If you own an iPhone and you are thinking of buying the new Sonos Ace headphones or even a Sonos speaker, you may want to hold off because the new Sonos app is sucking juice out of iPhone batteries and that’s not good.
Last week Sonos CEO Patrick Spence finally got off his backside and apologised for the app, which is a shocker, he even acknowledged that missing features that should have been in the app in the first place are still not included in the latest updates.
For poor suffering Sono’s sound system users, with some calling for a class action against the Company the problem has been going on for weeks with the Company resorting to biweekly app updates to appease angry owners.
Some owners of have simply dumped their Sonos hardware for a new network speaker.
Overnight Sonos management issued another “interim app update” that the struggling company claims should address “an issue where the app used excess phone battery on iOS.”
Then emphasis is on “Interim” with the Company still trying to work out how they managed to release an app that appears to have not been bench tested.
Management claim that the latest update will “improve the stability when adding new products,”
In addition to the update for the Sonos app itself, users still want an update for their speaker system with key features nobbled by the update.
This is the same Company that has nobbled perfectly good Sono’s speakers in an effort to force consumers to buy a new Sonos speaker.
They did this by failing to support the old proprietary software resulting in perfectly good Sonos Play Five speakers which at the time cost $899 now totally obsolete unless you use them to play CD from an attached player.
The Sonos app saga has been going on since mid-May 2024 with the Company failing to offer any compensation to affected users.
The app which was totally overalled for the Sonos Ace headphone launch has not worked properly since it was first introduced with Spence failing to reveal how much the debacle is set to cost the Company.
Some insiders claim that he is the one who should be axed with the Company that has been described as being “full of woke management” struggling to make a profit for nearly a decade.
Under Spence the share price has dropped 57% over the past three years and as the app drama unfolded that accelerated with the share price down 19% in the last three months.
In addition, Sonos didn’t make a profit in the last twelve months with management struggling to grow sales as competitors delivered better quality sound systems. In Australia custom installers are dropping Sono’s speakers for custom install jobs.
During the last three years Sonos revenues shrink by 1.8% per year.
In the USA, the market grew on average 22% Sonos shares went backward 16%.
According to sources the app development program appears to have not been managed properly in the first place, with features removed on purpose some claim because they rushed the development of the new app in an effort to get it ready for the launch of their Ace headphones, which are not tracking well at retail stores despite the Company punting on the headphone roll out to deliver growth.
As owners of Sonos sound systems struggled the business took more than two months to publicly address the issues as they tried to hide behind a wall of silence.
Then came last week’s letter from Spence claiming that “fixing the app “for all of our customers and partners has been our number one priority.”
The latest update focuses on fixing the app’s excessive use of an iPhone battery and their previously promised commitment to improve the stability of adding new products.
