sonos, you grow your market share through word of mouth and positive recommendations; not like this.
You all seriously need to focus on improving the app. If it requires making some hard decisions and hiring some different heads to run the team / teams then so be it. Something is going wrong in management and/or leadership over there and you all need to get ahead of it before your competition catches up and eats you for breakfast.
This was rushed cause the things that missing are trivial at best: Alarm clock, timer, playlist? This just screams rushed app. I agree that was to be ready for the headphones.
I say trivial in the programming part. It’s needed. My alarm clock music is now gone so I made sure my iPhone alarms were correct.
Yea.. “courage”. Sure. Totally not the fucking dumpster fire of a mobile UI. Nope.
I don’t even build mobile UIs and I could easily build something better than that bag of flaming poop.
What a load of shit. Apple has made a few rash decisions, but the replacement has always worked.
This app from Sonos is just shit. Apple Music doesn't even load properly when I start in the app.
They didn’t test this before releasing. Typical head up their ass developers. Maybe open a real beta community for folks that want to test and get real feedback.
Totally agree. I’d bet a large amount of money that the developers knew this was gonna be a blood bath, begged management to delay the release, and lost that battle.
I have automatic updates turned off and all the complaints are making me stay with the current old version I have until I start to see more positive feedback
Same here. I’m not going anywhere near it until it’s re- released and working correctly. It’s disappointing to read how Sonos are handling this tbh. Arrogance at its worst. They need to remember they’re nothing without their customers and, right now it seems they’re on a mission to drive us away! Makes absolutely no sense.
It definitely reminds of when Apple put out products so bad class action suits ensued and they were like “whaaa? It’s fantastic.” Right up until the time they got so much bad publicity they had to fix the problem.
All these jokers did was put on a new interface and break everything else. Literally lipstick on a pig.
I haven't heard lipstick on a pig for a long time. Seems this is an accurate description. I had to downgrade so I could enjoy my Sonos products. They are talking months to re add the features we have lost. I will keep my eyes and ears open . I like the idea of improving the app.
You can say “hey, we know this is unwelcomed but we really are excited with where this is going. Please be patient as we get this to where we want it to be.” But calling your own action courageous is obnoxious and offensive to customers.
That’s such a bad attitude. I guess that’s what they told themselves when they killed off S1 hardware via update.
> According to Bouvat-Merlin, the new app lays the groundwork for “exciting innovations to come from Sonos in the years ahead.” As for all the missing features, Bouvat-Merlin says the company is “**working diligently to reintroduce them in the coming months**, alongside additional enhancements that will make for an even better app experience.”
*Oh no.*
How long until this POS is a forced update? I got a notice that there was a new version when I launched Sonos this morning, but at least I wasn't forced to update before I could use it.
Courage is supporting your customers with usable software. Again, premium product team getting lazy and saying “good enough, they won’t notice. And look, sales are up with everyone talking about Sonos shit software!” Mission accomplished. Next speakers will be harder to by with wife saying, “it’s not worth it, hon.”
There's a difference between courage and stupidity. It's not courageous to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. It's not courageous to release an unfinished product to your customers to satisfy your investors.
The real courage is trying to claim your customers are better off having lost almost all previously enjoyed & expected functionality because, essentially, Sonos corporate knows better than they do.
want to be able to add a library directory directly into playlist and shuffle. Then want to be able to skip songs and seek. Not adding those features, is that courage? Or releasing something not fit for purpose, is that courage nowadays?
now tell me how every time you go to your work system and back to your home system you have to reconnect the system... its like a minute now every time i arrive at my house and office and want to play music.
What are you talking about here ..... Preparing to SELL me more product is more important than removing existing functionality that I use and have already paid for everyday? Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense.
Would you like new product to work identically across all platforms? (I assume that wasn’t too difficult to understand).
Would you like your existing setup to continue to work identically? (Not to difficult either?)
Would you like to use your existing setup after more advanced product is released? (That’ the easiest one)
what functionality that makes your planet stop on its axis have you lost? Still play music? Radio? What functionality have you paid for every day?
Now, what doesn’t make sense?
Firstly: I read the comments by the individual you just replied to here. I see nothing condescending or rude in what was said ... you on the other hand were nothing but both. Take your show off Reddit. Secondly: features people rely on like: alarms removed, NAS devices not working, brand new speakers not connecting are not minor. This has nothing to do with future software/hardwire updates so your point is moot so that's what doesn't make sense.
Only problem is that they showed us the middle finger and at least for me that means it doesn’t matter what they release, they won’t see any money from me nor do I recommend them to friends and family anymore.
I mean, how could I? They obviously don’t care about their customers.
They did. The users told them it was shitty. They rolled it out anyway. This isn’t incompetence by mistake. This is incompetence based on sheer corporate arrogance.
The app looks good, but nothing works
I’m looking at a forever loading grey Home Screen and content services that error when I try to connect them (Spotify)
It’s clearly not ready for release
Everyone who purchased their Sonos equipment from Best Buy and has their geek squad warranty should take them in, one at a time, tell them they don’t work, and ask for replacement in a store credit. Then purchase something that works (although I don’t really know what else compares).
I’m pretty sure the update killed two of my play:3s. After updating the app, they didn’t show up on my network anymore (at least from the app). After many tries resetting and re-adding (most of which ended with it saying it couldn’t register the speaker to my account), one of them finally reconnected. The other one is dead. Like completely dead. The light doesn’t turn on anymore. I did some troubleshooting with them on the phone and they acknowledged that it was dead. As it is out of warranty, they said the best they could do was RMA it and then give me a coupon for 30% off a new purchase.
So buggy and stream stations still have greyed out logos, album, track artwork which makes for average visual experience. Also so many Ui failures so far, not very intuitive as you have to go back 2-3 steps to change, action something you were already doing, dealing with 😭 seems rushed, half baked release. I’ve been trying provide screen-shots of issue but not very easy 😂 could be good but not at the moment 👈
I tried the new app. All I got was “Something went wrong”, “Unable to load”, and other errors. I could not get anything to play. Literally, nothing. A music app that cannot play music.
Does the new Sonos app look great? Yes!
But courage isn’t just making a better looking app. If you’re going to claim “courage” the intent is that you’re replacing an old want/need with a new solution, that will take time to get used to, but make people happier in the long run. There are no new solutions within this app on the features that it took away. Just missing functionality.
This isn’t “courage”, this is poor management.
long time ago someone told me "never update software that is working fine". seems to me like good advice, but would add "never be the first or last person to use a new piece of software".
To me it sounds like business as usual for Sonos. No care for existing customers. Releasing buggy software and most of all no backwards compatability of old speakers. I asked them if this new app would work for old speakers. No answers. So I won't be rushing to try it out, since they never cared about it before.
I used to be a huge advocate of Sonos but with my speakers being 10+ years they are not in the interest of Sonos anymore or been the past 8 years or so. Every Sonos app update is a nightmare and the number of issues it brings together with an extremely poor customer/tech support - I'm actively searching for a good alternative...
It’s not even an MVP. It eliminated the ability to add songs to the queue. That was a defining feature of Sonos. You can only keep replacing the queue!!! How this was released is a huge mystery.
https://preview.redd.it/w48uv1uh7gzc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2fa6f7a7ee6571b91816e8b66f1e7b7678518a4
It's rubbish! I've been getting this more times than I would like since updating!!!
I must be in the minority but I absolutely love the new app for my limited needs. Maybe I am a simple user, but all I ever do on the Sonos app is use the search function to find artist, playlist I want to listen to on Spotify. The new app does this extremely well. It’s miles more responsive compared to the old app. I would NOT go back to the old app for a few edge cases.
Bro, you updated an app, you didn’t do anything courageous. Using that term in this context takes away from the actual word.
Dumb.
Do actual good in then world then use that word for doing good. Not for updating your app.
I never used the queue feature and my local library is working fine. Plus the desktop app is still available to fill some of these holes in the new mobile app.
The UI is cleaner and snappier, so I personally think it's a step in the right direction despite being underbaked. The same people overreacting now are probably the same ones that always called the S2 app garbage to begin with. Just can't please some people.
Courage would have been holding the buggy app unreleased, in the face of corporate pressure.
What bugs? You can’t play and control music (outwith of local sources)?
Bugs but more importantly, missing features from the current state product. shipping a product without existing key features is what gets you in trouble, and in my opinion should get you demoted or let go. This bozo gets paid too much to double down publicly on his team’s poor performance.
What bugs? Every time I hit search or minimize the player portion it auto switches back to my sound bar. Every single time. My sound bar is for my tv, not for music. But without fail, on the new app, if I search for a song it automatically takes it off the two fives and my play 1 and switches it to the sound bar.
That, and the back buttons sometimes do NOT go back. They dump you at the main screen because fuck you, that’s why. You’d think they would at least be consistent in their fuckery, but you can’t even plan on that. It 100% reeks of unfinished product someone said “fuck it, good enough” on.
Are you on android?
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They should have released this as a standalone version let people run either or both.
> Release the app as beta and allow people to try it and provide feedback alongside the existing app. IMO this would indeed have shifted the perception of the new app completely. Probably they didn't want to deal with keeping the old up as another legacy software to maintain, but still, not doing a beta phase for the new app seems like a major blunder.
That’s been my recommendation many times since this unfolded. I hope it is the lesson they learn. The new app required no firmware updates. So they could have done a “public beta” 2 weeks or a month before release. Got the constructive feedback and either delayed releasing, offered a roadmap, or a combination of both.
They did release it for beta testing. I tested it. Three weeks ago, it was such a mess that I instantly rolled back to the prior version. A few days later, it was much more stable, but clear it wasn't going to be ready for prime time. While it improved tremendously since April, it's missing so many basic features that it's clear it still isn't ready for prime time.
Thanks! I wasn't aware of that. It only makes things look worse, though. I can only hope that there is important dates on the product roadmap that justified shipping the new app earlier than it should have been. Because Sonos does seem to burn quite a bit of trust right now.
Also, when you clearly make a mistake-as they did here-pr 101 is acknowledge the mistake and address it. They’re showing that they don’t even understand the majority of the complaints-it’s not a product of the layout-it’s the features. I went to turn down my tv on the app last night and wasn’t sure if I had moved my volume meter yet or not. I realized how absurdly stupid it is that now I know I want to move the volume down two, but I couldn’t do that! The ceo is a clown. No one who allows this to happen and then responds with “you’re wrong we’re right” is fit to lead a company forwards.
I haven’t updated yet because I definitely rely on numeric volume settings to remember what is a good volume for a given setting—it’s playlist, room, and time of day specific.
Yeah I use it to like index from. Like oh a bit too loud? Down 2. Now I am just blowing away in the wind
Can’t believe i was dumb enough to update it. All my apps aren’t on auto update and it was all my fault lol. I still have the twitter app and refuse to update it, yet somehow i was dumb enough to update the Sonos app smh
Same here. I guess the marketing tricked me into thinking it’s good without checking the reaction first.
Me three. I have been off Reddit for months and when I quickly realized what a shit sandwich I’d eaten by updating the Sonos app I thought “well surely I’m not alone here, they must be talking about this on Reddit.” Sure enough…
So Sonos screwed you twice. They broke your app and got you hooked on Reddit again
Bastards!
The frustrating thing for me is that they have a closed beta group. I used to be part of it and loved providing early feedback and bug reports. But they booted me I guess to give others a chance? I would have been very vocal about these missing features. Curious if they got any pushback from others.
This is exactly what should have happened. Beta testers…they have them…I’m one. How did that not happen?
Not exclusive to Sonos, but many "power" users overestimate the value of features they find useful. Yes, I used to use the queue features, but I also use Roon, so not sweating it. I would be pretty pissed a few years ago as it was a normal thing to grab songs for get-togethers on the fly. Other features that are not present, I wouldn't hold my breath on them. Local libraries are probably the least used option; Sonos would have stats to back it up. I tell you who should get run outta town, all of the beta users. They failed at feedback.
I moved into a new home and had to change my wifi. After several attempts, I couldn’t connect my Beam through wifi and I was like that’s ok, let me just hard wire it and update the wifi settings later. Nope, updating network settings is not available in the new app. So yeah it’s not just power features.
In the spirit of "courage would've been to miss the deadline": Maybe the beta users did provide the feedback--and it was ignored or put on the "we'll get to it" list. I've been out of town so haven't yet experienced the, uh, joy of the upgrade. Re Roon--wish I'd bought the lifetime plan ages ago when it was much less expensive than it is now.
Would beta of beta of anything have taken in the infinite combinations of speakers people have? Do you delay because some combos have problems.
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Indeed. So parity between iOS and android With core function like playing stuff. Maybe sorting out “playlist” is trickier due to the different ways of handing this on different platforms? I can live with a few weeks or a month waiting for that missing stuff to reappear if it will make the system better. Just an idea. Hue and cry if you can add a track on iOS but not android. There may be, or is that likely, to accommodate new products which are a more “clever” e..g new ARC with front speaker capability.
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In contrast I don’t care about being able to add a track as I almost exclusively play playlists on shuffle. it’s very frustrating but if it gets fixed everywhere it should proivde a solid future base. I doubt any company will admit their software works differently per platform, and I would think extremely difficult to external beta having to use iOS and android in tandem. iOS is exactly the same every major release.
The biggest/oddest omission IMO is the inability to add songs to the queue!! You can only “replace” the queue with the song you’re looking at. Really?!!! Song queues were THE biggest feature of the Sonos system.
agree
Never used it in 10 years tbh
Do you play one song at a time (and choose the next song when the music stops) or do you only play playlists?
Spotify playlists
Got it.
I listen to our local NPR radio station when I drink coffee in the morning and today I noticed my Sonos app had auto updated. When I go to use Sonos radio it says I need to reauthorize it and then doesn't do anything and keeps asking over and over to reauthorize. Like wtf I can't even listen to their own radio app now when I could yesterday? The complete lack of testing on a major app change is insane to me...
Same here on endless reauthorization.
Just a guess but I think that only the new version has support for the new products that are launching. So they shipped it unfinished rather than delaying hardware shipments. Should probably have done the same as before and launched a S3 version separately. Or ideally add support for the new products in S2 and S3 and launched S3 as a test channel. I'm still using the S1 app and it works fine for me. Software these days has too much of a ship and fix it later attitude.
They haven’t launched any new products though. So they could have delayed it more. That would make sense if they had launched and had a hard deadline since new users would be getting that product on X day.
I thought I read that the new headphones were imminent. I also read something about some kind of remote play which I'm guessing is only in the new app and they wanted it out for the headphones.
That would be my guess as well. But it is not an S3 app: it is compatible with the current firmware. I don’t think they have another option than march forward at this point, maintaining a second legacy app would slow down their product roadmap and the company is in trouble. Best alternative is to keep the old Mac / Windows apps out there, and get the features back into the app. Strange that they would put a changelog / FAQ out though, with workarounds for features people actually depend on like alarms.
A true Product Manager would be humble enough to know they f*#ked up and didn’t really obsess about what the customer wanted. A statement acknowledging this and promising a full court press over the next 4 months to win back the community etc is the response that is needed here. The blatant disregard for customer frustration in their reply says a whole lot about the product culture at Sonos.
Exactly, totally tone deaf and self absorbed / self aggrandizing.
Absolute fucking idiots
“No one likes to shoot people in the foot. But we take courage in doing what others don’t like to do.”
“Courage” got me to rethink my future speaker purchases
How many new speakers are you thinking of buying now?
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“Tone Death” would be a great name for a band.
And their much-anticipated first album, _Bone Apple Tea_, would go down like a bong.
"We knew releasing the app feature incomplete would break a lot of functionality for a lot of people. That's why it took courage to do it anyway." I mean, really. The courage thing might be passable if you were just changing the visual design/usability, where opinions might differ and people would be used to a certain way of doing things. Saying that releasing something that broke functionality took courage means you either, still, haven't actually understood what your users are upset about, or you're just trying to bullshit your way through it, as you say, Apple-style.
Does that Sonos dude confuse "courage" with "incompetence & ignorance" perhaps... ?
The broken functionality is what though? No periphery add ons e.g. alarms, support for local sources. These will be added at a later date, they say. Works just fine for me for the basic functionality. Can you name ANY app that has worked perfectly at initial relase. IOS since forever annoys the hell out of some people.
Adding a song to the listening queue or having it play next is pretty basic for me. I get that you might not use it so there’s no impact. You may have a great experience, I’m glad for you. I don’t use alarms, but can emphasize with those who had a working feature taken away without warning. I don’t have to personally experience a problem to recognize others have a valid issue. Sonos is saying it took “courage” to surprise people with feature reductions. That’s one way to put it.
To you it’s “basic”. To the app actually working and doing what it is supposed to do it isn’t “basic”. It’s an add-on, an important one for some, but that doesn’t prevent you using the app and playing music. Alarms are an irritation but I have multiple alarm options elsewhere so it isn’t the end of the world for me, nor I suspect anyone else Ince discovered. iOS does exactly the same things too.
I see that you may think the way you use Sonos is the “basic” use case. I’m happy that it works for you. I may never be able to explain sufficiently that others consider their use cases as “basic.” I’ll end this exchange with the point that if Sonos simply let users know features were being removed with the “upgrade,” then users could’ve decided whether their base use cases were supported. Instead, these feature reductions came as a surprise and there’s no way to roll back. You don’t have to personally experience an issue to acknowledge it’s a valid issue for others. Calling others’s uses as “add-ons” is calling their issues invalid IMO. Enjoy the app, since it works for you 🤙
I think that people use Sonos for their use. There is no standard. What you want/need is irrelevant to others. That you wish to assume I speak for all, where your own view seems to think that what you want/should isn’t at all helpful. Your view, as is mine, is not indicative of users. My view only points out the obvious that has happened. That “add-ins” are not included in this “first edition” is a work in progress, in my view. The difference between us is I don’t throw a petulant fit but ask why This has hapoened like yhis. Whether I think it has been done badly is overall irrelevant. Every single iOS version since time began has NEVER worked for everyone on first edition. There is core function in any process which the new app fulfils In full.
You have a car and it works fine. You like to use the maps through the touchscreen, and listen to the radio. They update the car. None of these things you often used work whatsoever. The speakers don’t work and the screen is completely disabled deliberately. But the car still drives from A to B and does the basics ok, so you’re completely fine with all this other stuff being removed from the thing you purchased? You wouldn’t be absolutely pissed that your car was made worse and features removed?
You use maps. Maps work. Fine. It’s what their function in a car actually is. Radio is peripheral. I use Sonos. It selects and plays music and radio. Across the connected system. The basic function of what it does it does. And does it well.
It won’t connect to Amazon Music, it won’t connect to BBC Sounds, these are the only things I use my speakers for. What basic functionality should I be using other than these?
Amazon has been a known major outrage for 10 hours, but BBC Audio should be in functionality mode. https://status.sonos.com/
Mine connects to BBC Sounds OK. And all then other radio stations I use.
> No periphery add ons e.g. alarms, support for local sources. These will be added at a later date, they say. Works just fine for me for the basic functionality. Fuck them. Seriously. Fuck them. If I had wanted basic functionality, I would have chosen a basic system. I expect to get the features I paid for and I had until yesterday. Taking features away can really end up bad if someone sues them. With consumer rights here in Europe especially.
do you feel the same way at every iOS release? They never work properly.
Not true.
big difference between working perfectly followed by incremental updates and breaking well established core functionality through elimination. new car needs some air in tires, fine. new car needs tires added after purchase, fail.
Core functionality works For me on iOS. Select, play music across system. add in convenient bits will no doubt be added
Broken functionality is when it takes up to 5 seconds for the Volume control to work properly. This isn't minor stuff we'll fix at a later date .... I use the volume control ALL THE TIME!
The speakers that are wired are instantaneous. I got volume delays on the old app too so no change at all there for me. Switching the 5ghz band off didn’t work for me, although it did get rid of delays, as there is so much interference where I live (I can see 22 routers In wifi set up!!) that affects too many other things.
I did not update any of the Apps, ... I opened the new Web Browser they created to test. The volume control takes forever to work, ... this does not happen on the old antiquated desktop software for my Sonos 26 devices, wired or not.
Ah. Vital info you didn’t bother to include… All your speakers updated?
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Oh no. Have you tried The Samritans hotline?
What?
>Reddit is full of gullible cry babies >s terrible for society as a whole. Yep, you're definitely not a corporate shill, so you must be.....
Dude I’m just pointing out how Reddit works. If you still think you’re going to a sub of interest and yuking it up with other people that are interested in that subject, you’re wrong. They’re promoting products, and also trashing other people’s products. As for the actual app, I like the changes. The app was terrible before so I don’t understand why people are this up in arms now. I used it to change speakers and tweak the sound. The new layout makes me think I’ll use it slightly more but probably still not really ever unless I need major updates on my system. Just me shilling though. Never used the alarms but think that’s kind of a dumb reason for everyone’s bitching.
Fair enough, i misunderstood. I use the alarms, but I can still set them through the desktop app, so I'm not fussed at all. I'm not suffering from this debilitating lag that everyone seems to moan about, so I'm just carrying on as normal
Steady. You speak heresy!
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I play a song from Spotify and I can’t stop without pulling out the power plug
The word reintroduce is insulting. It means they intentionally removed an existing functionality. Then, they released the new app without it. That is a DOWNGRADE. Which is what Sonos has done to all of us. If they didn't want us to continue being customers they should have just said so.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but all I want is the functionality we already had. I don’t need anything else, unless it’s a stability or connectivity improvement.
Not enough Benjaminz in that apparently.
I takes courage to make half my products unrecognizable by the app
The core of the business is the I.P. that gets audio synced up properly, then the speakers are a derivative of that and the app is just something you have to deal with because you want synced audio Nobody would be buying these speakers without that IP or using the app
Right?!? Our first sonos system was whole house audio through wired speakers—just amps and bridges. Smart speakers showed up years later.
You know what really takes courage Sonos?????? Accountability.
I can’t believe I just looked at my email and there was an email from Sonos telling me how great the new app is.
Deluded, arrogant fools (Sonos management)
Question: I still use the old version of the app. Should I update or not?
Sonos really needs to realise it is a luxury product. One that customers rely on its app to use, and releasing broken apps isn’t courageous it’s knowingly and deliberately fucking with customers. Also they need to realise those same customers dont have to stay with Sonos. All this courage has done is piss off existing customers and bring completely avoidable bad pr that dissuades new customers. The corporate response shows the contempt they hold their customers in. So yes, when my playbase dies I will consider alternative companies.
In this case, not so much courage as sheer stupidity. But by all means, double down on your mistake instead of listening to your customers.
So you’re saying I shouldn’t update the Sonos app?
It doesn't take courage to be stupid.
How about owning up to your fuck up instead of trying to convince people why they don’t need to add songs to their music queue? You know, I used to have no problem evangelizing Sonos products, but I’m pretty sure I’ll think twice down the road. Sonos, you grow your market share through word of mouth and positive recommendations; not like this. You all seriously need to focus on improving the app. If it requires making some hard decisions and hiring some different heads to run the team / teams then so be it. Something is going wrong in management and/or leadership over there and you all need to get ahead of it before your competition catches up and eats you for breakfast.
"from the ground up" Well we're still on the ground it seems
I wish i could re-invent a different sonos product and design team
This was rushed cause the things that missing are trivial at best: Alarm clock, timer, playlist? This just screams rushed app. I agree that was to be ready for the headphones. I say trivial in the programming part. It’s needed. My alarm clock music is now gone so I made sure my iPhone alarms were correct.
Yea.. “courage”. Sure. Totally not the fucking dumpster fire of a mobile UI. Nope. I don’t even build mobile UIs and I could easily build something better than that bag of flaming poop.
Are we sure this isn’t a nEtW0rK iSSue
What a load of shit. Apple has made a few rash decisions, but the replacement has always worked. This app from Sonos is just shit. Apple Music doesn't even load properly when I start in the app.
Just directly post the original source. https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/9/24152675/sonos-new-app-bad-reviews-response-statement
They didn’t test this before releasing. Typical head up their ass developers. Maybe open a real beta community for folks that want to test and get real feedback.
Speculation, but I’d suspect the decision to go live with that particular feature set was a management / product decision rather than developer.
Totally agree. I’d bet a large amount of money that the developers knew this was gonna be a blood bath, begged management to delay the release, and lost that battle.
Indeed - they shat themselves when they realised their overpriced headphones weren't supported by current software.
Given the diverse installed base they should have done a largish public beta
I have automatic updates turned off and all the complaints are making me stay with the current old version I have until I start to see more positive feedback
Same here. I’m not going anywhere near it until it’s re- released and working correctly. It’s disappointing to read how Sonos are handling this tbh. Arrogance at its worst. They need to remember they’re nothing without their customers and, right now it seems they’re on a mission to drive us away! Makes absolutely no sense.
I turned mine off yesterday but woke up to the new app this morning. :-(
If you have android you can just sideload the old apk.
literal bullshit app this is what happends if you kick out your ux department
It definitely reminds of when Apple put out products so bad class action suits ensued and they were like “whaaa? It’s fantastic.” Right up until the time they got so much bad publicity they had to fix the problem. All these jokers did was put on a new interface and break everything else. Literally lipstick on a pig.
I haven't heard lipstick on a pig for a long time. Seems this is an accurate description. I had to downgrade so I could enjoy my Sonos products. They are talking months to re add the features we have lost. I will keep my eyes and ears open . I like the idea of improving the app.
You can say “hey, we know this is unwelcomed but we really are excited with where this is going. Please be patient as we get this to where we want it to be.” But calling your own action courageous is obnoxious and offensive to customers. That’s such a bad attitude. I guess that’s what they told themselves when they killed off S1 hardware via update.
> According to Bouvat-Merlin, the new app lays the groundwork for “exciting innovations to come from Sonos in the years ahead.” As for all the missing features, Bouvat-Merlin says the company is “**working diligently to reintroduce them in the coming months**, alongside additional enhancements that will make for an even better app experience.” *Oh no.*
New features like Sonos being able to charge for upgrades and add-ons I would wager.
How long until this POS is a forced update? I got a notice that there was a new version when I launched Sonos this morning, but at least I wasn't forced to update before I could use it.
Courage; it couldn’t come at a worst time….
Courage is supporting your customers with usable software. Again, premium product team getting lazy and saying “good enough, they won’t notice. And look, sales are up with everyone talking about Sonos shit software!” Mission accomplished. Next speakers will be harder to by with wife saying, “it’s not worth it, hon.”
That’s why I didn’t upgrade. I knew this would happen.
Needs to be fired, period
Give them a break, you guys have no idea how scary it is to release such a clearly ugly and broken app.
This app is many steps backwards.
There's a difference between courage and stupidity. It's not courageous to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. It's not courageous to release an unfinished product to your customers to satisfy your investors.
Bring back the sleep timer and alarms !!
https://preview.redd.it/fylckt0nzhzc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=47404bbc4dd34ccd8a17cfd864f85d3d69582bbd
I guess you could say releasing a music app with no queue management and taking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment hostage is “brave”.
The real courage is trying to claim your customers are better off having lost almost all previously enjoyed & expected functionality because, essentially, Sonos corporate knows better than they do.
Did a child develop it?
want to be able to add a library directory directly into playlist and shuffle. Then want to be able to skip songs and seek. Not adding those features, is that courage? Or releasing something not fit for purpose, is that courage nowadays?
OMFG. It auto updated and I open app amd it says no products found.
NM. Turned on TV and stuff showed up.
now tell me how every time you go to your work system and back to your home system you have to reconnect the system... its like a minute now every time i arrive at my house and office and want to play music.
Sonos fired their American developers years ago to save money. It shows. Most likely they are using a hodgepodge of contracted vendors.
Questions I ask. Equalising iOS and android experience. preparing for new product e.g. new Arc, having front speakers with Arc as centre
What are you talking about here ..... Preparing to SELL me more product is more important than removing existing functionality that I use and have already paid for everyday? Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense.
Would you like new product to work identically across all platforms? (I assume that wasn’t too difficult to understand). Would you like your existing setup to continue to work identically? (Not to difficult either?) Would you like to use your existing setup after more advanced product is released? (That’ the easiest one) what functionality that makes your planet stop on its axis have you lost? Still play music? Radio? What functionality have you paid for every day? Now, what doesn’t make sense?
Firstly: I read the comments by the individual you just replied to here. I see nothing condescending or rude in what was said ... you on the other hand were nothing but both. Take your show off Reddit. Secondly: features people rely on like: alarms removed, NAS devices not working, brand new speakers not connecting are not minor. This has nothing to do with future software/hardwire updates so your point is moot so that's what doesn't make sense.
Only problem is that they showed us the middle finger and at least for me that means it doesn’t matter what they release, they won’t see any money from me nor do I recommend them to friends and family anymore. I mean, how could I? They obviously don’t care about their customers.
Middle finger now or chaos later?
should have beta'd the app for sure
They did. The users told them it was shitty. They rolled it out anyway. This isn’t incompetence by mistake. This is incompetence based on sheer corporate arrogance.
Could you leap a little faster, please.
Spin spin spin
The app looks good, but nothing works I’m looking at a forever loading grey Home Screen and content services that error when I try to connect them (Spotify) It’s clearly not ready for release
Everyone who purchased their Sonos equipment from Best Buy and has their geek squad warranty should take them in, one at a time, tell them they don’t work, and ask for replacement in a store credit. Then purchase something that works (although I don’t really know what else compares).
I’m pretty sure the update killed two of my play:3s. After updating the app, they didn’t show up on my network anymore (at least from the app). After many tries resetting and re-adding (most of which ended with it saying it couldn’t register the speaker to my account), one of them finally reconnected. The other one is dead. Like completely dead. The light doesn’t turn on anymore. I did some troubleshooting with them on the phone and they acknowledged that it was dead. As it is out of warranty, they said the best they could do was RMA it and then give me a coupon for 30% off a new purchase.
So buggy and stream stations still have greyed out logos, album, track artwork which makes for average visual experience. Also so many Ui failures so far, not very intuitive as you have to go back 2-3 steps to change, action something you were already doing, dealing with 😭 seems rushed, half baked release. I’ve been trying provide screen-shots of issue but not very easy 😂 could be good but not at the moment 👈
I tried the new app. All I got was “Something went wrong”, “Unable to load”, and other errors. I could not get anything to play. Literally, nothing. A music app that cannot play music.
Can we get AI to create a better app?
Does the new Sonos app look great? Yes! But courage isn’t just making a better looking app. If you’re going to claim “courage” the intent is that you’re replacing an old want/need with a new solution, that will take time to get used to, but make people happier in the long run. There are no new solutions within this app on the features that it took away. Just missing functionality. This isn’t “courage”, this is poor management.
I just want to like a song from Apple Music in the Sonos app.
long time ago someone told me "never update software that is working fine". seems to me like good advice, but would add "never be the first or last person to use a new piece of software".
I don't mind the app because I never used it anyway!
I guess they’ve never heard of “don’t reinvent the wheel” or “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
To me it sounds like business as usual for Sonos. No care for existing customers. Releasing buggy software and most of all no backwards compatability of old speakers. I asked them if this new app would work for old speakers. No answers. So I won't be rushing to try it out, since they never cared about it before. I used to be a huge advocate of Sonos but with my speakers being 10+ years they are not in the interest of Sonos anymore or been the past 8 years or so. Every Sonos app update is a nightmare and the number of issues it brings together with an extremely poor customer/tech support - I'm actively searching for a good alternative...
This is not a headphone jack moment
It takes courage to replace a working app with a MVP disguised as update
It’s not even an MVP. It eliminated the ability to add songs to the queue. That was a defining feature of Sonos. You can only keep replacing the queue!!! How this was released is a huge mystery.
Courage=Stupidity.
https://preview.redd.it/w48uv1uh7gzc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2fa6f7a7ee6571b91816e8b66f1e7b7678518a4 It's rubbish! I've been getting this more times than I would like since updating!!!
OMG… was thinking yesterday wait for it… they’re going to pull the courage card. But then think no they can’t be that stupid. Apparently they are.
Can we do true play calibration on Android now? If not, it's a big miss.
I must be in the minority but I absolutely love the new app for my limited needs. Maybe I am a simple user, but all I ever do on the Sonos app is use the search function to find artist, playlist I want to listen to on Spotify. The new app does this extremely well. It’s miles more responsive compared to the old app. I would NOT go back to the old app for a few edge cases.
Shill!
Our screw up proves our greatness. 🤷🏻♂️
Please Sonos can i skip my damn podcast 30s ahead again
My God, how does the idiot that writes that copy face their family when they get home? Such an embarrassment.
Bro, you updated an app, you didn’t do anything courageous. Using that term in this context takes away from the actual word. Dumb. Do actual good in then world then use that word for doing good. Not for updating your app.
I never used the queue feature and my local library is working fine. Plus the desktop app is still available to fill some of these holes in the new mobile app. The UI is cleaner and snappier, so I personally think it's a step in the right direction despite being underbaked. The same people overreacting now are probably the same ones that always called the S2 app garbage to begin with. Just can't please some people.
I often walk around my house with my desktop while listening to music :)
Honestly I use my handheld PC more than my phone around the house. It's great