Sonos Delays Launch of Arc Soundbar Successor to Focus on Fixing App

[Obioban]

• Pages after the incredible Pages '09 (though now, it has finally evolved most of the '09 features back in)?
• FCPX right after FCP (though now, it has finally evolved most of the FCP features back in)?
• iMovie 08 after the incredible iMovie '06 (though now, iMovie has some of the good features of '06 back in)?
• Shall I go on?

In every one of those cases, Apple continued to allow you to use the old app until they got the new app up to speed. Sonos does not. And, really, that's probably their biggest error in all this-- if they allowed people to use the old app while they finished the new app, I doubt anyone would be angry.

Apple people who actually own Sonos speakers really struggling with the new iDevice app for whatever reason: fire up the Mac Sonos app. It's the same as it's always been and works just fine. Or don't use the Sonos app at all and just airplay from Mac or iDevice to Sonos... or even command Siri to play your audio on Sonos speakers. Sonos seems extraordinarily ON getting the new app up to snuff ASAP. I'm confident it won't be years as it has been with some Apple apps. The Mac app works just fine and is exactly as it has been for years. Use it until the mobile app gets perfected if you are not doing as well with the mobile version as many friends & I are doing with it.

Now on with the "not Apple" brand thread bash-a-rama...

Mac app: You want me to go up to the office when I want to play music downstairs, outdoors, etc? That seems like a downgrade.

Airplay: Lots of sonos devices don't support airplay. Like, say, the Sonos amps that power the speakers in every room of my house and outdoors.

Sonos hasn't even mentioned bringing back local/NAS stored music playback back, which is the mode I care most about (and the one sonos originally built their brand on, and why I bought their stuff to start with). They just dropped it with the new app, with nary a mention of it's future return.

I have a LOT of sonos gear. Between the new app being hot garbage, them changing the ToS after the sale so that they can sell my data (holding my hardware hostage, not letting me use it unless I agreed to their new terms), and them dropping the primary way I used their devices for no reason that benefits me, I won't be buying any more, or recommending it to anyone else. Junk.

They've altered the deal. Pray they don't alter it further.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Thanks for the detailed reply. When I get time over the weekend I’ll try rolling back to S1 to see if that helps. Falling that maybe I’ll have to switch to Spotify for the volume/device support which would be a shame as I prefer Apple Music….
The volume controls are definitely enabled as they DO work, just take an eternity to respond lol.

Yes, I hope it works. My opinion is that this will only be temporary... just as it often is when Apple makes wholesale app changes that leaves out some features and introduces some bugs. Since audio is ALL of Sonos's business, they should feel much greater urgency to get the new app working well for everyone. We see that in their CEO acknowledging issues, readily apologizing, etc. I'm confident they'll fix bugs and resolve issues ASAP.

In the meantime, those of us with any issues with the app have other options to use them that don't need the app to be even installed on our iDevices. I just shared some of them in the answer to the other guy in post #50. The vast majority of time that I play anything on my Sonos speakers is by those methods... just about NOT needing the Sonos app at all. I could easily go many weeks without opening it ONE time... and not feel like I'm missing a thing.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

In every one of those cases, Apple continued to allow you to use the old app until they got the new app up to speed. Sonos does not.



Mac app: You want me to go up to the office when I want to play music downstairs, outdoors, etc? That seems like a downgrade.

Airplay: Lots of sonos devices don't support airplay. Like, say, the Sonos amps that power the speakers in every room of my house and outdoors.

I have a LOT of sonos gear. Between the new app being hot garbage and them changing the ToS after the sale so that they can sell my data, I won't be buying any more, or recommending it to anyone else. Junk.

Then sell your "junk" and buy HPs. Apple amps should be flawless... oh wait. Apple's surround sound speakers should be superior in every way... oh wait. Apple's Sub should be incredible... oh wait. Apple's soundbar... oh wait.

I don't work for Sonos so I don't really care. But as both a heavily Apple and Sonos household, we feel no grave disaster here. Many friends are similarly set up- no problems there either. There are lots of ways to play on Sonos that don't require the Sonos app at all. I could delete the app right now and carry on as if it was still installed... and be fine for months.

During what will probably be a brief amount of time that Sonos resolves app bugs, bring your Mac downstairs, or use a laptop if you have one, or use remote access to control the upstairs Mac.

I'm not aware of any Sonos SPEAKERS that can't handle airplay... but there's probably some... particularly very old ones. Anything dependent on "smart" tech is going to have a tech shelf life. If you want to dump your "junk" don't replace it with any "smart" speakers. Separate the smarts from the "dumb" parts and the latter can last for 30 years and play anything no matter what some tech company does... including the favorite tech company.

As to AMP, get an airplay source to feed into AMP. Dig out a retired iDevice, connect it to Amp and Siri command it to play your stuff until the new Sonos app is 99% again. Or get a cheap audio extractor to hook to an AppleTV and route the audio into AMP, then command Siri via AppleTV to play audio, or airplay to AppleTV to then play extracted audio through AMP.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic at all but there are plenty of remedies to most tech problems.

Or we can just gripe, complain & vent.

 

[LogicalApex]

I’ve not seen their codebase, but in general this episode speaks to many general issues facing software engineers in this era:

• Prioritizing the addition of new features over addressing existing technical debt
• Getting a codebase in such a state that it requires a clean-slate approach to move it forward
• ‘Just getting it done’ vs ‘Doing it well’
• Deprioritizing the design of a holistic system architecture over bundling one-off solutions
• Praising rockstar coding efforts as opposed to methodical, thoughtful approaches
• Lack of proper estimation and understanding of total time and costs involved in an effort
• Lack of any real vision for a product as opposed to gimmicky approaches in the pursuit of ‘shiny’

As a software engineer. I feel this is heavily caused by the shift to sprints and agile.

Everything is reduced to short sprints where every sprint push is a deliverable piece of software in theory. But then you have things being delivered in chunks. Such that people lose sight of the forest for the trees.

It is an industry wide problem.

 

[nt5672]

Depends where you work. As a senior VP in charge of development at a software company, our product team works with senior management, development, QA, and customers to define features and set priorities and schedules for each release.

Excellent, that is how it should work. You would be surprised at how many dysfunctional management layers exist is sone companies.

 

[Obioban]

Then sell your "junk" and buy HPs. Apple amps should be flawless... oh wait. Apple's surround sound speakers should be superior in every way... oh wait. Apple's Sub should be incredible... oh wait. Apple's soundbar... oh wait.

I don't work for Sonos so I don't really care. But as both a heavily Apple and Sonos household, we feel no grave disaster here. Many friends are similarly set up- no problems there either. There are lots of ways to play on Sonos that don't require the Sonos app at all. I could delete the app right now and carry on as if it was still installed... and be fine for months.

During what will probably be a brief amount of time that Sonos resolves app bugs, bring your Mac downstairs, or use a laptop if you have one, or use remote access to control the upstairs Mac.

I'm not aware of any Sonos SPEAKERS that can't handle airplay... but there's probably some... particularly very old ones. Anything dependent on "smart" tech is going to have a tech shelf life. If you want to dump your "junk" don't replace it with any "smart" speakers. Separate the smarts from the "dumb" parts and the latter can last for 30 years and play anything no matter what some tech company does... including the favorite tech company.

As to AMP, get an airplay source to feed into AMP. Dig out a retired iDevice, connect it to Amp and Siri command it to play your stuff until the new Sonos app is 99% again. Or get a cheap audio extractor to hook to an AppleTV and route the audio into AMP, then command Siri via AppleTV to play audio, or airplay to AppleTV to then play extracted audio through AMP.

I don't want to sound unsympathetic at all but there are plenty of remedies to most tech problems.

Or we can just gripe, complain & vent.

you sure managed to gloss over/not reply to a whole lot of points in favor of going on a rant.
(apple continuing to allow old apps to be used when the new app wasn't up to snuff)
(sonos holding hardware hostage unless you agree to new ToS where they can sell your data)
(sonos dropping local file playback, with zero statements that they have any intention of bringing it back)

 

[GLS]

It wasn't just an app redesign.

Sonos changed the networking protocols their equipment used as well. They are now using mDNS on their gear. That brought about a whole other level of issues.

All of my gear is still running the last update (I believe) before the May disaster. My phone still is running the new app, but I had auto updates for the hardware disabled. Everything is gonna stay on 16.1.1 for as long as it takes. I can't use Trueplay, nor can I use the app to play music----I'll just airplay to the hardware.

 

[macford]

There is a track record with Sonos that when they are about to release a new product they have to release a new version of the app to support and they often times break things in the process. A couple years ago they released a new speaker and the version of the app they put out to support that speaker borked the subwoofer feed. For a couple months your subwoofer would just intermittently stop working. No signal was being sent to it. It took several releases before they fixed it. The workaround was to reboot your entire system. Not convenient when in the middle of watching a movie. You couldn't roll back because then the version of the app wouldn't support the new speaker. This has happened before and will happen again until Sonos figures out how to wall off functionality for any new product from destroying the ability of existing products to work as expected. There are many lengthy threads on the Sonos support boards about the subwoofer incident. I do love their speakers when they work but when they don't and you're reliant upon the app to get them to work again and that functionality is not there I can tell you it's incredibly frustrating. The convenience of the wireless speaker system goes away quickly when they don't "just work".

 

[kid1230]

snooze

 

[dwsolberg]

The mistake here was to replace the old app with the new one. If it was the S3 app, everything would be fine.

 

[rishey]

Sonos needs better competition.

 

[Remy149]

If you can get by using the Apple Music app and and Airplay you don't really need Sonos. Also lots of installed Sonos systems don't support Airplay at all.

I only buy Sonos because it has airplay and integrates can be used besides all my HomePods. Only older Sonos products don’t offer airplay.

 

[matsan]

Biggest issue we have with the new app is that it no longer seamlessly lets us move between our three Sonos installations; home, office and summerhouse - all connected to same Sonos account.
Previous version “just worked” by just changing the name of the installation in the app and reconnected automatically .
New app always threats the different installations as new, going through the steps to connect and configure the “new” system.
Sigh.

 

[svish]

Good to know. Hopefully all the issues with the app will be fixed soon.

 

[beanbaguk]

When it all went wrong, I was reminded how good my wonderful B&W surround system was, with my (ageing), Yamaha RX-V1900 surround amp. It might be old, but the sound is glorious, and fully controlled with my Logitech Harmony remote and my Apple TV which serves as an AirPlay 2 receiver.

It might be bulky, but it'll destroy any Sonos system in terms of sound quality and dynamics. Plus, it's infinitely louder!!!

I planned to get a Sonos receiver fot it, but I might hold back on that.

 

[SalisburySam]

I honestly can't think of a worse app 'redesign' in history.

I can, I can! I suggest a real contender for the title is “DarkSky” purchased, devolved, and now in theaters near you as Apple Weather.

 

[ValppleFan]

ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, requested this new "app" again a typical dev team looking to justify their job and to reinvent the wheel when it was working perfectly before...

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

When it all went wrong, I was reminded how good my wonderful B&W surround system was, with my (ageing), Yamaha RX-V1900 surround amp. It might be old, but the sound is glorious, and fully controlled with my Logitech Harmony remote and my Apple TV which serves as an AirPlay 2 receiver.

It might be bulky, but it'll destroy any Sonos system in terms of sound quality and dynamics. Plus, it's infinitely louder!!!

I planned to get a Sonos receiver fot it, but I might hold back on that.

As someone who greatly appreciates good audio myself, I strongly endorse the idea of a quality Receiver- ideally an Airplay-capable one (which seems to be most of them these days)- and classic "dumb speakers BEFORE any "smart" speakers. So your thinking is- IMO- best thinking overall: pair a good Receiver with your "dumb" speakers.

My own main setup is exactly that too. I use Sonos like others use HPs: in other rooms.

Why is "dumb" speakers > "smart" speakers IMO? The latter is essentially married and fully dependent on those "smarts" including the OS/software that makes them work. When that gets too old or when the corp decides to no longer update the "smarts", anything "smart" is soon "vintaged" and then eventually "breaks." As Apple people, we know this very well as ALL of our Apple tech has a very formal process where it is vintaged and then soon after things like Safari not being updated can no longer work with some websites, etc. There's nearly 0% chance that the perfectly functional "dumb" parts of any "smart" speakers can still be used decades from now. However, any "dumb" speaker setup can easily have "dumb" speakers still being enjoyed decades from now.

Separate the "smarts" (in a Receiver) from the "dumb" part (the speakers themselves) and the very worst case is having just the "smarts" part eventually made obsolete by evolving standards without software updates keeping up. But then you can just buy a brand new "smarts" Receiver at that time, hook up the "dumb" speakers to it and carry on... akin to the iMac vs. separates situation. When ANYTHING in an iMac conks or obsoletes, it's pretty much "throw baby out with the bathwater"... it all must be dumped, even if- say- that iMac monitor is still perfectly capable of displaying content. When the separates Mac conks or is made obsolete, you can replace that Mac and "the rest"- such as separate monitor- can then continue to be used with the replacement "smarts."

Whether Sonos or HPs, I would not build my primary audio system around either if I could utilize this kind of traditional setup. Where I would (and DO) use either- but personally favor Sonos myself- is in "other rooms" scenarios. Why do I prefer Sonos over HPs? Sonos is much more "open", works with everything (already) while working with Apple Music/Homekit/Airplay too, they are focused on only audio, and Sonos already has a full range of supporting speakers instead of just 2 that can be paired as stereo... as long as they are from the same generation. I wonder if HP3 will be able to pair with HP2 and how long an iOS-based OS will get updates before vintage declaration... dooming perfectly good "dumb" speaker parts to obsolescence long before they could actually fail to be able to play audio. Tick, tock, tick, tock.

 

[Belisama]

The miserable app is just one aspect o the problem.
I've been using Sonos Beam and One speakers for years. Since the recent firmware updates, my speakers are crackling or clicking for no reason. Surround has become useless.
It was great since 2018 😢. The hardware is in perfect condition. I will not buy a Sonos product again. I'm planning to go back to a more traditional sound system with dumb speakers and a receiver that could be replaced AS NEEDED.

 

[philrock]

The recent Overcast redesign comes close.

I'm still struggling with this daily.

 

[xraydoc]

My Sonos system is finally stable, other than the missing features yet to be added back to the app (which, to be fair, I personally never used, but there are plenty of people who do).

 

[xraydoc]

So don't use the Sonos app at all... or even delete the app entirely.

Play music from Apple Music app on Sonos speakers directly by selecting the Sonos speakers as target speakers. Adjust volume in the Apple Music app, not the Sonos app.

You gave me a moment of doubt in spite of playing Apple Music on them almost every day (but not needing to adjust volume much), so I just fired up Apple Music (app, that's Apples app), selected the Sonos speakers and music played immediately. I then started moving the volume bar up and down and it was fast response- certainly not 10 seconds- as fast as the WIRED speakers I have direct attached to Mac.

Mac is wired ethernet to router. Sonos speakers are connected wireless and relatively far from my router.

Will do a fresh test with the Apple Remote app on an iDevice now for an all wireless test and update shortly.

Update: just as fast in the all-wireless test.

Now, that offered, your situation can certainly be different and I fully acknowledge that obviously some people are having problems because Sonos themselves are acknowledging it in a very public, very open way. But it doesn't seem to be a universal problem because then it would affect ALL of us.

And since you want to enjoy Apple Music and rapid volume control, use the (Apple created) Apple Music app to do both. You could entirely delete the Sonos app if you like and still enjoy Apple Music and fast volume control.

After a while, Sonos will de-bug the new app and then it will run the Sonos show for the next 5-8 years or so until they get the itch to do it again... just like Apple does with apps like Pages, FCP, iMovie, etc. I'm still trying to get accustomed to the "evolved" SYSTEM SETTINGS app on Mac, often resorting to web searches to figure out where commonplace settings that used to be easily accessible and seemingly more logically located are now.

Airplay is not equivalent to the Sonos app. For example, I'd want to be able to start some music, then leave the house and have the music continue to play so my wife can enjoy. She'll want to be able to change volume, skip tracks, maybe even change the source. Then I'd want to be able to control it again when I return. If I treated the Sonos speakers simply as an AirPlay target, the music would stop the instant I left my own home's WIFI.

I also have a Lutron lighting system in my home which has Sonos integration (pico remotes can start/pause music, change tracks, change volume)... can't do this if you're just using AirPlay.

There are more examples....

Perhaps AirPlay target speakers are good enough for you, but they are not only what Sonos products are intended to be.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Yes, I'm offering workaround solutions to specific needs best I can help people... not comprehensive or permanent replacement solutions. No need for permanent alt solutions because Sonos will inevitably debug the new app for those people having problems (which is obviously not everyone).

In your problem, I would encourage your wife to own the "airplay" from her device in that situation or if you have a Mac or AppleTV that stays at home, start the airplay from it so you can leave and the music keeps playing.

I have no suggestion for the Lutron as I have no experience with that. Perhaps that just can't work until Sonos debugs the new app? Or maybe you can "think different" and try some workarounds to find some other way to do most of whatever you want there until Sonos gets the app debugged. Add Lutron (or this one) and/or use HomeKit so that Apple apps can control it? There must be many people with Lutron but not Sonos, so perhaps do whatever you would do without any Sonos integration to use Lutron?

What I can offer for sure is that the collective whining, griping & complaining resolves nothing for anyone in any of these threads. We either "think different" to resolve our challenges or stand by until the Sonos app is debugged. I suspect they- feeling the pain in very direct ways- are working feverishly to get it up to snuff ASAP. In the meantime, we can wait for resolution- as we do many, MANY times with Apple (I've been waiting 4+ years and counting for a perfectly stable external enclosure to stop "unexpectedly ejecting" on any Mac running any macOS BigSur or newer) OR we find workarounds that very well may only deliver SOME of the desired experience/benefits until the app is debugged to bring it fully back to normal.

BTW: my workaround for that enclosure problem was to buy another enclosure to temporarily use until Apple finally fixes the bugs. Some work and some don't. So I went through a couple of them to find one that would remain connected. Do I like having to burn money for no particular improvement over what I already have? Not at all. But whining won't make external storage work. And I needed external storage to work. So I took action... first trying anything and everything possible to resolve it with the setup I already had... and then opening the wallet to buy something else to act as a bandaid solution... and hope maybe year 5 Sequoia will bring USB port debugging, so I can reliably use it again with my main Mac instead of only older ones running macOS BEFORE BigSur.

Same advice to everyone here. Take action, use workarounds and enjoy as good as you can until Sonos gets the app fully debugged- which I'm certain they will- since their entire business depends on it... unlike Apple who can let this "ejection" bug go 4 generations in Mac OS and who cares: customers will buy and praise and worship and/or defend anyway. iPhone is really king and Mac is just a smallish piece of the Apple pie. For Sonos, speakers are ALL of their pie.

 

[Numbah One]

Customers don't like bug laden products? Quality as a feature? Glad Patrick Spence stumbled into these "original" ideas, finally.

 

[spicynujac]

Can't remember the last time I saw an app update that was an improvement over the old one.

Reminds me of Patrice O'Neal's last comedy skit before he died: "Ain't That Betta?"