Sonos is Fixed

[Petrushka]

Sonos released three updates recently, a system update and two app updates.

As far as I can tell, everything that worked in the old app works in the new one. I’m sure some people will have glitches, and there may be some little used features that still don’t work 100 percent, but everything I use now works, and performance is good.

The latest thing fixed was playlist editing. I can now add and edit playlists. It’s not great. I would like to select multiple files and delete or move them in a batch. I hope that on the list for a future update.

If anyone has questions, I’ll try to answer.

 

[GD Fan]

Are they back to supporting all speakers, regardless of the vintage? Or is it still two different apps and weird issues if you have gen 1 speakers mixed in with later versions?

 

[Petrushka]

Are they back to supporting all speakers, regardless of the vintage? Or is it still two different apps and weird issues if you have gen 1 speakers mixed in with later versions?

I can’t answer that, but Sonophone and SonoPad do both gens. But don’t have setup features or playlist editing.

 

[qirex]

The new app can still take 5+ seconds to load "what's playing" but you are technically correct. The damage is done, though, thanks to some advanced cases of MBA brain. I guess it's comforting to know that they finally realize how dumb it was to break, without warning, basic playback functionality on a large number of systems. Sleep, playlist management and alarms were a big deal but them changing the way the desktop apps manage network shares without documenting it was one of those things I almost couldn't believe they were doing. There were so many different ways they could have handled that and it's like they made every important decision wrong. And the features they needed to support on the headphones didn't even ship until the fall anyway.

I think one thing it's important to remember is folks at Sonos only got in trouble because the headphones are a flop. If they were somehow a massive success the executives who made this decision would still be in place and the development resources they redirected onto fixing the app would still be working on other stuff. That said I'm not surprised at all and I'd love to know how they thought pissing off existing Sonos customers, who were probably the people most likely to buy them, was a good idea. I also don't get why they aren't wifi, I think that's what people were expecting and "lossless wireless headphones that live on your Sonos network with bluetooth for when you're out of the house" would have been a much more compelling product offering, IMO. As it stands on their own product page they barely mention home listening and sell them just like every other wireless ANC over-ears.

Are they back to supporting all speakers, regardless of the vintage? Or is it still two different apps and weird issues if you have gen 1 speakers mixed in with later versions?

No, you will never get the newest features on 12-20 year old hardware. The S1/S2 thing was handled almost as poorly as the new app transition and the root cause is Sonos' fault but there's literally no way back.

 

[Petrushka]

I do not have that loading delay. It does seem to matter whether it’s the first time of the day.

 

[qirex]

I do not have that loading delay. It does seem to matter whether it’s the first time of the day.

There's still missing features like detailed album and track info but compared to "oops, we nuked your network shares and alarm clock" I'm willing to give them a pass.