In a Reddit AMA, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence says Sonos won't rerelease its old app, after testing showed that doing so “would make the problems worse, not better”
here's what happened Paul Lamkin / The Ambient : Sonos rolls back on rolling back app Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider : Sonos CEO insists iOS app cannot be rolled back to the older, better one r/sonos : Get the Reddit app — Scan this QR code to download the app now — Or check it out in the app stores Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac : Old Sonos app can't be brought back after all, says CEO Rajesh Pandey / Android Police : Sonos can't revive its old app, so you are stuck with the new one Carrie Marshall / T3 : Sonos won't be bringing its old app back Cosmin Vasile / PhoneArena : Sonos CEO says the old app won't return Ed Hardy / Cult of Mac : Why Sonos can't bring back its older, better app MacDailyNews : Sonos CEO: Our old iOS app that users liked can't be rereleased TechRadar : Sorry, Sonos fans - the old app isn't coming back because it's too buggy, ironically Steve Vegvari / iPhone in Canada Blog : Sonos CEO Claims S2 App Can't be Rereleased Despite Earlier Reports Connor Jewiss / iMore : “Re-releasing the old Sonos app would be worse” says CEO after major app blunder Stan Schroeder / Mashable : Bad news, Sonos users: The old app can't be brought back to save you Paul Thurrott / Thurrott : Sonos Can't Bring Back Its Old App Juli Clover / MacRumors : Sonos Can't Release Old App for Customers Unhappy With Design Changes Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends : Sonos CEO ‘faces the music’ in Reddit Q&A Threads: @0xjessel : easy. just git reset —hard HEAD~7264, right? Chris Welch / @chriswelch : Spence just confirmed my scoop from last week — that Sonos has considered re-releasing its old S2 app — but says the company won't be doing so because even that version wouldn't work as well anymore after recent firmware updates. Forums: Hacker News : Sonos CEO says the old app can't be rereleased r/sonos : August Office Hours w/ KeithFromSonos r/apple : Sonos CEO says the old app can't be rereleased | Patrick Spence was hopeful ‘until very recently’ that Sonos could offer its old S2 app that many, many customers prefer over the new one. MacRumors Forums : Sonos Can't Release Old App for Customers Unhappy With Design Changes
Context & Ripple Effects
Sonos’ May redesign drew criticism and a promise to restore missing features, followed by Spence’s July apology and a biweekly update commitment. Reports a week before this AMA said the company was weighing a return to the previous mobile app while it repaired the redesign.
The decision closes off that contingency: Sonos is treating the current app as the recovery path, rather than attempting to run a rollback alongside ongoing fixes. That makes execution on the promised improvements central to rebuilding customer trust.
First-order effects
- Customers dissatisfied with the redesign cannot switch back to the previous Sonos app; they remain on the current software as Sonos addresses its problems.
- Sonos must concentrate its engineering and support effort on stabilizing and restoring capabilities in the redesigned app, rather than maintaining a relaunch of the prior version.
Second-order effects
- The absence of a rollback removes a near-term pressure-release option for Sonos, so each update becomes more consequential for users judging whether the company is meeting its recovery commitments.
- A failed rollback test narrows the company’s practical choices: product, support, and communications teams must align around one software path instead of offering customers parallel experiences.
Third-order effects
- The episode illustrates how a connected-device software migration can become difficult to reverse once underlying systems change; recovery depends on restoring reliability in the new stack, not simply reviving a familiar interface.
- If this pattern persists, consumer hardware makers will face greater pressure to stage major control-app migrations carefully, because software regressions can directly erode trust in the hardware ecosystem.
The trend: Connected-device companies are increasingly judged as software operators, with app migrations becoming a core product and trust-management risk.