Apple Music Partner Sonos Sees its Future in Streaming, Voice Control

[jayducharme]

Although McFarlane is probably correct about streaming music, to me it's a depressing shift in the industry. It seems like every business now wants me to provide them with a steady stream of income. So rather than purchase music when I feel like it or when I find something I like, it's now no different than all the other utility bills that pile up each month: Internet, cable, mobile phone, electricity, water, trash.... And like all the other monthly payments, once I'm hooked into the revenue stream, the cost will gradually rise.

I have hundreds and hundreds of albums already, on CD or vinyl. I'll just keep transferring that collection over to my devices and spare myself the extra monthly bill.

 

[bstpierre]

Recently dipped my toes in the water with a Play:1 and was considering getting a second one. Not so sure after this news.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

My guess is Apple wants to buy Sonos, but didn't want the extra baggage. Sonos = Overpriced products with high margins. Beats is located in Culver City, which could easily absorb Sonos located just up the coast in Santa Barbara

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

My guess is Apple wants to buy Sonos, but didn't want the extra baggage. Sonos = Overpriced products with high margins. Beats is located in Culver City, which could easily absorb Sonos located just up the coast in Santa Barbara

HAHAHA!! Replace "Sonos" with? Hmm, it's right on the tip of my tongue...starts with an "A"...someone help me out.

I do agree, though. As I stated earlier, if they lower price (certainly could without losing money on each sale) and attract a whole new demographic.

 

[CampbellSoup]

"irreversible shift in the music ecosystem, led by Apple." really i thought apple was more a Jonny come lately to music streaming....

I was thinking exactly the same thing. Pandora, Spotify, etc. Pretty sure Apple wasn't "leading" this shift ever. They might be the biggest to jump on the gravy train, sure.

 

[skycorgan]

Could this be as simple as preparing the company for a sale? Apple bought Beats for a tidy sum and is making money on headphones and streaming music now. They have some Bluetooth speakers, but they lack a fully integrated speaker solution. Apple could easily swoop in, pick up Sonos, slap an Apple logo on their already very Apple-like devices, and change the app to put Apple Music front and center.

 

[jmgregory1]

To me, this sounds like Sonos does not have a clear path forward - that they are not seeing the sales they need of their speakers, so now they're shifting to be a streaming provider. Doesn't make sense. If they've created this partnership with Apple, it's Apple who has the streaming side of things covered, so now Sonos is going to get into streaming for what reason? Maybe they should just focus on making their speakers better, adding more speakers, or better integration with both tech-based and traditional music sources.

 

[deany]

Could this be as simple as preparing the company for a sale? Apple bought Beats for a tidy sum and is making money on headphones and streaming music now. They have some Bluetooth speakers, but they lack a fully integrated speaker solution. Apple could easily swoop in, pick up Sonos, slap an Apple logo on their already very Apple-like devices, and change the app to put Apple Music front and center.

I hope not, they may stop other streaming services.

 

[Swift]

http://www.klipsch.com/products/reference-premiere-hd-wireless#rp-440wf

put Siri on this!

 

[kend657]

The apple music part of the title is only relevant to making Sonos news relevant to this forum. Unless Apple is going to make a stake in the company. Maybe by licensing Siri?

Sonos is one of the innovators for streaming music and IoT, before Internet of Things had a name. I personally have many of their systems to provide a whole house music system. When we moved my great whole house system moved with me.

I think the issue is that Sonos has competition like the Amazon based systems echo/alexis that are much cheaper. Not that these are apple to apple comparisons. It's affecting their bottom line. In addition the market for stand alone speakers is small versus things like headphones that utilize your phone. Maybe introduce Sonos headphones?

Adding a microphone that is Siri like to Sonos would be a good strategy. I don't think Sonos have microphones (yet). I wouldn't want that feature unless I can turn it off or know that it was encrypted outside my network. I'd prefer using my iPhone as the mic. Which is how they recently implemented the Sonos tuning software.

It seems like "Sonos please play ...." will be coming soon.

 

[Swift]

More seriously, what made the music of the '50s through the '80s so great was the social evolution. The final, mainstream accepting of blues, jazz and soul, and the appearance of singer-songwriters. The intention of teenagers. Radio disk jockeys. I'm sure my extreme age has something to do with it, but I just don't see that wild invention happening anymore. Radio collapsed into an ocean of bilious talk. MTV collapsed. The labels should probably collapse. Will Alexa/Siri/Cortana/Hey Sergei replace it? Not so far. It is totally commodified. Authentic? Not so much.

 

[AppleMad98004]

I'm shocked by this news, and upset because I love this Santa Barbara company and have watched them grow over the years.
SONOS are a speaker manufacturer first and foremost. Obviously they feel they can't better the excellent range they already have. Maybe this is due to the limitations of the kbps MOST streaming services offer.
I have a GPM subscription fully paid till 25 Dec 2019, I really hope they don't stop these services to just offer their own streaming service (or apples - see my last sentence)
I'm not entirely sure what their business model will be, as John is not being entirely clear on the companies future.
(I'm a loyal SONOS user for 6 years, 5 zones) UK.
I really hope apple don't purchase whats left of SONOS

You better hope Apple purchases them. They are going bankrupt. People aren't buying their speakers so the are desperately changing business plans.

 

[threesixty360]

My bet is that Apple is getting ready to release an API of some sorts that renders whatever Sonos is doing obsolete. I expect Apple have offered to partner with them or end up dying. Probably game them the old "your a feature not a product speech" that Jobs gave Dropbox.

Maybe they are going to have to end up aligining with 1 service (i.e Apple) and see where it goes. Sometimes it's best to get out of the damn road when a juggernaut is approaching...

 

[sshambles]

Eventually, I'd love to have my home setup with Sonos speakers, for the moment, the price deems them out of reach for the moment - speakers are quite segregated. iPod HiFi in one room, TV HiFi unit in another, bluetooth Marley for main room. I'd like to hope when I do want Sonos speakers they're still around, but this makes it sound unlikely now.

 

[deany]

Recently dipped my toes in the water with a Play:1 and was considering getting a second one. Not so sure after this news.

My brother (on my advice) just got his second Play 1 with the Flexson 900mm stands.

Amazing the sound quality & stereo separation.

There will always be a 'work round' I'm sure with these sort of things, even though the Play 1 or 3 don't have an input.

Still 'worrying' news non the less for us SONOS owners.

Strange because we were literally talking about this on a 'best deals' site 5 weeks ago: post #73 and then commented on later http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/son...ohn-lewis-249-glasgow-2386368?page=4#comments tempting fate.

 

[Gorms]

The UX on my AV receiver SUCKS. Pioneer by the way. Includes the worst remote I have ever used in my life and I've used some garbage in my time. I've been looking to upgrade my solution to something more user friendly and means I can cut down on the number of remotes in my home. Sonos has frequently been recommended to me as the Apple of home stereo. The multi-room is appealing, but I'm after the home cinema experience as I've wired up enough stereos with various sorts of Airplay integration to not be too concerned about multi-room right now. With this news, I'm gonna hold off slightly from looking at a Sonos for another 6 months or so, see how this all shakes down.

If I was Apple though, this would be the audio company I would have been tempted to buy. Maybe buy Sonos, roll it all under the Beats banner? The speech recognition is interesting, third party mic for Siri? If she's coming to OSX might be part of the package for WWDC. Certainly makes sense. I want her ubiquitous, especially at home where I can have an always on Hey Siri, but responses centralised to the device closest to me at all time (Watch/Bluetooth should come in handy for detecting that, immediate response goes to Watch, then handoff to bigger devices if response warrants it).

Whatever, I need a better AV receiver.

 

[iMerik]

The apple music part of the title is only relevant to making Sonos news relevant to this forum. Unless Apple is going to make a stake in the company. Maybe by licensing Siri?

Sonos is one of the innovators for streaming music and IoT, before Internet of Things had a name. I personally have many of their systems to provide a whole house music system. When we moved my great whole house system moved with me.

I think the issue is that Sonos has competition like the Amazon based systems echo/alexis that are much cheaper. Not that these are apple to apple comparisons. It's affecting their bottom line. In addition the market for stand alone speakers is small versus things like headphones that utilize your phone.

Adding a microphone that is Siri like to Sonos would be a good strategy. I don't think Sonos have microphones (yet). I wouldn't want that feature unless I can turn it off or know that it was encrypted outside my network. I'd prefer using my iPhone as the mic. Which is how they recently implemented the Sonos tuning software.

It seems like "Sonos please play ...." will be coming soon.

I wonder if they could add mics to current SONOS products, maybe through the Ethernet port??? I like the thought of the SONOS app and my iOS device as the mic, but it seems they still need a mic solution with the speaker itself too or else you're just talking into your phone like you can do today.

 

[AtomicDusk]

"irreversible shift in the music ecosystem, led by Apple." really i thought apple was more a Jonny come lately to music streaming....

Perhaps it was a reference to the iPod and being one of the more ubiquitous ways for people to have a library of music at their disposal? Streaming is a logical evolution, I guess.

 

[deany]

You better hope Apple purchases them. They are going bankrupt. People aren't buying their speakers so the are desperately changing business plans.

I very much hope apple don't buy SONOS, thank you, and how are you so sure they are going bankrupt, rather than a business 'reshuffle'?

“Building a company capable of sustained innovation, steady growth and future vitality requires that we run the business profitably,” MacFarlane wrote in a company blog post. “We’re not chasing short-term gains or answering to impatient investors. Rather, we’re making a decision to substantially and confidently increase our investment in the future of music.”

Doesn't sound like an owner about to file for bankruptcy.

 

[NikeSG]

I really hope this doesn't change the core DNA of Sonos. Just got the new Play 5's and am loving them. The only complaint I have is that we're forced to use their app, which, admittedly, is a little sluggish and long in the tooth. If they open it up with an enhanced integration, I'm all for it. Truthfully, I was really hoping they'd come out with an even bigger, more powerful loudspeaker, comparable to the legendary Yamaha NS-1000.

I'm really not sure how to take this press release. Sonos was by far my favorite brand last year - strong offerings, great, reliable product and customer service. In my opinion, not much need for an internal change.

 

[UberTiger]

It's refreshing to find a product which comes with no shenanigans. I can't buy an Apple product without wondering how long before Apple hobbles it, or what features they held back for the next version, or how it's going to tie me into a cloud service which I have to pay for and will force me to update things against my best interests.

No games with Sonos, it really does just work. Not like Airplay, or Siri, or Home Sharing, or any of that garbage.

Which has me fearing, all this cosying up to Apple is only going to bad places. New Sonos versions every year, pointless feature upgrades, cloud this that and the other, 3rd party services disappearing, HomeKit lock-in... Paranoid? Yep really paranoid about this one...

You sure about that?

Sonos has it's fair share of games. It completely removed Audible integration back in September so I can no longer listen to Audio books through my Sonos system.

They promised they'd bring it back, 6 months later and we're still waiting....

So much for supporting streaming.

 

[grabes]

This is really concerning. The reason there is so many streaming services for Sonos is because they were a great speaker company, and neutral in the music service market. I would imagine competing services simply won't make their services available for Sonos in the future.

 

[mw360]

You sure about that?

Sonos has it's fair share of games. It completely removed Audible integration back in September so I can no longer listen to Audio books through my Sonos system.

They promised they'd bring it back, 6 months later and we're still waiting....

So much for supporting streaming.

Yep, read about that. It's seems to be something outside of their control triggered when Audible changed their API or somesuch. This is far, far from the manipulation games Apple plays with its users.

 

[Fender2112]

Call me weird, but I actually still use the old fashioned radio for music. I get the music I like. It plays everywhere. It's free.

As long as I have radio, iTunes and services like iHeart Radio, I have no need for subscription based music.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

So they are dropping their hardware? I don't get it.

Aren't they chasing a soap bubble, and risk Apple dropping them as a 'partner'? If that's the case, I wish them well, and wonder when the liquidation will start.