Well, the nicest way to put this is that the launch of the new Sonos app on May 9 received universally mixed reviews. But to give the multi-room audio giant its due, it listened to customer feedback and has now added back some of the most requested features.
As we reported last month, a large number of users took to the internet to express their frustration with the app: It was a significant redesign of an app that many customers use every day, and some were far from happy that the new app didn't it will work. It includes some pretty basic features.
Sonos responded by telling us, “We realize there are beloved features that our listeners are eager to continue enjoying now. We're working diligently to reintroduce them in the coming months, along with additional improvements that will make the app experience even better.”
And it seems that the company is keeping that promise. We've already seen one major update to the app and now another one has just arrived.
What to expect from the new Sonos app update
After the first update, which arrived at the end of May, the new update offers three key features: sleep timers, “play next” and “add to queue.” It also adds support for the new Sonos Ace headphones.
The update is now available for Android, but it doesn't check off everything on your to-do list. Sonos previously shared an update schedule detailing more features it intends to add in June, so you can expect a second update this month; That update should add improved playback controls and search your local music library.
It's definitely a step in the right direction, although, as Sonos says in its aforementioned statement, the app appears to have “taken a few steps back to ultimately take a leap into the future.” Those steps are at least being redone fairly quickly, but the big question on my mind is: what has Sonos learned from this?
The outcry over the app wasn't that users feared change or didn't like a new user interface; These were people who were getting quite angry (and rightly so) because the basic features they were using, like setting alarms to get out of bed to go to work or school, had suddenly been removed. I'm not a Sonos user, but if my smart speakers lost their alarm function overnight without warning or apology, I would be furious and probably stay that way long enough to abandon the entire ecosystem for fear of what might happen. removed below.
When you offer a complete ecosystem, like Sonos does, your customer should be confident that when they update their app, they won't regret it.
