Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has published an open letter addressing the development of the company’s new app, as well as providing updates for its users.
The revamped Sonos app, released on 7 May, was aimed at making the audio company appear more in touch with customer needs while introducing a sleeker user experience.
However, two months after its bug-laden rollout, users have faced “significant problems” due to technical issues leaving customers with malfunctioning sleep timers, issues with local music library management, and an inability to edit playlists or song queues.
Shortly following its May release, the company doubled down on its new design overhaul stating the new app launch took “courage”, a remark described as “tone deaf” by users.
“We’ve heard your concerns about the app update launched on May 7 and appreciate your patience as we make improvements,” Sonos’ official X account posted, before sharing a direct link to Spence’s online statement.
The apology letter emphasises that fixing the Sonos app remains a “number one priority” for the company.
“We developed the new app to create a better experience, with the ability to drive more innovation in the future, and with the knowledge that it would get better over time,” Spence writes. “However, since launch we have found a number of issues. Fixing these issues has delayed our prior plan to quickly incorporate missing features and functionality.”
The CEO continues outlining Sonos’ next moves to ensure customer satisfaction with the new app, giving mention of bi-weekly targeted software updates which will add features and fix bugs.
The letter also includes a priority list aiming to address bugs with the music library by August and volume sensitivity and error handling by September.
However, wider issues including alarm reliability and playlist editing will not be fixed until between September and October.
The seemingly premature app rollout has resulted in an apology from the CEO and company – a move hoping to restore users’ trust in the Sonos brand. As for now, it looks like Sonos are doing as much as they can to meet the needs of their user base.
You can read Spence’s open letter in full here.
