SONOS: Apologizing for Our Appocalypse

Link to the real letter from Sonos's CEO

Here’s a satirical take on CEO Patrick Spence’s groveling apology letter.

Dear Valued Suckers—er, Customers,

We know that too many of you have experienced significant problems with our new app, which rolled out on May 7, and I want to begin by personally apologizing for disappointing you. Trust me, there isn’t an employee at Sonos who isn’t pained by having let you down. In fact, we’ve collectively shed enough tears to fill a small swimming pool. Fixing the app for all of our customers and partners has been, and continues to be, our number one priority—right after our weekly ping pong tournaments and artisanal coffee breaks.

The Grand Plan That Went Nowhere

We developed the new app to create a better experience, with the ability to drive more innovation in the future. You know, the kind of innovation that sounds great in a boardroom but falls flat in the real world. We knew it would get better over time, like a fine wine or a cheap beer left out in the sun. However, since launch, we’ve found a number of issues. Fixing these issues has delayed our prior plan to quickly incorporate missing features and functionality. Translation: we didn’t actually finish the app before launching it.

The Glorious Updates

Since May 7, we have released new software updates approximately every two weeks. Each one is a valiant attempt to patch the sinking ship that is our app. Please see the release notes for detailed information on what we’ve released to date. Spoiler alert: it’s mostly bug fixes for bugs we created.

While these software updates have enabled the majority of our customers to have a robust experience using the Sonos app, there is more work to be done. Because, let’s face it, “robust” is a relative term. We’ve prioritized the following improvements in our next phase of software updates:

July and August:

• Improving the stability when adding new products. Because who doesn’t love a good game of “Will My Speaker Connect Today?”
• Implementing Music Library configuration, browse, search, and play. Yes, we’re finally getting around to making the app do what it was supposed to do in the first place.

August and September:

• Improving Volume responsiveness. No more blowing out your eardrums when you just wanted a gentle tune.
• User interface improvements based on customer feedback. We hear you: less ugly, more functional.
• Improving overall system stability and error handling. Or as we call it, “The Basics 101.”

September:

• Improving Alarm consistency and reliability. Because waking up shouldn’t be a gamble.

September and October:

• Restoring edit mode for Playlists and the Queue. Apparently, you folks really like to customize your music.
• Improving functionality in settings. Settings: the final frontier.

We plan to continue releasing new software updates on a bi-weekly cadence. With each release, we will share detailed notes on what we’ve addressed and what we’re working on next in our Community. We deeply appreciate your patience as we address these issues. We know we have work to do to earn back your trust and are working hard to do just that.

I am always open to your feedback. You can find me via email at ceo@sonos.com. Just don’t expect a prompt response; I’m a busy man.

Sincerely,

Patrick Spence
CEO, Sonos and artisanal coffee barista.