Sonos apologizes for OS X Lion bugs

by Volker Weber

I’d like to apologize to all of our Mac OS X customers for the incompatibilities between Sonos and the Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) release, and for our delay in communicating this issue. Here’s a little more background on the problem and our plans for resolving it.

Repeat after me: don't upgrade your operating system in the first week after it became available.

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Comments

Well, it sounds nice and polite, but only on the surface.

With behind the scenes knowledge, it is real hard to accept as credible such an apology from any company wanting to be serious in delivering a decent service to Apple customers.
Consider that Lion OSX betas have been available to developers for testing purposes for about 5 moths prior to the official release and make up your own opinion on Sonos. (or NetGear or anyone that wasn't ready to deliver on Lion OSX for that matter)

Keeping this in mind I don't think waiting an extra week with an upgrade to avoid trouble is an acceptable solution either.

Pieterjan Lansbergen, 2011-07-23

Keeping this in mind I don't think waiting an extra week with an upgrade to avoid trouble is an acceptable solution either.
I can’t agree with that. I don’t see why vendors absolutely have to have upgraded versions of their product ready from day one. Waiting a week, two weeks, even a month is—or shouldn't be—an issue. This is simply an OS upgrade, it can wait.

Ben Poole, 2011-07-23

@Ben, the point I was trying to make is that waiting one extra week is not going to get you out of trouble. Perhaps six months, not one week only.
On this, I believe, we can both agree.

If s/w vendors want to be ready for the release date of a new OSX upgrade, they get a reasonable time lapse from Apple hence, all those (apparently) hasty, last-minute, updates are hard to understand to me.

Besides that, please note that s/w upgrades can wait for existing systems, the new MacBook Air, for instance, won't give you that choice.

Pieterjan Lansbergen, 2011-07-24

@Ben: I'm not certain you understand the purpose of an operating system :-(

David Richardson, 2011-07-24

I see the point in Ben's reasoning. But there's more to it than just wait a couple of weeks or even months. For example if you buy a new Mac today you'll most likely get one that already has Lion pre-installed. So s/w vendors actually have to at least try to make sure that their products will work with the latest incarnation of the operating system in question.
This is made quite a bit harder by Apple themselves obviously making last minute changes before releasing the new OS. For example I got hit by the "secondary click not working" issue - which wasn't an issue at all up to Developer Preview 4. So Apple did make changes between the last available developer preview and the released version. This doesn't mean that the communications from Sonos couldn't have been better. But it also shows that the release process Apple is using has it's defects, too.

Stefan Rubner, 2011-07-24

@Ben: I'm not certain you understand the purpose of an operating system :-(
Really. OK then.

Ben Poole, 2011-07-24

@Ben, @David:

Gentlemen, please! No need for mudslinging.

I for one am surprised at the high expectations. It seems like a couple of years ago it was clear that upgrading to a new OS meant lots of things - even very basic things - would not work anymore.

And out of the different software producers out there, Sonos and Apple are remarkably reliable, generally.

Andrew Magerman, 2011-07-25

I was one of those unfortunates who, as they watched Lion download, noticed a little update star appear on the App store icon heralding the Sonos upgrade.

How timely I thought. What an excellent company. They are so on the ball - I have not even yet downloaded the OS and here is the updated application.

I had not considered the possibility of incompatibility. Had I known, I would have aborted the download of Lion. But no, I watched like a child, glued to the TV screen.

Lion arrived, Lion installed. Sonos 3.5 arrived and installed.

What is this warning - may not be compatible?

The silence in our household is and has been profound, but nothing in comparison to my anger.

David Brown, 2011-07-27

Ok Sonos. You apologized for not communicating quickly enough... But now you've gone dark again. Is Lion still a priority for you? What are you doing? When will it be ready. The silence is deafening.

Pat Edwards, 2011-08-09

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