Consumer electronics

Dear Sonos CEO (whose name I'm honestly too annoyed to look up right now),

I hope this letter finds you well, although I suspect your inbox might be as chaotic as the new Sonos app. It seems someone at Sonos HQ decided that the best way to "improve" our listening experience was to unleash this hot mess onto our devices. Spoiler alert: it’s not a hit.

Listen up, because clearly your design team wasn't. The new Sonos app is a dumpster fire wrapped in a migraine and topped with a clown car full of usability nightmares.

Feature Graveyard: Did you guys lose a bet and decide to axe features as a result? The new app we're left with is a skeleton of what used to be a clunky but at least fully functioning app.

UI Trainwreck: Who designed this user interface? A herd of cats would have done a more coordinated job. Navigating the new UI feels like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the dark. It's clunky, counterintuitive, and about as user-friendly as a porcupine in a balloon shop. Drawer elements are now used for everything, and swipes are ignored or completely unintuitive, leaving users frustrated and confused. Are you trying to set a record for the most unnecessary drawer elements in an app?

Performance Disasters: I’d expect this level of performance from a bargain bin app, not from a premium brand like Sonos.

Sonos Radio Shenanigans: I get it, Sonos Radio is your baby. But forcing it on users and making it impossible to disable? Really? I didn’t buy premium speakers to have your streaming service shoved down my throat. It feels intrusive and unwelcome—like a pop-up ad that you can’t close.

User Feedback Abyss: It feels like all our feedback over the years went into a black hole. Did anyone at Sonos even bother to test this with actual users? Because if they did, they must have had the patience of saints or the expectations of a goldfish.

Here's the thing, Sonos. I invested good money in your speakers because they were supposed to make my life easier, not turn my phone into a frustrating labyrinth. To sum it up, the new Sonos app is a symphony of terrible decisions. Instead of enhancing my Sonos experience, it has turned it into a frustrating test of endurance.

And look, I get it. Change is inevitable. But this "upgrade" feels more like a downgrade to the Stone Age of audio control. Please, for the love of all things harmonious, fix this mess.

Sonos CEO person: we need a serious rethink here. Please, for the sake of all that is harmonious, farm out your app to an outside developer that gets it, and can build an app that lives up to the Sonos name. Your speakers deserve an app that complements their quality, not one that drags them down into the depths of mediocrity.

Looking forward to seeing some rapid and meaningful changes.

Sincerely,

-A very disgruntled Sonos customer (and probably many, many more)

I have been the biggest advocate of the iPad as it truly is an exceptional companion device if you use it as one. Bought my 2018 iPad Pro on the day when it came out. Drove to Portland from Seattle to pick up 4 units for me and some of my friends due to limited stock availability in WA and also saving on that tax $$. Used it as my daily note taking / assignments device in college for 3 years and continued to use as my primary personal device with the Magic Keyboard after graduating.

After all these years, the iPad still functions amazingly well. I use it for all sorts of casual tasks and prefer it over my laptop. The hardware was overkill when it came out and still holds true to this day. Recently bought my mom the latest iPad Air and not having the pro-motion display on that still made my 6 year old iPad feel the better one.

Today I finally noticed some delay in opening apps and app switching. Battery has deteriorated but still lasts me an entire day.

Point of the post is the 2018 Pro is still a magnificent device 6 years later. Truly one of the best tech purchases I have ever made! Currently I have no need to upgrade this device but maybe with new AI updates on the iPadOS I might consider upgrading it next year.

Curious to know if anyone else is still rocking their 2018 pro models and what their experiences have been?

I’ve made so many mistakes during our time together, Sonos, and I sincerely want to apologize for everything I’ve done wrong. Where to begin?

I guess my first mistake was curating a personal music library that I spent many hours on over the years organizing, finding album art for, and poring over its file names to correct errors and make sure everything was just exactly perfect. Haha I’m such a nerd, I know. My bad. I’m sorry.

My second mistake was not having a computer science degree, because that really would have come in handy for figuring out work-arounds when your app or speakers periodically stopped working. I feel bad for being a dummy who decided to pursue advanced degrees in the social sciences. Stupid stupid stupid! (And, related to this, I have clearly messed up by being a woman. Again, my bad for not being a man, yet thinking I was kind of okay with computers and calling myself an audiophile. This will make you laugh: I even set up an external hard-drive to store and protect my music library. So silly, right? As Bugs Bunny once said, “What a maroon!” Haha, you’re right, Sonos. I’m an ignoranimus haha).

My third mistake was thinking that listening to music in my own home should be, well, easy. Again, I’m sorry Sonos for being such a dumb user. It is entirely my fault for not realizing that listening to a personal music library is supposed to be hard. Like, really, really hard. You’ve taught me an important lesson, and I am grateful for it.

In fact, since I know you prefer I use paid streaming services, I decided to link my Nugs account to you last week after you took away my ability to access my local library. I just want to make you happy. So please don’t get mad when I tell you this, but I got an error message and your new app wouldn’t play anything from my library over at Nugs. I know! I know! It’s my fault! But please hear me out. I’ll admit I was kind of bummed for a couple days when I realized I can no longer listen to any of my music. But then it hit me: you’ve decided that tv audio is all I really need. It’s so clear to me now! Thank you for letting me have something, anything, given what a disappointment I must be to you.

In short, I really don’t deserve you, Sonos. I was lucky you even let me take you home that magical day, 11 years ago, when I first saw you across a crowded room. You were so good-looking. Irresistible, really. And smart. So smart. I’m lucky you even answered my calls over the years, given what a desperate loser I must have sounded like during our chats on the phone. I’ll admit, I always suspected you were a little embarrassed of me because you never invited me to those fancy parties. For my part, even though it was obvious to everyone you were way out of my league, I couldn’t help bragging about you to my friends and family. And when they would tell me that I was blinded by love and should put my needs first, I always defended you. Always! I just wanted you to know that.

I was wrong, Sonos. You were right. I’m sorry.

. Plus running businesses that do so. I've seen few snafus as bad as the new Sonos app and its rollout. I've been a loyal Sonos customer for 20 years. I just added a Sonos Amp to one of my three Sonos systems.

The new app is far too different from the previous version to spring on people unexpectedly and without permission. And who made the decision to change the icon color from tan to black, which had been the color of a long obsolete version? Utterly needless confusion.

And it now seems to be nearly impossible to add a new music service. Sonos has invented a new concept called "Account owner," which appears to be different from the email shown on the profile. At least it refuses to login when trying to add a service. Speaking of logging in, a failed login sometimes results in a crazy loop that you have to shut down and restart an iPhone to escape.

Whether the new functionality is "better" or not, is too soon to say, but the way it was jammed down our throats despite being a truly radical change and the inadequate testing of even the most common use cases (adding a service) shows me that there is something seriously wrong in Sonos land.

Why not just wait until the app is fully developed so you don’t have to fucking take them out in the first place 🤦