Old Sonos app can’t be brought back after all, says CEO

A potential plan to bring back the old Sonos app has turned out to be impossible, according to the company’s CEO.

The idea was hatched after widespread problems with the new app forced Sonos to issue a public apology, and to delay the launch of two new hardware products …

A quick recap on the mess

Back in May, Sonos launched the company’s first headphones, the Ace, intended to compete with AirPods Max.

The app needed to be updated to support these, and the company decided to use it as an opportunity for a ground-up rebuild, launching a completely new app just ahead of the launch.

That did not go well. Customers were upset at the company removing much-loved features, and many owners of older Sonos speakers experienced connection problems and lag. Given that the whole idea of Sonos is an Apple-esque It Just Works, customers were understandably angry at the company – even more so when it turned out to break accessibility too.

Sonos initially downplayed the complaints, but CEO Patrick Spence subsequently emailed customers to apologize, and provide a timeline for fixes.

Old Sonos app can’t be brought back

Even the promised fixes to the new app didn’t satisfy everyone, and it was last week reported that the company was discussing the idea of bringing back the old app.

However, Spence said in a Reddit AMA spotted by The Verge that this turned out to be impossible.

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. 

Photo by Lukas Hellebrand on Unsplash