Sonos sorry for disastrous app update, outlines roadmap to fix

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has issued a full and frank apology to owners of the company’s speakers over a mobile app overhaul that drew a huge backlash from users over broken and missing features.

In a blog post on Thursday, Spence admitted users had “experienced significant problems” following the app’s roll out in early May. Spence started the note by “personally apologising for disappointing you.”

Later in the blog, Spence laid out the plans to continue improving the app, adding lost features and functionality over the next few months.

In the post published on July 25, Spence said: “There isn’t an employee at Sonos who isn’t pained by having let you down, and I assure you that fixing the app for all of our customers and partners has been and continues to be our number one priority.

“We developed the new app to create a better experience, with the ability to drive more innovation in the future, and with the knowledge that it would get better over time. However, since launch we have found a number of issues. Fixing these issues has delayed our prior plan to quickly incorporate missing features and functionality.”

There’s quite a laundry list of features to fix for the app, which failed significantly in providing that better experience.

Here’s the roadmap between now and October:

July and August:
Improving the stability when adding new products
Implementing Music Library configuration, browse, search, and play

August and September:
Improving Volume responsiveness
User interface improvements based on customer feedback
Improving overall system stability and error handling

September:
Improving Alarm consistency and reliability

September and October:
Restoring edit mode for Playlists and the Queue
Improving functionality in settings

Do you have faith that Sonos will get the mobile app, which underprins the entire ecosystem, back to its former glories while maintaining the obvious upside of the new design? Let us know @trustedreviews on X.