Just when I think that I couldn't hate Sonos more than I already do... they unleash this new shitty fucking app that's somehow even shittier than their previous shitty fucking app.

Why in the hell can't they hire a UI designer who actually knows how to craft a useable UI? Because I've only been using this heinous blight on all humanity for two hours and I've found so much wrong as to make me wonder what the fuck they're even doing.

• Does the widget at the bottom reflect what's actually being played? Fuck no. It shows the song you first selected, then never updates again. So far as I can tell, there's no way to see what's actually playing. Unless you stop, select a new track, then play that (oh... turns out you can update the widget... all you have to do is FORCE QUIT THE APP AND RELOAD IT! Then the widget will update from what's playing. So handy!).
• Can you arrange your favorites? Fuck no. Pin your favorites? Fuck no. You even have to dump the fuck OUT of your favorites to even get to where your playlists are at (unless it happens to somehow be one of the ten things that can be displayed on your home screen. Can you fucking imagine having to load something you don't want to get to something you need? Who the fuck thought that was the best way to arrange any of this? There's no configuring ANYTHING.
• Are items in your favorites handy to use? Fuck no. I have songs on there that I tap to play... AND NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS! Some songs will play. Some won't. Is there any way of finding out why that is? Of course there fucking isn't.
• But surely the interface for controlling your music is easy to use since that's the whole fucking point of the app? Fuck no. Half the time when you click on a song for info or whatever, it will start playing even though that wasn't your intent. But there's no ellipsis to click on (...) so you assume that you click to interact with it... except that doesn't work, and you've just fucked everything up for nothing.
• But alarms? Fuck no. But sleep timer? Fuck no.
• And did they finally give us a useable search? Fuck no. Search is ungodly slow (EVERYTHING IS UNGODLY SLOW! Wait for your playlist to load. Wait for your songs to display. Wait for the next batch to load as you scroll. And wait to load. And wait to load. And wait to load). Even worse, you can't make the blanket search results default to your service of choice. If you want to only search Apple Music every time? TOUGH FUCKING SHIT! You either have to select the service first, then search... or you get to search EVERYWHERE EVERY TIME... then wait for the app to go non-responsive while it searches for shit on services you DON'T WANT... then you can select Apple Music (or whatever). NOTE TO SONOS: I don't want to listen to Sonos Radio EVER! How do I erase your fucking radio shit off my list?? Can I even do that? I can sure as fuck remove EVERY OTHER SERVICE.... why not yours? Does anybody even use it? Do you think shoving it the fuck down people's throats will make them want to use it?
• But surely it's easy to do simple shit like add a song you find to a playlist? Fuck no. I don't even think it's possible to add a song you searched for to a playlist. At least not that I can find. I have to go to the desktop app to do that (even though Sonos is discontinuing it... who the fuck knows what you do after the desktop app is gone).
• Can you at least inject music into your queue by clicking "play next?" Fuck no. You can't do FUCKING SHIT to your queue. You can't add songs... rearrange songs... remove songs... NOTHING!!
• Using this app begs the question... is there an upper limit to how many fucking layers of sheets you can pile up? Just curious, because absolutely everything you do generates a new sheet, and you have to swipe down on EVERY FUCKING ONE OF THEM to get back home. Click on the widget to get more info, new sheet... click on the queue, new sheet... click on a track to get info, new sheet... this app has more fucking sheets than a fucking klan rally. And when you want to go back? SWIPE TO CLOSE! SWIPE TO CLOSE! SWIPE TO CLOSE! SWIPE TO CLOSE! Jesus Christ, just give us a fucking home button for God's sake.
• Apple has had Dynamic Island on iPhone for a minute. But does Sonos use it so you have a convenient way to get to your speakers or interact with what's playing? OH FUCK NO! OF COURSE THEY FUCKING DON'T! Haven't you been paying attention? If there's a smart UI decision, Sonos actively avoids it like the fucking plague.

I'm dying to know: Does ANYBODY at Sonos actually listen to fucking music using this piece of shit? Who would want this? Pathetic. Fucking pathetic. After waiting YEARS to get an app update that's worth a shit... then getting this fucking disaster... I'm ready to throw all my Sonos gear in the front yard, douse it with gasoline, and light the fuckers up. I'd rather listen to music on a fucking iPod mini than suffer through this idiot shitshow any longer. It's just fucking inconceivable that this is where Sonos is at. Will they fix all the shit that's broken, unclear, and missing? Maybe. But shouldn't they have beta tested the app before releasing it? Well, it's Sonos. It took them a fucking YEAR to release a fix for the Pop of Death on the Arc soundbar, and I'm still not convinced that it's totally fixed because I am still having problems. So you do the math. Shake that Magic 8-Ball and the answer always seems to be "Not fucking likely."

If you're thinking of buying Sonos gear, you should take a fucking pass. A hard pass. If things keep going like this, they're not going to be around much longer anyway.

UPDATES!

Before I get to some more thoughts about this shit... can I just give a shoutout to all the people saying "Relax, it's version 1 and things will get fixed" and "Relax, it works just fine for me!" Fuck you. There are BASIC FUNCTIONS THAT ARE SERIOUSLY BROKEN OR MISSING! If I had the option of downgrading to the old app, then I'd say "Well that was bad!" and be able to relax. But I can't. And goody for you if it works for you... that doesn't fucking negate the problems that everybody else is having. Take several seats and be happy that your whole system didn't go down and all the basic features other people use are something you don't give a shit about.

But anyway...

On the Sonos site they have a feature list which shows all kinds of options you get when you click on a track...

But what do I get? Save to favorites (which may or may not play when clicked on) and replace the entire fucking queue. That's it...

I can only guess that all those other basic features aren't working, and rather than getting it all fixed before release, Sonos decided to shove out an incomplete fucking app with no way to go back to the old app which, while shitty, allowed all of this.

One of the biggest complaints by others is that they can no longer see music on their local network storage. Support for this has been dropped completely. This is nonsensical in all kinds of ways, but fortunately I get around it by having Plex manage my media, and Plex is actually showing up and working (despite having a red exclamation point in the button with absolutely no explanation). Sonos's response seems to be "Don't you even stream, bro?" which has left a great many users thrilled, as you can imagine.

A minor annoyance... whenever I go to System Settings, I fly into a panic because I think a bunch of my gear has gone missing from the system. My room will show "Stereo Pair" which is normal because there's two speakers joined into a stereo pair there. But my living room will show "Arc" and that's it. It used to be "Arc + Surrounds + Sub" or something like that. I wish that they would go back to that. With so many people losing equipment out of the app, I'd really prefer not to get assaulted with this incomplete info.

When you opened up the Sonos app away from your home network in the past, you'd get a message that said something like "Searching for your Sonos network." Now, this doesn't happen. Assumably because Sonos is all about internet connectivity for some reason. And that would be fine... except it doesn't reflect the current state of your devices back home. According to the widget, Karma by Taylor Swift is playing in my bedroom. The little bouncing equalizer icon is bouncing... and I am given the option to pause what's being played. Except nothing is actually being played. Which is why this whole internet connectivity fiasco is so fucking ridiculous. It appears that EVERYTHING goes out on the internet, even when you're at home. That's why it takes forever for shit to load. And why when you scroll through your queue it has to keep pausing and loading... pausing and loading... pausing and loading. I suppose that Sonos could justify this huge fucking waste of time if they could point to the app and say "SURE IT'S SLOW! BUT YOU CAN CONTROL YOUR SYSTEM FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!" Except you can't. It gives wrong information and none of the controls even work.

To actually control your system remotely, you have to use the internet and login at http://play.sonos.com. This will be the only option available on desktop computers once Sonos kills the desktop apps, so you'd think that the web app would be fucking killer, right? Yeah... you'd think that. Except the web app is just as fucking useless and broken as the phone app. It is equally slow with a lot of waiting around for things to load. Even if you're sitting in the same fucking room as your speaker, since the controls have to go out onto the internet, visit the Sonos servers, then come back to you. No option for local network control. But it gets worse. Remember how I was mentioning that search on the iPhone app if fucking abhorrent? Somehow the web app is even worse. At least in the iPhone app you can select the service you want to search. But if you select a service in the web app, there's no search bar on the service sheet. You are forced to use the universal search bar to search all services (including Sonos fucking Radio that they won't let you fucking delete no matter how badly you want to)...

It's been well-established that I fucking loathe Sonos and don't recommend their bullshit... even if you find their gear on clearance. At least right now. But there's a few things that Sonos can do which would at least make things tolerable...

• Bring back the old app until you can get a workable new app. That should be a fucking given... especially when your initial release is missing a shitload of features and half the stuff is broken... but since it's not a given, you need to give people the option of reinstating the old version ASAP.
• Keep your shitty new UI with its endless sheets and incomprehensible navigation if you must, but have it stay on the local network instead of going out on the internet. There's no benefit to this. Nobody wants to have their bedroom speaker play the Macarena while they're across the country or on the other side of the planet. Not only is it fucking stupid, it slows everything down to an absolute crawl. The app is unbearable to use it's so fucking slow.
• Even better? HIRE A FUCKING TALENTED UI/UX DESIGNER WHO KNOWS HOW TO DESIGN A FUCKING APP! Jesus. This should be app creation 101. And you'd think it would be given how people railed you for the shitty design of your old app! But here's the thing... as bad as it was, I find myself longing for the old app. Sure it was a mess, but it was fast and reliable. And that's more important than how it works. By a longshot.
• Stop sitting on shit endlessly. You took fucking forever to develop a new app (such as it is). You took fucking forever to fix the Pop of Death in the Arc. You took fucking forever to adopt HDMI. You take fucking forever for EVERYTHING! Companies who can't be responsive really don't have much hope long-term. Other companies invade your space while people wait. Better options come while people wait. You can't afford to laze around as you always have. Which is to say... FIX THIS FUCKING APP AND ALL ITS FUCKING BUGS AND ALL ITS FUCKING PROBLEMS NOW!! NOT NEXT MONTH... NOT A YEAR FROM TODAY... FUCKING NOW! And don't blame us because it's become so urgent. Had you not released a buggy pile of shit with no downgrade path, you could have taken all the time you needed. But now? Well... it's all on you.

But given Sonos's history, I am holding out zero hope that anything gets resolved quickly... if at all. They have long since stopped giving a fuck about their products, their reputation, and their customers.