American audio equipment and software manufacturer, Sonos has been embroiled in a consumer revolt since it released a new app May 7th. This new app had been hyped in the press and was going to make product setup easier and greatly improve the user experience. However, when the app was actually released, it was, and somewhat remains, a disaster. Since the new app was released, CEO Patrick Spence has issued a formal apology and announced in August that the company would be delaying the launch of two products “until our app experience meets the level of quality that we, our customers, and our partners expect from Sonos”.
But one thing is for sure: if you want the old Sonos app back, it’s not coming. In a Reddit AMA response posted Tuesday, Sonos CEO Spence says that he was hopeful “until very recently” that the company could rerelease the app — But after extensive testing, rereleasing the old app would allegedly make things worse. “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 than what you remember“, he said.
“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.”
— Patrick Spence via Reddit
Although the old app is dead in the water, Spence assured folks that fixing the current app “remains my #1 priority“.
