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Sonos Debuts iPhone App, Adds Over 15,000 Radio Stations

by Thomas Houston on October 28, 2008 at 06:00 AM



Sonos -- the wireless music system that lets you manage and play music off your PC and the Internet in up to 23 rooms around the house -- has just launched a couple of cool new updates, and we got an early hands-on look.

First up, Sonos updated the software side of things with Sonos Software 2.7, available to all users. The free update is marked by a heavy focus on more content options, which include music from last.fm (a free online music listening and tracking service) and access to over 15,000 Internet radio stations (compared to only 600 in the old software). Although the popular music service Pandora was available in the former version of Sonos Software for a fee, it is now included for free.

We like the last.fm integration and Sonos' emphasis on adding new music sources, but the big news is that the company is launching a free iPhone application today that lets you use your handset (or iPod touch) as a Sonos controller. This not only save you $399 (the price of a stand-alone Sonos controller), but we think it might be the preferable interface for managing the wireless music system. We got some hands-on time with the new app, and it's a significant improvement over the current Sonos controller, which uses an iPod-style scroll wheel and a range of buttons. Entering text with the new app is far easier because the iPhone has a touchscreen keyboard, whereas text entry via a scroll wheel is often slow and clunky.

Managing music zones (e.g. living room, bedroom, kitchen) feels much smoother -- the iPhone app's touch-based interface excels in letting the user adjust volume in different rooms and link up rooms to play the same stream. For example, changing volume is a matter of pressing on the volume bar and dragging up or down. Also, playlist management is elegant: Press the track you want to move and drag it up or down to move it within your queue, whereas the old controller finds the user scrolling to the desired track, clicking, scrolling to the desired placement, and clicking again.

In general, the app is far more intuitive for the first time user -- the improved menu layout, use of keyboard, and decluttered interface make navigating to your iTunes library or creating a 'singer-songwriter' station on Pandora much easier. The app is available now on Apple's App Store. Check out the video to find out more and see the app in action, and check out gallery below for some screenshots.




Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, sonos

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