Codenamed Pinewood, the black box will open up new possibilities for Sonos surround sound. It doubles as an HDMI switch and will offer a unified streaming experience. But it could end up being surprisingly expensive.
It’s a fun exercise to think about how much would be different today if Fadell had successfully convinced Steve Jobs to acquire Sonos back when the audio company was in its earliest days. But Jobs took an adversarial view towards Sonos.
Credit to John Gruber for nailing down the “former senior Apple executive” mentioned in this piece by The Information.
As chief executive, Spence oversaw many successful products. But there was no coming back from last year’s app debacle: it has finally led to his ouster.
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The company closes out a difficult year with this terrific soundbar that proves Sonos still knows how to do hardware. Software, though...
The Sonos app debacle will go down as an all-time tech industry blunder, but now the company is taking steps to turn the page.
A new Bloomberg report includes details on some employee pushback to Sonos’ new app ahead of its disastrous launch:
Sonos employees, many of whom were fans before joining the company, started to directly and forcefully raise the alarm with Spence and other executives, according to three current and former employees. They described “yelling” and “screaming” in meetings.
As Sonos tries to win back trust following the rough rollout of its new app, you can now reach Sonos support on Saturday and Sunday.
Friend of The Verge Janko Roettgers reports that the partner is The Trade Desk, an advertising company. From today’s Lowpass newsletter:
Under the arrangement, The Trade Desk is supplying Sonos with the core smart TV OS, and facilitating deals with app publishers, while Sonos is designing its own hardware, and customizing the user interface.
“Incompetence has infected top management” at Sonos, according to a former engineer’s Reddit post.
This ex-employee — I’ve confirmed their credentials — also says the culture within Sonos took a sharp turn for the worse with the original Roam. That speaker became the first glaring example of a product rushed out the door despite internal warnings. It wouldn’t be the last.
Reminder: I’m reachable on Signal at chriswelch.01.
Sonos’ Patrick Spence said on Reddit this week that the company wouldn’t be able to bring back the old app, and today, he made a series of posts on Threads about the company’s efforts and what it has learned.
“In hindsight, one thing that is clear is that we shouldn’t have introduced such a big change so quickly,” he said.
Can’t think of the last time I opened an app to an apology for how buggy the app is!
