And not just the app itself but the fact that despite mounting criticism from the community they didn't immediately revert it. Thus demonstrating that they don't really care about their own, up until that point, very loyal customers.
Sonos has been around for many years now. When it launched, smartphones weren’t dominant. To control a Sonos you had to buy a controller specifically for it. It had its own wireless networking because WiFi wasn’t dominant. To use it with WiFi you needed to buy a separate bridge.
Online music services weren’t a thing like they are now. Music collections were on your local hard drive.
Back then the main competition for Sonos was paying a pro to hard-wire a speaker system into your house. I saw one of these about five years ago. Built into the wall in the kitchen was a cassette tape deck.
All that has changed. Now there are wireless speakers from JBL, Apple, Amazon, Bose, Google, and at least a dozen others. There’s Bluetooth. There’s AirPlay.
The Sonos app was ok for its time, but it’s an outdated model now. But at least the app used to be good at controlling Sonos. Now it’s not even great for that.
Without that outdated app model, there’s no reason to buy Sonos. Just pick from…anybody else. Many are cheaper and sound just as good. They don’t rely on an app, which is good-just use Airplay or Bluetooth.
As bad as the app is, it’s not a trigger of the decline of Sonos. Is just a symptom of it. The company has no future. Thus its release of headphones that don’t even integrate well with the Sonos system. These are just as pointless as its speakers.
I doubt Sonos is around in a few years’ time.
Sonos' product is convenience, experience, and decent audio, in that order. Mini speaker voice assistant things equal/beat them in 2 of those categories, and high-end audio brands beat them in the third, leaving them holding the bad in the middle.
Also, multiroom. AirPlay does it OK. BT does not.
Now I'm using AirPlay, because it's working more reliably than the Sonos app. Which is a surprise, because it used to be the other way around.
If Sonos goes away, I guess I'll switch to HomePods? I'd rather not, given the prices and reliability, but I really can't imagine going to BT.
Boards are typically loyal to their CEOs (if the stock and revenue are performing well). They'll never fire a CEO who's coming out of a double-digit percentage growth last quarter.
Thus, the reason he fell out of the boards' favor is the low performance primarily and this was the last straw indeed.
My instinct is to think it's fuel on a fire that was already burning - declining sales across the market, smart speakers taking a big slice out of Sonos' pie, and missing the boat on new markets (headphones) … and then a bad app release being the straw that broke the camel's back.