Apple Music Partner Sonos Sees its Future in Streaming, Voice Control

Wireless audio company and Apple Music partner Sonos has announced it will lay off employees as it restructures the business towards a new focus on music streaming and voice control.

The reasoning behind the move came in a blog post yesterday by Sonos CEO John MacFarlane, who called it an "investment in the future of music" that would allow the company to remain profitable, but which came with "very difficult" consequences. No details were given on the extent of the job cuts.

Apple-Music-Sonos
MacFarlane said the change would first see Sonos "lean into" the area of paid streaming services, following an irreversible shift in the music ecosystem, led by Apple.

This past year, when Apple announced its entry with Apple Music, we saw and helped drive a dramatic acceleration of paid music subscriptions. With Apple's influence, the entire ecosystem – labels, artists, management – began to embrace and advance streaming all over the world.

Now, this shift is irreversibly started, and everyone in the ecosystem is adjusting to a world of streaming services. The Beatles library, now available on all the streaming services, is a perfect example of how labels are leaning into streaming.

MacFarlane said the path forward for the music industry and for Sonos is "crystal clear" as he announced it was "doubling down" on streaming music, with an aim to build "incredibly rich experiences" as consumers inevitably grew dissatisfied with existing solutions for listening at home.

The CEO offered few details on the products or services that would be at the center of such experiences, but identified voice control as the way forward, calling the company "fans" of Amazon's Alexa personal assistant and Echo hardware.

Voice recognition isn't new; today it's nearly ubiquitous with Siri, OK Google, and Cortana. But the Echo found a sweet spot in the home and will impact how we navigate music, weather, and many, many other things as developers bring new ideas and more content to the Alexa platform.

Alexa/Echo is the first product to really showcase the power of voice control in the home. Its popularity with consumers will accelerate innovation across the entire industry. What is novel today will become standard tomorrow. Here again, Sonos is taking the long view in how best to bring voice-enabled music experiences into the home. Voice is a big change for us, so we'll invest what's required to bring it to market in a wonderful way.

Sonos made a name for itself by offering wireless sound systems that connect to an app which integrates third-party music streaming services including Spotify and SoundCloud. Apple Music content became available on Sonos wireless speakers in February after extensive beta testing by hundreds of thousands of listeners.

Sonos faces increasingly stiff competition as companies like Google, Samsung and Bose continue to expand their own wireless home audio solutions. However, while Amazon announced two new voice-activated audio products just last week, it also released accompanying SDKs and APIs which enable any device to respond to voice commands, opening the door for potential Sonos speaker integrations in the future.

Popular Stories

iPhone Air

Report: 'Virtually No Demand' for iPhone Air

Wednesday October 22, 2025 3:22 am PDT by
Apple is "drastically" cutting production of the iPhone Air and shifting focus toward the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro models, Nikkei Asia reports. The business publication claims to have learned of a major cut to iPhone Air production motivated by weaker-than-expected consumer interest, nearly to "end of production levels." Despite early reports of the iPhone Air selling out within hours of...
sam sung auction

Former Apple Employee Sam Sung Changed His Name to Avoid Attention

Wednesday October 22, 2025 4:44 pm PDT by
Back in 2012, an Apple retail employee named Sam Sung went viral because his name is similar to Samsung, one of Apple's main competitors. In a recent interview with Business Insider, he detailed that period in his life, how Apple responded, and he explained why he ultimately changed his name. Someone posted an image of Sung's Apple business card on Reddit in 2012, and it spread rapidly....
iOS 26

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features for Your iPhone

Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:15 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. iOS 26.1 is currently in beta testing. The update will likely be released in the first half of November, and it is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer, but some...
cadillac lyric infotainment

GM to Remove CarPlay from All Future Vehicles, Including Gas Cars [Updated]

Wednesday October 22, 2025 11:34 am PDT by
General Motors began phasing out support for CarPlay in its electric vehicles back in 2023, leading to complaints from iPhone users, but the company has no plans to back down. In fact, GM is going further and plans to remove CarPlay from all future gas vehicles, too. In an interview with The Verge, GM CEO Mary Barra said that the company opted to prioritize its platform for EVs, but the...
All Screen iPhone 2027 Feature 1

Apple's Plan to Launch Three New iPhone Designs Allegedly Revealed

Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:24 am PDT by
Apple plans to launch a new type of iPhone every year for the foreseeable future, according to an Asia-based source. The detailed information was shared by the account "yeux1122" in a blog post on the Korean platform Naver, citing domestic trend and component research companies. Corroborating other reports, Apple will apparently launch its first foldable iPhone in 2026, featuring a...
All Screen iPhone 2027 Feature 1

Report: Apple to Skip 'iPhone 19' Name for 'iPhone 20'

Thursday October 23, 2025 4:28 am PDT by
Apple's new iPhone lineup launched in the fall of 2027 will be called the "iPhone 20" models, rather than the "iPhone 19," according to research firm Omdia. Speaking at a conference in Seoul (via ETNews), Omdia Chief Researcher Heo Moo-yeol corroborated rumors that Apple plans to move the launch of its standard iPhone to the first half of the year and provided some additional clarity about...
maxresdefault

Apple's iPhone Air Experiment Fails as Supply Chain Cuts Production by 80%

Wednesday October 22, 2025 10:48 am PDT by
iPhone Air demand failed to meet Apple's expectations and the company's supply chain is scaling back shipments and production, reports Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Suppliers are expected to reduce capacity by more than 80 percent between now and the first quarter of 2026, and some components with longer lead times will be discontinued ...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

iPhone Driver's License Feature in Apple Wallet App Launches in Another U.S. State

Thursday October 23, 2025 7:44 am PDT by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, providing a convenient and contactless way to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. Starting today, the feature is available to residents of West Virginia. To set it up, open the Wallet app and tap on the plus sign in...
trump white house ballroom

Apple Donating to Trump's $350M White House Ballroom Project

Thursday October 23, 2025 3:55 pm PDT by
Apple is one of several tech companies that will contribute to the construction of U.S. President Donald Trump's 90,000-square-foot ballroom, reports CNN. Construction began on the ballroom this week, and the White House's east wing was torn down. Trump claims that the ballroom will cost $350 million, and that it will be privately funded through donations. The cost has already increased $150 ...

Top Rated Comments

SnowLucas Avatar
126 months ago
A bit odd this. The speakers are already one of the most effective ways to access streaming music services, mixing them and playing from multiple sources without really needing to care which one has the song you want. It seems highly unlikely they will start their own streaming service as they wouldn't be able to compete in that market or provide anything new or even promote it over their rivals in their own speakers.

Voice recognition is maybe an interesting addition but easily copied by rivals in the connected speaker system. Hardly something to keep them growing.

Looks to me like they are simply making the company more efficient but felt the need to come up with a convoluted reason as to why the layoffs.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Robstevo Avatar
126 months ago
The streaming ecosystem has been led by Apple? In what world
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AFEPPL Avatar
126 months ago
"irreversible shift in the music ecosystem, led by Apple." really i thought apple was more a Jonny come lately to music streaming....
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Quu Avatar
126 months ago
I was in the market for a new sound system recently and I looked at the Sonos stuff as I do like the features. But the prices are just so high, you can get a much higher quality DAC and Speakers for 1/3rd the price. Do I want lower-quality sound just to have the added Sonos technology or do I want to buy an Airport Express and my own "dumb" sound system and combine the two? For me the answer was simple, save money and get a higher quality sound system in the process.

For me, they've priced themselves out of the market.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mw360 Avatar
126 months ago
Add me to those confused by this. I've just started with Sonos and absolutely love it - added a new Play 1 last week which took less time to set up than it did to open the box. And the box wasn't hard to open.

It's refreshing to find a product which comes with no shenanigans. I can't buy an Apple product without wondering how long before Apple hobbles it, or what features they held back for the next version, or how it's going to tie me into a cloud service which I have to pay for and will force me to update things against my best interests.

No games with Sonos, it really does just work. Not like Airplay, or Siri, or Home Sharing, or any of that garbage.

Which has me fearing, all this cosying up to Apple is only going to bad places. New Sonos versions every year, pointless feature upgrades, cloud this that and the other, 3rd party services disappearing, HomeKit lock-in... Paranoid? Yep really paranoid about this one...
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Osamede Avatar
126 months ago
A bit odd this. The speakers are already one of the most effective ways to access streaming music services, mixing them and playing from multiple sources without really needing to care which one has the song you want. It seems highly unlikely they will start their own streaming service as they wouldn't be able to compete in that market or provide anything new or even promote it over their rivals in their own speakers.

Voice recognition is maybe an interesting addition but easily copied by rivals in the connected speaker system. Hardly something to keep them growing.

Looks to me like they are simply making the company more efficient but felt the need to come up with a convoluted reason as to why the layoffs.
Bingo. I hate when highly paid management executuves cant even manage to tell basic truths.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)