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Businesses Music Apple

Sonos Cofounder Hits Back at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek For Complaining About Apple (fortune.com) 40

Posted by msmash from the musical-chair dept.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek reiterated previous gripes he's had with Apple during an interview this week, saying its platform is still not open enough to third-party apps like the Sweden-based music streamer. But according to the cofounder of high-end speaker and home audio company Sonos, Spotify operates an even-more closed ecosystem than Apple. From a report: In a tweet posted Wednesday, Sonos cofounder John MacFarlane said it was "solid irony" that Ek was criticizing Apple's platform. "Having worked closely with both Apple and Spotify, I would say it's more significantly more difficult to work within Spotify's 'closed' ecosystem than Apple's," he wrote. "Respect and appreciate both companies, but 'open' Spotify is not." Sonos products for the most part rely on third-party services like Spotify and Apple Music to stream music, podcasts, and audiobooks through the Sonos app. Industry analysts and commentators have suggested in recent years that Apple buy Sonos to boost its struggling HomePod smart speaker business.
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Sonos Cofounder Hits Back at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek For Complaining About Apple More

Sonos Cofounder Hits Back at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek For Complaining About Apple

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  • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • How does Spotify even have an "ecosystem"? They don't really make hardware, they don't have an app store, it looks like anyone with an internet connection can listen. What did Spotify do to make Sonos feel cut out?

    (I'm not defending Spotify per se, I understand that they pay artists a pittance, etc.)

    • One thing Spotify has done is make it more difficult for equipment manufacturers to include drivers for Spotify. A couple of years ago they to my great chagrin pulled the logitech Squeezebox (R.I.P) Spotify apps with the ridiculous argument "in order to improve customer satisfaction we have decided to no longer support the delivery solutions our customers use" - not a straight quote, but that was the essence.

      • They upgraded their API, nothing more. There are open source hooks into Spotify available for anyone to use. That device manufacturers refused to issue an update is not evidence of a closed ecosystem.

        Although I guess Sonos is still bitching about device based Spotify access only being available to Spotify premium customers, to which I say, hey Mr CEO: Why don't you pay a license fee to Spotify instead of complaining that it's difficult to freeload.

  • Fuck Sonos (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fred911 ( 83970 )

    They can take their "Recycle Mode" and shove it up their ass. Bitching at Apple is like the pot calling the kettle a black ass.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/... [theverge.com]

  • Not to pick on Sonos (I own a Port and a Connect), but since when were their speakers "high-end"?

    I think they make some nice gear for the 'ordinary' consumer market, but I can't see how they compete with the big boys in the speaker world (Wilson, KEF, B&W, MBL, etc. - a long list).

    • No, they're expensive, dude. The average consumer ain't paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for smart speakers. I don't understand their success other than great marketing, since Sonos stuff is expensive but not audiophile quality. They're like the new Bose.
      • I meant that they aren't "high end" in terms of audio quality or features but they are relatively high priced, so many people see them as "high end."

    • but since when were their speakers "high-end"?

      They always have been. The long list you listed are in a completely different market. It's like saying that Canondale don't make high end bicycles because Ferrari make high end cars. The only thing a smart speaker and a dumb speaker have in common is that sound comes out of them, otherwise they are completely different things with fundamentally different use cases.

      Incidentally there's nothing stopping you running your B&W speakers from Sono's amp (probably one of the best Class-D amps I've heard on the

    • I agree, their speakers are consumer grade. I own a ton of them. Too many.
      But i also own a bunch of their connects (like you i see) and plug those into B&W speakers all over. i also own too many B&Ws.
      The speakers are very convenient. The amps and ports do a nice enough job powering speakers. IMHO.

  • Pot meet kettle (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday May 07, 2020 @07:22PM (#60034274) Journal

    The Sonos CEO has some balls, I'll give him that. Sonos is not exactly an "open" platform itself. Until very recently, you had to hack your own speakers if you wanted to play any DRM-free music on your Sonos speakers, even if that music happened to be music that you created yourself.

    Even today unprotected music is not trivial on Sonos gear.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drhamad ( 868567 )
      To be fair, he's not claiming he has an open ecosystem. He's just commenting on an ongoing legal battle between two other companies, both of which he interacts with. Whether or not his systems are open is irrelevant to a comparison of ones which theoretically are.

      • To be fair, he's not claiming he has an open ecosystem. He's just commenting on an ongoing legal battle between two other companies, both of which he interacts with.

        And his comment specifically calls out a company for not being "open". So it sounds like he wants other companies to be open but not his own.

        "Open for me, but not for thee" in other words.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by drhamad ( 868567 )
          Sure. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have insight into which is more open.

        • What he's calling out is a company that is calling out ANOTHER company for not being open, while that first company is not open themselves.

          He's saying the real hypocrites are Spotify, because as much as they want access to other companies' systems, they're unwilling to make their own stuff as open as they can.

          I get that Sonos isn't exactly a paragon of openness themselves, but I think there's plenty of room for hypocrisy here—just because he's doing shitty things doesn't mean he isn't right about Spot

    • I don't really get it. What is do you find so problematic in playing DRM-free music on Sonos speakers ? They pretty much play anything from a NAS, a local folder or over Airplay, etc.

      Or maybe you meant that the platform was not open to stream from free music services unless Sonos makes a specifc plugin for that service ? That's right, and that effectively makes Sonos a closed platform, but this does not have much relationship with unprotected music...
    • Thatâ(TM)s quite an extraordinary claim, what evidence do you base this on? I was introduced to Sonos in 2008 and, back then, it would happily play any MP3 files you threw at it out of the box, no hacking required. In fact, that was the whole selling point of the system at that time.
      • And it still does.

      • I was introduced to Sonos in 2008 and, back then, it would happily play any MP3 files you threw at it out of the box

        In 2008, Sonos did support DRM-free music. In 2015? Not so much. I guess a lot depends on whether or not you have a Sonos speaker that Sonos has stopped supporting with "updates".

        Did you hear what I just said? There are Sonos speakers that are no longer supported because Sonos will not put out updates. It's a fucking speaker for chrissake.

        • You're right for updates, planned obsolescence, and so on. Older devices are not going to be supported by newer firmware starting this month, a move which got Sonos a lot of much-deserved backslash.
          However, I am not sure of what you are talking about with DRM-free music. All existing Sonos devices (including the older ones which will be stuck on older firmwares) will play DRM-free files. If anything, it's DRM'ed music (for instance M4P files) which will bring issues. At this point I am sorry, but I believe

        • In 2008, Sonos did support DRM-free music. In 2015? Not so much.

          Nonsense, they still supported playing DRM-free music in 2015 too.

          Today they support a raft of DRM-free formats [sonos.com] including MP3, MP4, AAC, OGG, FLAC and even WAV.

          I guess a lot depends on whether or not you have a Sonos speaker that Sonos has stopped supporting with "updates".

          You guess incorrectly. Speakers that don't receive software updates still continue to work and play all the music formats they previously supported. They didn't just stop fun

          • Nonsense

            OK, try this: Take a file of some music you made. Don't violate any copyrights of course, because that would be wrong, but start with a .wav or .mp3 file of music you wrote and recorded. Now put that file on your iOS device. Try to stream it to your Sonos speaker via Bluetooth or wifi.

            Let me know how it goes.

            • Take a file of some music you made. Don't violate any copyrights of course, because that would be wrong, but start with a .wav or .mp3 file of music you wrote and recorded. Now put that file on your iOS device. Try to stream it to your Sonos speaker via Bluetooth or wifi.

              Ignoring the fact that "not supporting DRM-free music" and "not supporting my preferred streaming protocol" are two completely different arguments, you forgot about AirPlay [sonos.com].

  • Oh the irony (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xQx ( 5744 ) on Thursday May 07, 2020 @07:33PM (#60034308)

    The open source community would like a word with Sonos.

    Closed-ecosystem company #1 criticises closed-ecosystem company #2 for criticising the world leader in closed-ecosystems about being a closed-ecosystem.

  • Sonos isn't in a business that conflicts with Apple's. Spotify is. It stands to reason that Sonos wouldn't have a problem working with Apple. Hey Sonos CEO, the word of the day is disingenuous.

  • At first glance, sure - Yeah Apple buy the best electronic digital sound mfgr to mass market audiences. Its a fit on many levels.

    Second thought: leave them alone. They're fine all by themselves and need no help from anything Apple could bring to its audio game.

    Last thought - AAPL has more to gain leaving the company to produce _the_ best sounding cinematic systems, selling independently, outside the sandbox, than a " lock-in" feature set were Apple to acquire its IP.

    SONOS provides amazing soundscapes. Su

  • The operating system, including the APIs that are needed to make things work on the operating system is where people have issues with things being open, or difficult to code for. The last time I checked, Spotify isn't the operating system, and unless there is some "plugin" functionality that I've never paid any attention to, Sonos wouldn't need to tie into Spotify, it would be Spotify being designed to work on Sonos. If Sonos is having issues getting Spotify to work on its products, that is where the co

  • And we're sure that Sonos isn't just trying to win favor with Apple? Sounds like brown nosing.

  • - Stop buying Sonos closed stuff
    - Stop buying Apple closed stuff
    - Stop using/paying Spotify

    Listen radio (and/or buy music... Don't rent it) on "standard speakers". Case closed.

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