Sonos launched a new version of its mobile app in May, and it didn’t exactly go over well with Sonos customers. The app was bug ridden and lacked several features that had been present in the old app. On Monday, Bloomberg took a look into what went wrong ahead of the app’s launched, and why it was released, even after executives faced internal pressure for employees to delay the app’s launch.
Sonos was forced to release a new app alongside the launch of its new Sonos Aces headphones due to “technical debt.” The company focused on adding new features instead of updating the outdated code written in nearly obsolete development languages, which lead to infrastructure issues. While Sonos delayed addressing the app’s underlying technical debt, the introduction of the new headphones required the Sonos app and the cloud infrastructure behind it to be reworked completely.
While developing the app, Sonos made some cost cutting measures, which included laying off some employees, which also led to internal restructuring, which the report says “caused chaos,” as it split up teams that had worked together for years. As the app’s launch deadline neared, employees are said to have “forcefully” urged company executives to delay the app’s launch because it was far from being ready for prime time.
Former Sonos employees told Bloomberg that instead of ensuring that equipment owned by longtime Sonos customers continued to work properly, the company instead focuses on keeping investors happy and attracting new customers. Many employees were afraid to push back harder, due to fears that they would be terminated.
Sonos’ lead counsel Eddie Lazarus, who was assigned to so a deep dive on what happened, told Bloomberg that the comp[any did delay the app, from early 2024 to May 2024. He also claims there had not been any “yelling” or “screaming” by employees during meetings. Sonos decided to focus on “essential bugs” that needed to be squashed in the app before its launch, and decided that less critical bugs could be fixed after the app’s release.
“Our list of essential bugs, obviously, was not comprehensive enough,” Lazarus ruefully told Bloomberg.
Sonos now expects to miss its annual revenue target by a cool $200 million and in August, the company laid off some employees, telling others that yearly bonuses and merit-based pay raises would not be on the way.
While Sonos executives had toyed with the idea of putting the previous app back into the App Store, those hopes were dashed, after the company found that doing so would make things worse for customers, due to backend updates to cloud servers and the software the company’s speakers run.
