Summary
- Sonos CEO Spence reportedly considered bringing back the old app due to issues with the new one.
- In a Reddit AMA though, he confirmed this won’t be possible due to the underlying new cloud-based system.
- A major update to the Sonos app is scheduled for next week with big improvements.
The redesigned Sonos app has put the company in a fix. It’s so terrible and lacking basic features that the company is losing its valuable long-time customers. The situation has led Sonos to push back the launch of two new products and fix the new mobile app over “everything else.” A recent report even suggested that the company is so desperate it may bring back its discontinued app. Sadly, that’s not going to happen.
Related
The Sonos Ace headphones aren’t perfect, but they’ve absolutely transformed how I watch TV
The Sonos Ace have supplanted my soundbar
In a Reddit AMA (via The Verge), Sonos CEO Patrick Spence confirmed that the company cannot re-release the old S2 app. Doing so will cause more issues than fixing the problems at hand. This is primarily because the new Sonos app features a new underlying cloud-based architecture. Since its release, the company has made several underlying improvements that negatively affect the stability of the S2 app.
Below is Spence’s full comment about bringing back the old S2 app on the Reddit AMA:
Everything has been on the table in terms of finding the fastest path to fixing your systems. In fact, until very recently I’d been hopeful that we could re-release the old app (S2) as an alternative for those of you that are having issues that we’ve not yet resolved.
The trick of course is that Sonos is not just the mobile app, but software that runs on your speakers and in the cloud too. In the months since the new mobile app launched we’ve been updating the software that runs on our speakers and in the cloud to the point where today S2 is less reliable & less stable then what you remember. After doing extensive testing we’ve reluctantly concluded that re-releasing S2 would make the problems worse, not better. I’m sure this is disappointing. It was disappointing to me.
Big Sonos update coming soon to address some major pain points
Spence also addressed why Sonos needed to release a new app with a cloud-first architecture. He noted that the company has seen an increase in customers using music streaming services instead of relying on their local music library. So, “to improve the reliability & performance of our experience in a cloud-dominant world, we’ve also evolved our architecture.”
The Sonos CEO is refreshingly honest in the AMA, openly acknowledging the app’s failure, though he did slip in corporate buzzwords in some answers. If you are a frustrated Sonos user, you will be glad to know that the company plans to roll out a major software update next week. It will focus on making new product setups more reliable while reducing “Something went wrong” errors. But despite the company’s best efforts, the new app will take a while to deliver a reliable experience. And sadly, there’s not much you can do about it.
Source link
