New Sonos app is such a disaster, the old version may return

Sonos has had a rather tough year. In May, the company rolled out a redesigned mobile app that fell short of expectations, to say the least. What should have otherwise been a time of celebration at the Sonos headquarters, thanks to the launch of the company’s first-ever headphones, the Sonos Ace, has turned into a period of intense crisis management and even layoffs (more on that later).

The redesigned mobile app has received overwhelmingly negative feedback from users. The app lacked basic features and included numerous bugs, so it’s no surprise that customers were frustrated with the redesign. The Verge has now reported that Sonos is considering re-releasing the previous version of its mobile app as somewhat of a temporary fix. The reporting outlet notes, “There have been discussions high up within Sonos about bringing back the prior version of the app, known as S2.”

Since the launch of the app, Sonos has worked steadily to rectify issues within the new app. Still, bugs remain, and users’ frustrations persist. Given this, the older version of the app might help buy time for Sonos, while the company continues working on the new app and restoring its users’ confidence in its offerings.

During a recent earnings call, CEO Patrick Spence said:

While the redesign of the app was and remains the right thing to do, our execution — my execution — fell short of the mark. The app situation has become a headwind to existing product sales, and we believe our focus needs to be addressing the app ahead of everything else. This means delaying the two major new product releases we had planned for Q4 until our app experience meets the level of quality that we, our customers and our partners expect from Sonos.

Currently, Sonos is rolling out app improvements every two weeks, and Spence indicated that will continue till fall. The re-release of the old app is unlikely to change this since Sonos will need to have a near-perfect app ready before launching it a second time. That said, restoring the old app presents its own set of challenges, given that the company’s new software includes a lot of cloud-based functionality that might not be compatible with the previous version of the app. Still, it will likely offer users a more stable and familiar UI.

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In related news, Sonos has laid off something to the tune of 100 employees. The layoffs happened across divisions, including product and engineering, marketing, software quality, and platform and infrastructure. The company previously laid off 7% of its employees in June 2023.