Sonos CEO Patrick Spence on Wednesday said the speaker company is unable to bring back the old version of the app, meaning Sonos customers who are unhappy with the new app are stuck with it, at least for the near future.
Spence said that while he had been hopeful that the company would be able to re-release the old version, the company found that doing so would make things worse for customers, due to backend updates to cloud servers and the software the speakers run.
Everything has been on the table in terms of finding the fastest path to fixing your systems. In fact, until very recently I’d been hopeful that we could re-release the old app (S2) as an alternative for those of you that are having issues that we’ve not yet resolved.
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 then what you remember. 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.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Sonos was mulling over possibly bringing back the original version of the app to appease unhappy users until the new app could be fixed. The revamped app had been released back in May.
Sonos users have criticized the new cloud-based app, saying it is missing basic features. When Sonos released the new app, it said that it packs significant underlying improvements. The cloud-based approach is designed to allow Sonos to add more features to its ecosystem in the future.
Unfortunately for the speaker maker, existing Sonos users are not pleased with the new app, as they say it lacks basic features, such as alarms and timers. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has apologized for the app’s premature rollout and promised a bi-weekly update cycle for new features. The company has also postponed the launch of two new products scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024. The company is now directing all its resources toward getting the new app in shape.
In Wednesday’s Reddit AMA post, Spence assured customers the “original architect of the Sonos platform” has been put back in charge, and said Sonos has “pulled together the very best and most experienced engineers” to fix the app.
Sonos will reportedly take a hit of $20-$30 million to its balance sheet, in addition to a loss of goodwill and customer faith it has already experienced.
