Update: Apple has confirmed in a statement to Buzzfeed that Apple is working with Sonos to get Apple Music available on the connected speaker system by the end of the year. Original story below.
Apple Music senior director Ian Rogers — ex Beats Music CEO — has announced on Twitter that integration with Sonos for Apple Music is coming as soon as possible. Although Beats Music did have native support on the popular internet-connected speaker system, there have been no announcements about a partnership with Apple Music so far. In the tweet, Rogers confirms that there will be no Sonos integration at launch.
This will be slightly disappointing for Beats Music users who rely on the feature, until the companies catch up ‘ASAP’. In early June, a Sonos representative said:
“Sonos will not have Apple Music on it at launch but we fully expect to support them when they’re ready to focus on the home listening experience. Right now they’re fully focused on mobile .”
For the time being, Apple Music users will have to use a workaround involving a connected Apple TV or Airport Express to get the audio streaming off their Mac, iPhone or iPad and into the Sonos experience. Naturally, Apple Music will also stream over normal Bluetooth protocols to wireless speakers. We’ll have more details on Sonos support as it becomes available.
Apple Music launches at 8 AM PT on June 30th as part of iOS 8.4 with Beats 1 starting radio programming an hour later.
https://twitter.com/johnpaczkowski/status/615226588724985860
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Or they could just add support to AirPlay and stop the non-sense. I love Sonos quality but their app sucks and there’s just zero continuity.
Very happy to hear this. it is good to know Apple recognizes the Sonos community and is working with them to get Apple Music on board. Looking forward to being a subscriber once available.
throw in some airplay while you’re at it
I really like how Apple execs are actually replying to tweets for the first time it seems today. I hope this is an indication that Apple is toning down its insane secrecy just a little.
If their secrecy is so “insane” then how do we know about new products and releases before the keynotes pretty much every time?
Ask one of the executives about the new iPhone or iPad pro and I’ll bet you hear crickets.
Still not tempting until Sonos includes real AirPlay.
I had always thought the same thing but now am so glad I gave the Sonos System a chance. Get a couple Play 1’s or 3’s, pair them, link the controller to both your personal music library on Mac or PC (including iTunes) & streaming music services and I promise you will be more than tempted. We can’t say enough about how it has changed our in home music environment and experience forever.
Airplay isn’t a replacement for a full-time library setup as Bill describes. But a library setup is also not a replacement for Airplay, which, among other things, allows guests to stream content from their devices to your home audio system.
For my own setup, a library with distributed audio was priority number one while Airplay comes second.
Good points and being able to play different music in different room was my tipping point for sure. BTW, you can have guests stream content from their own devices. Have them download the Sonos App, join your network and then they are able to play music from “This iPhone” (iPad, Android and so on). If your guests already have a Sonos App from having their own Sonos, it will simply ask if they want to join yours when opened. We have a guest suite with two zones and our guests love it. Converted many a folk to Sonos by visiting here for a couple of days.
There are plenty of ways to distribute Airplay throughout a house. Surprising how few people know this but it’s pretty easy to find out about and do.
Here is one;
https://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/
Just for clarity’s sake, any/cheap/older Airport Express plugged into the aux input of Sonos devices that have one, would also work for “real” AirPlay compatibility. https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1241/~/using-airplay-with-sonos
I do agree though, integrated/native support by software would be even better.
I spent about $3,000 on a Sonos system and returned all of it as I was seriously unimpressed.
You can have much better sound quality, a lot more flexibility and choice at about 30% of the cost by building your own Airplay based system. Airplay sounds great as it is uncompressed and based on WiFi. I have some pretty nice bluetooth speakers and they can’t hold a candle to Airplay.
The Soundbar only does optical output and it has one. it should be using HDMI and have multiple ports. The soundbar also doesn’t sound very good. The speakers in general are only so-so and the price for the quality is silly. Streaming music is also gimped in the Sonos app. For example you don’t get full Spotify functionality.
You are way better off buying an Airplay equipped receiver, which most good ones are. ( recommend Yamaha for reliability. A receiver gives you a bunch of ports and much better sound quality. You can also replicate Sono’s room functionally by buying your own speakers and attaching them to an Airport express. use an app like Airfoil to play the same music at the same time throughout your house. I can play from any source I want and any source you can think of including Spotify and Pandora.
True. But, Sonos does make it easier to play different music in each room (for multi-person households, for example.) Also, iOS (natively) only lets you choose one AirPlay destination at a time, whereas MacOS allows you to choose multiple. I’ve hacked together a workaround using Airfoil on a desktop Mac (it routes the audio) but it feels kludgy. That said, I’m a happy AirPlay user, but I can see why someone prefers the easier/all-inclusice Sonos system. Especially if they prefer to stream their music independently from their smartphone or laptop.
I didn’t know that I could do that with airfoil. It sounds like you’re more of an audiophile than me though. I just want to have an easy way to play music from an iPad or iPhone for get togethers and parties. Either way, I appreciate you mentioning airfoil. I get my sonos speakers tomorrow (about 4k worth). I’ve heard them at a friends place during a party and thought that it was definitely easy to use and setup as well as good sounding to me (not an audiophile). I like coming to sites like these to read other peoples ideas though for this very reason.
I have two Play 1 speakers and they do the job. When I have people around they can add music to the party playlist from Spotify and vice versa. That’s what makes the Sonos system so popular. I don’t see myself cancelling Spotify until Apple sorts out the integration. Even then, I can see Spotify reducing their prices or introducing a family share option, which would keep me and my partner on Spotify. After all, that’s where we have built playlists for the last two years.
Quick, use the Beats Importer tool while you still can! Gives you chance to copy those two years worth of playlists into Apple Music…
http://www.beatsimporter.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3bd7bm/interested_in_switching_to_apple_music_heres_a/
Im not in the US, so I can’t use Beats. Hoping Apple will see sense and offer a Spotify importing tool
Well i am going to convert my playlist as fast i can from spotify
http://www.tancosin.com/blogger/how-to-convert-spotify-playlist-to-apple-music/
Haha, that blogger just stole that text directly from my post:
http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/3bd7bm/interested_in_switching_to_apple_music_heres_a/
Sonos will work if you save the playlists for offline listening.
Apple music should partner up with all kind of partners. Spotify Connect is the best spotify have done in years. Spotify Connect, and the leak of a equivalent Apple Music solution is keeping me locked to spotify for now. In the long run I know I want to switch since Apple is good in controlling the whole chain and therefor able to make the best working/integrating solutions.
ps. spotify connect is like a small client app that vendors can integrate in there there devices. Basically I can use my native spotify app to control the music on my onkyo receiver. This way my phone is really just the native app remote. So the actually download/stream happens on my receiver. Not on my phone.
ps2. If I have missed a equivalent Apple Music solution. Please let me know! :)