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Sonos CEO Steps Down Following Disastrous App Redesign

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Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has stepped down after eight years, following widespread criticism over the company's failed app redesign (via Bloomberg).

sonos-redesigned-app.jpg

The company has appointed board member and former Snap and Pandora executive Tom Conrad as interim CEO, effective immediately, while the search for a permanent replacement is conducted. The catalyst for the leadership shake-up was the May 2024 launch of a redesigned Sonos app, which sought to modernize the software and alongside adding support for the company's first headphones, the Sonos Ace, which were positioned to compete with Apple's AirPods Max.

The app rollout was marred by widespread technical issues and the removal of features such as sleep timers, alarms, and key accessibility options. Users reported connectivity problems, interface confusion, and lag, with some older Sonos systems rendered effectively unusable.

The company's revenue subsequently declined by 16% in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2024, with analysts projecting a further 15% drop for the critical holiday period. Sonos's stock price fell approximately 13% following the app update's release.

Sonos made efforts to address the new app's issues, including restoring some removed features and committing to fixing lingering bugs. Spence issued a public apology to customers, acknowledging the company's failings and outlining a timeline for improvements, but the damage to the company's reputation proved difficult to repair.

The company also faced internal struggles, including the postponement of new products, the cancellation of projects such as an Apple TV-style set-top box, and the layoff of approximately 100 employees in August 2024.

Tom Conrad has served on the Sonos board since 2017 and now steps into the role of interim CEO. Conrad was a co-creator of the Pandora music service and a vice president at Snap.

In an email to employees, he said: "When it doesn't work, our customers are taken out of the moment and are right to feel that we've let them down. I think we'll all agree that this year we've let far too many people down... Getting back to basics is necessary, but clearly not enough to unlock the future we all envision for Sonos," suggesting that he wants to expand the company "well beyond" home speaker equipment.



Article Link: Sonos CEO Steps Down Following Disastrous App Redesign
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/13/sonos-ceo-steps-down-after-app-redesign/
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Listen to your customers. If few are complaining, it doesn't matter for a while. But when thousands are pointing out the same issues, you should listen at once.
Sonos could solve this issue at once. They could release the older version of app and correct the issues with the new one. Instead, they made it look like they have deleted all backups and now customers should live with it. It's something like Apple did with headphone jack. But Apple did release wireless headsets which works far better than any other headsets with iPhone and you could use a wired lightning headset or use a damn good DAC from Apple.
 
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Hopefully the new CEO can fix the issues. I love my Beam Gen 2, sounds amazing and I haven’t had any issues with it, but since I only have the 1 speaker I don’t use the Sonos app at all, just use Apple Music to airplay music to the Beam or my Apple TV to watch shows/movies. In the future I’d like to get some surround speakers, but wouldn’t want to invest the cash with all the issues I’ve read about.
 
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Kottu said:
Listen to your customers. If few are complaining, it doesn't matter for a while. But when thousands are pointing out the same issues, you should listen at once.
Sonos could solve this issue at once. They could release the older version of app and correct the issues with the new one. Instead, they made it look like they have deleted all backups and now customers should live with it. It's something like Apple did with headphone jack. But Apple did release wireless headsets which works far better than any other headsets with iPhone and you could use a wired lightning headset or use a damn good DAC from Apple.
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Incorrect. They could not go back to the old system as they forced firmware updates on the devices.
 
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aperf8ectcircle said:
Hopefully the new CEO can fix the issues. I love my Beam Gen 2, sounds amazing and I haven’t had any issues with it, but since I only have the 1 speaker I don’t use the Sonos app at all, just use Apple Music to airplay music to the Beam or my Apple TV to watch shows/movies. In the future I’d like to get some surround speakers, but wouldn’t want to invest the cash with all the issues I’ve read about.
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We have a pair of the Ikea branded sonos speakers, and I have a pretty robust setup in Home Assistant to manage them. When the horrendously buggy software update came out then everything pretty much broke. We have one speaker in the kitchen and the other in our bedroom. After the software update we couldn't individually interact with just one or the other through HA. It has subsequently started working a lot better again in the past few weeks, so it does look like they've done a decent job of fixing the back-end bugs. However I still find the UI in their iPhone app to be absolutely horrendous. It's way too easy to not realize which speaker you're controlling, if you have the two speakers linked together, etc.
 
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The mistake was likely NOT in creating and releasing a new App. Apple and everyone else does that all the time. The mistake was releasing it before it was ready... rushed- presumably- because its release was tied to getting the new products out. If so, the monetary cart got ahead of the app horse. We Apple people see this all the time. Just ask A.I. Siri.

I have several Sonos speakers in my home and have no problem with them or the app. As #4 says, one rarely needs to touch the Sonos app to use Sonos speakers. I've also set up a number of new Sonos systems for friends & family throughout this new app period with no problem at all.

Do I believe the app has issues? Yes, but it feels "mountain out of a molehill" to me... especially from Apple people who almost certainly know they can just about NOT use the app at all with Airplay, with some of the speakers wired into a home theater setup and, for those who do want to use a Sonos app- the old one still runs exactly as it always did on Mac. So just like when Apple does a wholesale app overhaul we don't like, we can work around it if we "think different."

Objectively, the new app makes it possible to bring the most used features of the old app to the top. Instead of having to click down through several layers to get to desirable functionality- such as playing a specific music station- one can now opt to bring favorite station to the top screen, organizing them exactly as you want them. I consider that FARRRRRRRR superior to the old app which seemed to have commonly-used things 2 or 3 clicks away at all times.

However, again, as a Mac person, I almost never need to touch the Sonos iDevice app. I could delete it if I like and still enjoy my Sonos speakers in almost every way that I use them. While they continue to deal with bugs (just like Apple continues to deal with bugs) I do what we Apple people do: work around it. If I really, really, really need to use a Sonos app, the one on my Macs is as it has always been.
 
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I mean ffs, this is the right move, but seriously WHAT TOOK SO LONG??? If I screwed up on my job as bad at Spence did, then I wouldve been kicked to the curb ASAP, no questions asked. I LOVE my Sonos ecosystem and thankfully havent had many issues but when pretty much your entire customer base is unhappy then a change needs to be made. This change wouldve had a lot more impact had it been done much sooner. I have high hopes they get things turned around.
 
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albebaubles said:
Incorrect. They could not go back to the old system as they forced firmware updates on the devices.
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True enough. But then - bad planning and execution. Implement your new system such that it's either compatible with both firmwares, or if not possible, first update your firmware base so that it can talk to both apps. Then you're not backed into a corner if things go wrong. In this case, had they done that, they could have rolled back. No sympathy.
 
This is what you get when you run a company and do not listen to the employees. Everyone here is like listen to the customer listen to the customer..... please his dev team flat out told him this was a bad idea and were told to process the changes any way. The marketing team was the ones who pushed hard for this effort and did not listen to internal stake holders who were screaming do not do this....... This is always the way it goes, the CEO is pig headed lead around by sales and marketing with out listening to the eng teams that made the company what it is today. The funny thing is how quickly you can burn the good will of your customers when you fail to listen to your own internal teams who made the company something the customer loves.


The customer is not always right, and the CEO is almost never right when making eng choices even if they are eng them selves, as they have been lead around by the finance and sales and marketing teams to long. The eng staff I am very sure were not keen on these changes in the way they did them, IE not leaving the old app up and building a whole new instance of the new horse crap ......
 
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I am sure Mr Spence will be hired on elsewhere at a higher salary, huge bonus and golden parachute within a couple of weeks.
 
"When it doesn't work, our customers are taken out of the moment and are right to feel that we've let them down"

I doubt those who received this email made the decision. They likely warned management, but management pushed ahead, prioritizing new customers over the existing ones whose money they already have.
 
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