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Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

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Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#61

Post by subpixel »

IIRC Sonos emerged as a tool to allow you to access all of your music, from different speakers throughout your house.

I might be glossing over some details but isn't this problem largely solved by other products almost everyone has now? Any cloud music service, a smart phone, and some bluetooth speakers?

In my entire social network, I know of one person who has all of his music stored locally and who cares about the quality of bluetooth vs wifi transmission, which seem to be the key reasons someone would want a Sonos solution.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#62

Post by jagermo »

I do not like the new app, its so sluggish. And I really hate that they killed support for the previous app after the shitty launch. I have about 8 sonos devices here and was in the progress of upgrading my oldest ones. That stopped and i will not buy new products until they fix their shitty app or revert back. Its not much, but nothing else I can do (except send support requests whenever something does not work to drive up their metrics).

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#63

Post by cosmic_cheese »

DudeOpotomus wrote: post #36
davidu wrote: post #16

So what are people using instead of Sonos AMP for home sound control?

Apple airplay works flawlessly. Or you can buy an old Amazon fire and connect them to your own hardware. Both of these solutions allow you to use any speaker/amp setup you choose. And if you truly care about sound quality, this is the only path.

AirPlay is as about as good as it gets I think. It’s been thoroughly reverse engineered so there’s lots of open source tools for it and it’s cheap to add speakers since used AirPort Expresses are still supported AirPlay targets.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#64

Post by michaelt »

lenerdenator wrote: post #41
awnird wrote: post #11

Patrick destroyed a successful company, and will be receiving millions of dollars on exit. His current replacement was an executive at the failed Quibi service. Nothing in tech will improve until there are actual consequences for people like this. Serial failures just hop from job to job. ruining products and lives along the way.

We don't really structure business law to allow for the appropriate amount of risk. The whole point of incorporation is to limit liability and shift what remains off of individuals at the company. If you try to change this, you'll hear screeching about how there's just too much risk and the "job creators" will just take their capital and ideas to more business-friendly legal climes.

Eh, even keeping the mechanism of limited-liability-corporations around, some would say boards aren't representing shareholders' interests effectively.

It's one thing for shareholders to say if under the CEO's leadership, the company's value rises by 100 million dollars, they'll give him a $10 million bonus. I can see how a board could approve that - it's a lot of money, but it's linked to performance.

But should they also say that if the company's value falls by 100 million dollars, and they decide to fire the CEO, they'll give him a $2 million bonus? How is it in shareholders' interests to reward bad performance?

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#65

Post by bhandziuk »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #63
DudeOpotomus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple airplay works flawlessly. Or you can buy an old Amazon fire and connect them to your own hardware. Both of these solutions allow you to use any speaker/amp setup you choose. And if you truly care about sound quality, this is the only path.

AirPlay is as about as good as it gets I think. It’s been thoroughly reverse engineered so there’s lots of open source tools for it and it’s cheap to add speakers since used AirPort Expresses are still supported AirPlay targets.

Do you need an Apple product to use AirPlay?

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#66

Post by jagermo »

wnolens wrote: post #24

I also started investing in Sonos recently and damn the software is terrible. While I wish I could get 100% of my money back, I'm not sure there any turnkey alternative that is better. Every time I research I come back with "Sonos sucks but it's still the best".

If I started out now, I would look into Yamaha Musiccast (https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/audio_visual/musicc...), since they have more form factors and bridges to add other music systems. Or BluOs (https://bluos.io/), but that all looks like its aimed at the "use golden cables for better audio, bro" bros.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#67

Post by pavel_lishin »

chipgap98 wrote: post #54
Bhilai wrote: post #22

I’m not an audiophile, but after hearing Sonos at a friend’s house and being impressed, I decided to purchase a speaker for my kitchen, where I often listen to music while cooking. I opted for the Sonos Five, assuming that Bluetooth connectivity would be a standard feature on a standalone speaker, especially at this price point. To my surprise, a speaker costing nearly $600 doesn’t support Bluetooth—it only works via…

This seems like a strange gripe for this thread. That is something you could have looked up before purchasing the speaker. I also might be in the minority but I much prefer Wi-Fi streaming to Bluetooth in my house.

Wifi streaming is great if it's easy, but for me, Sonos makes it hard.

My spouse uses the speakers pretty often, but even the old app wasn't great, and I gave up on it. Why can't I just cast the music from my Youtube music app? Why do I have to connect Sonos to Youtube, then wait for a separate app to pop up?

I just end up playing music in my headphones, or on my phone speaker. The quality is worse, but the experience is better.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#68

Post by pavel_lishin »

duxup wrote: post #35
kitsune_ wrote: post #6

Given the number of poor product managers and product owners I've encountered in my career - those who don't seem to care at all about end users or people in general - I'm surprised incidents like this don't happen more frequently.

I think for some (not all) folks writing code there is a sort of built in "this should actually work" mentality and that keeps A LOT of things running. Granted not all, I've worked with some widget makers who would rather just take tasks, do EXACTLY what it says, and move on regardless if it works or not. They love the certainty of process and want to just do that. Steve Jobs ran into that: https://www.youtube.com/wa…

> Granted not all, I've worked with some widget makers who would rather just take tasks, do EXACTLY what it says, and move on regardless if it works or not. They love the certainty of process and want to just do that.

I've been this guy, as a software engineer.

It turns out that making widgets feeds my family, whereas pushing back on executives from my position on the totem pole runs a very real risk of being unable to do so.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#69

Post by pavel_lishin »

subpixel wrote: post #61

IIRC Sonos emerged as a tool to allow you to access all of your music, from different speakers throughout your house. I might be glossing over some details but isn't this problem largely solved by other products almost everyone has now? Any cloud music service, a smart phone, and some bluetooth speakers? In my entire social network, I know of one person who has all of his music stored locally and who cares about the…

> I might be glossing over some details but isn't this problem largely solved by other products almost everyone has now? Any cloud music service, a smart phone, and some bluetooth speakers?

How do I configure several bluetooth speakers to play music across my whole house with a single phone?

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#70

Post by cityzen »

fidotron wrote: post #7

My system has only been usable thanks to the efforts of a random German that wrote Sonophone; one guy outperforming a whole company. And Sonophone is very much "OK" in the sense it works, but it's got the strangest UI. This CEO, and his associated product management organisation, has completely destroyed all the goodwill that used to exist around Sonos, especially with respect to their ability to function almost enti…

There is also Soro on iPhone that works better than native app.
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