If you ’re a Sonos owner , I can almost guarantee that at some point ( and maybe many head ) since the launch of the fellowship ’s redesigned app , you ’ve desire to throw your phone at the wall . The foiling of not being able to habituate the wireless speaker in your household may be a quintessential first - world problem , but it does n’t deepen the fact that this was all so evitable . But now there are rumors thatSonos is contemplating bring back its sure-enough app — known as Sonos S2 — and I could n’t be more supportive . Frankly , I do n’t have it off why it has n’t already happen .
When the new app launched in other May , I right away note a slew of absent featuresand performance issues . My reaction — which was shared by many industry watchers — was a wait - and - see coming . Software bugs are just a fact of life , and Sonos has had to squash pile of them over the years . I was willing to give the team the benefit of the doubtfulness , and I fully look that by the final stage of May — peradventure , bad - example scenario , mid - June — everything would be back to normal .
But when those timelines came and went , and it became clear thatprogress on the new app was painfully slow(while at the same it felt like people were discover new bug daily ) , my optimism sank . I link up the rest of my fellow Sonos owners in the awful new normal of never knowing if my speakers would reply to my command , or if the app would even recognize my system . To this day , when I start the new app , there ’s a 50/50 chance it will require me if I need to set up a new Sonos scheme .
As soon as the newfangled app strike its one - calendar month day of remembrance in June and the Sonos engineering squad realized that the needed localization were plump to take calendar month to implement , CEO Patrick Spence should have done what executives do : made the executive decision to move back the unexampled app and fetch back the S2 app .
I can only think of one reason why this did n’t happen : Sonos ’ most significant new mathematical product in days — theSonos Ace phone — need the newfangled app . Without it , they ’ll still function like normalBluetooth earpiece , but you wo n’t be able to make any adjustment to options or update their firmware . Moreover , Ace possessor would n’t be able to utilise one of the Ace ’s most swash features : the ability to switch a Sonos Arc soundbar’sspatial audioto the phone with the press of a clitoris .
And that ’s basically what Spence said on the company ’s earnings call on August 7 : “ We viewed rearchitecting the app as essential to the increment of Sonos as we expand into fresh category and move determinedly outdoors of the house . ”
I certainly understand Spence ’s disinclination to let down Ace owners . But I do not understand throwingallSonos user under the jitney in purchase order to preserve a modest chunk of functionality for an incredibly humble percentage of the company ’s customer .
In his official apology for the site , Spencelaid out a calendar month - long planthat will see the new app finally work the way everyone thought it should have from the start . I ’m delighted that Sonos has a program . I ’m not happy at all that we have to digest while the plan is put into action .
Is plump for the Sonos Ace headphones deserving bricking the entire arrangement for everyone else
The resolution is obvious , as it has been from the start of this fiasco , for those who were clean - eyed enough to see it : bring back the sometime app . And do n’t rerelease the Modern one until it has all of the features and reliability Sonos owners have come to carry .
To be vindicated , there could be risks to this approach . Going back to S2 after updating to the new app might have some unintended consequence as Sonos ironware is force to borrow older code . Sonos ’ bread and butter staff might be deluged with a newfangled rung of folks calling in need of aid . And yet , surely this is better thanhaving users resort to a third - party appjust to be capable to use their speakers ?
Sonos has been here before . When it decided to sunset supporting for some of its former product , effectively making them unuseable , customer recoil was swift and impregnable . In the end , Sonos decide to let client adjudicate between the S1 app ( which would work with all of their existing products , but would pick up no updates)or migrate to the S2 app , which would only make with newer products .
It was the right call . It gift client a choice over how to utilise their products . Many end up splitting their organisation into old and newfangled . It think using two apps for two different collections of Sonos product , but as an choice to throwing out perfectly functional equipment , it made a lot of sense .
A similar glide slope could be used for the replication of the S2 app : If customers do n’t own the Sonos Ace , or they do and do n’t psyche temporarily lose the ability to vary their phone setting , they can turn back to S2 . Everyone else can stick with the new app . Once the new app is fully fixed , Sonos could once again retire the S2 version .
