Ladies and Gentlemen, update your Sonos
by Volker Weber
Lots of goodies in 3.4. Highlights:
- Android Controller (at last)
- iOS Controllers support multitasking (at last)
- If you send music through AirPlay to a connected Airport Express, the ZonePlayer starts playing this stream immediately
As always, a free upgrade.
PS: Sonos cannot add AirPlay in software. You need to license and buy silicon from Apple.
Comments
Volker, I am curious. Why would I use Airplay vs. the standard Sonos wifi? Is there any benefit or is this just enabling playing music on a device connected to an Apple TV?
It's not possible to connect Apple TV (no analog out) with Sonos (no digital in).
Use case: you have anything playing on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch that you want to hear on your Sonos. Just hit the AirPlay button, select Sonos and off you go. If you set your Sonos to Party Mode, you can play stuff all over your house with AirPlay.
Would you use AirPlay if you have the same source directly available in Sonos? Of course not.
@John - there were numerous requests in various forums to integrate AirPlay into Sonos. Volkers statement just clarifies this - it will not happen, at least not with the existing hardware line.
Got it. Thanks. No sources on my iPad that I can't get on my Sonos or PS3 or XBox. I won't own an Apple TV any time soon, so have no experience with AirPlay.
As I wrote, the Apple TV is useless in this scenario.
What you want is the AirPort Express. Not only is it a good access point and print server. It's also an AirPlay target, which also shows up in iTunes. Anything you acquired in iTunes is immediately available on your Sonos without reindexing.
Doin' it right now. I guess I might need to re-buy an AirPort Express ;-)
true multitasking will be killer. And support for hardware buttons on Android devices might be an excuse to buy some cheap Android handset... but let's have a look at 3.4 first. Maybe Sonos can work on an Airport enabled Sonos dock - that would be perfect. Many thanks to Sonos for improving existing hardware by providing software updates. That's exactly how you build up a loyal customer audience. Bravo!
To me it's almost like Lego. Recombining existing hardware in new ways. :-)
Exactly! It's almost that one would be disappointed if Sonos released new hardware to frequently. Almost, I said :-)
And i thought, the AirPlay key has been leaked recently. That should probably prevent additional hardware. But of course there is the licensing and legal issue.
Quite obvious, isn't it?
3.4 is really a big step forward. iOS Multitasking is a charme and makes the Controller a bit more useless. Android with the hardware keys is an additional plus point.
I'm not sure if the AirPlay thing is something I will use but I like the idea and I can imagine that there are people waiting for it.
It's like with lego: you can build things but you don't need to :-)
Is it possible to define the Android device itself as an output device, similar to DLNA Android apps?
