Ask Paul: June 6 (Premium)

Happy Friday! I got off light last week, but that's not the case this time. So settle in, it's going to be a long read, and perfect timing right ahead of the weekend.
? The Sonos paradox
helix2301 asks:

I dropped in the forums early this week about an iOS / iPad OS app called Clic App for Sonos. It is supposed to be better than the Sonos app that's been on life support to get fixed. I was wondering your thoughts. Trying to help, I know you hate the new Sonos app ;)

Two things up front.

First, apologies. I saw your post, installed the app, and figured I could give it a try the next time we listened to music (which should be tonight). But then I never chimed in on that, sorry.

Two, everyone hates the new Sonos app. I think what sets me apart is that I hated the previous Sonos app as well. Sonos makes great hardware, but its software was never any good. This wasn't a problem for a long time because I could control it with what was then called Google Play Music on Android, and with Apple devices, you can use AirPlay to control the speakers nicely. If you use Spotify, you're all set as well. The only occasional issue I'd run into was that I use/used Pocket Casts for podcasts, and there's no way to control Sonos from that app (on Android, on Apple you can use AirPlay for any app).

Anyway. Every time Sonos is in the news, I open the app to see whether it's better in some obvious. The last time this happened was about a month ago. In the wake of the latest Sonos earnings announcement, its interim CEO did a publicity tour and a series of interviews, and I read several of them. The key takeaways are that he really wants the job permanently, and he feels that Sonos has turned the corner on app quality.

We all have our opinions on that, I guess, but I'm willing to hold it up to the low bar of the previous app version. And my takeaway now is the same it's been for several months now. It's ... fine. It's a much nicer looking app than the previous version, but it's still a bit slow, and that's true all over the place. But other than that, the biggest problems I had with it originally are mostly fixed. Switching speakers or adding/removing speakers from the now playing group (Sonos calls this "queue") seems reasonably reliable. You can move the positions of songs in now playing (and do without first entering an edit mode, as with the previous app), and you can browse for music across services and then add one to now playing next or at the end of the queue. It's fine.

But all I really want is to use the same apps I always use. On Apple, this is easy: I can output to one or more Sonos speakers (and/or sets) from YouTube Music (music), Pocket Casts (podcasts), Audible (audiobooks), or any other app and it just works for the most part. On Android, this is a problem. Thanks to their legal battles, YouTube Music never got the ability to directly control Sonos. (Audible does support this.) Ideally, Sonos speakers would show up in that Cast...