Sonos predicts full stream ahead with Apple Music a turning point

FOR years wireless speaker pioneer Sonos has predicted a total streaming music revolution. A recent change means that revolution is here now.

Sonos predicts full stream ahead

THE message from wireless speaker pioneers Sonos is simple: when it comes to how we listen to music, the changes in the past 13 weeks are as significant as those in the past 13 years.

Sonos is looking ahead to big changes of its own. It’s just announced a new flagship Play: 5 speaker out later this year, that has been created with an Apple-like attention to detail in design down from the logo with tiny holes so as not to block the internal antenna to the power cord that is almost a work of art.

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And, perhaps of greater impact in the long term, Sonos is launching Trueplay, a do-it-yourself speaker tuning system. You wave an iPhone or iPad around in the air while it makes soggy light sabre sounds and 45 seconds later the speaker software tweaks itself so that it produces its ultimate sound performance for the room.

But amid the internal announcements comes the wider focus. The recent change that has Sonos predicting big things to come is the launch of Apple Music streaming service.

Apple has announced Apple Music, like other streaming services, will be available on the Sonos system and Sonos is working frantically to meet an end-of-year deadline.

Sonos CEO John MacFarlane said the reaction to the launch of the Apple Music streaming service was “cheering, in a big way”.

Sonos vice-president of product marketing Tom Cullen sees the Apple shift into streaming as the fulfilment of a premature prediction.

“I’m the guy who has been saying that in five years everybody is going to stream _ for 13 years,” he said.

“And I can tell you right now, in five years everyone is going to stream.

“Apple has now finally decided to go all out on streaming and it’s going to change the world of music.”

Sonos set out on its own when it launched its network family of wi-fi connected speakers that can play the same music throughout the house, or different music in every room. Since then a swag of technology companies, big and small, have followed the model.

MacFarlane says he does not worry that he might be losing potential customers to copycats.

“If those guys catch us, it’s our own fault. That’s our terrain and you’ve got to be the best at it or you’re not ultimate.”

MacFarlane also has another focus rather than what the competition of the clones. He wants Sonos to work on i’s weaknesses.

“Our podcast and Audible (audio books) support isn’t nearly where it needs to be. Those are areas we really need to work on,” MacFarlane says.

Another area, of particular interest to Australians, is looking at how Sonos can make an outdoor, water-resistant speaker.

“That’s a hard thing to do but something we would love to bite off at some point. No one makes a great outdoor speaker, no one does.”

The key to the future, MacFarlane says, is not coming up with ideas of what’s next but picking the right one.

“In times when the market really opens up, like with streaming, there is 1000 things you can do and there is three you should do.”

*Rod Chester travelled to Santa Barbara as a guest of Sonos