i got tired of waiting on Bose. I am in the process of replacing soundtouch speakers with homepods. While they do cost more than the soundtound 10 I can pair 2 of them for stereo. And apple lets me play all in the house and it works. And it is strange that they never promise that they will deleiver some thing and not follow through with it.
It would be nice if Bose delivers. But the Apple homepods sound one hell of a lot better than the soundtouch.
Ok, this is getting ridiculous on pretty much evey level now, both from Bose and the “loyal” customers. I’ve been following this discussion for the last half year or so and I agree with everyone who is mad about the lack of information. I am kind of pissed off myself every time I check if there’s any news yet, only to find the same p*sspoor “answer”.
But then I close the forum and everything is fine. My speaker works. I can play my music, it sounds great and that’s the reason I bought it in the first place. It hasn’t suddenly become worthless because it hasn’t gotten a new feature yet that it initially never had. It’s still the same speaker that I bought some time ago, so practically, everything is fine.
And to the “loyal customers”, when you guys bought the speakers, I would assume Airplay 2 wasn’t even a thing yet. You bought it and there was a reason for it and you were happy with it. And then came along Apple and a small logo depicted on a slide in a keynote and now your speaker is suddenly worthless?
I get it, there's a new feature and you simply MUST have it. I’m the same way, it’s human nature I guess because one feels immediately inferior once someone else has something they don’t have, but just look at it in a more sensible way. There was nothing wrong with your speaker for the longest time and there still isn’t.
I don’t even think airplay is that great. I like the way the ST app acts as a remote control, because I can start playback on my phone and pick up on my iPad or laptop. Impossible with airplay. I like the preset buttons, the physical remote control, I like that it has Bluetooth and I like that it has an Aux in.
Except for a slightly better app experience, none of these features are available on the Sonos.
They are screwing their customers just as bad. The Sonos Play 1 as an entry level speaker didn’t get the update. Only the new Sonos One and existing high end speakers and I highly doubt hardware limitations were the reason for it.
To me, it’s a nice to have feature that I would probably use once a month. It’s more about that “chritstmasy” feeling when you get new features for a product that you already own, without the company milking you for more of your money. What’s maddening is the lack of communication, but when I look at these forums, the Bose support in general doesn’t seem to be too bad. It’s only on this single matter which isn’t really a reason to never buy another Bose product again or even sell all of them.
I would even go so far as to say everyone ranting about selling their speakers and buying a Sonos instead either a) still have all their speakers or b) go to the Sonos forum once Bose comes up with a feature they don’t have and pull the exact same thing.
Sejoki: Very well put!
I don’t beleive Bose is acting any different than other companies. They made their announcement about AirPlay 2 and likely have assigned engineers to implement the AirPlay 2 standard back into the Bose speakers on their timeline.
I had a Bose ST30 series 1 which had AirPlay 1 baked in. While I found the speaker sounded very good and liked the remote control feature, I found the AirPlay 1 connection buggy. I also found the speaker sometimes would wake up with iTunes roaring at full volume. Neither of which updates fixed. I eventullay returned the SoundTouch 30 because it woke up DOA one day.
I tried a number of other devices some with built in AirPlay looking for an all digital music solution. The B and W digital speaker for example, kept loosing its connection with AirPlay running. I also tried a pair of Audio Engine book shelf speakers paired with an Airport Express. This worked well but was limited in its application and relied completely on a computer or iOS device. Before my foray into digital speakers I used Airport Express to bring iTunes to my stereo receivers. The Airport Express always worked and the results sounded great!
As time went on I tried the Sound Touch 30 series 3 (non AirPlay) paired with an Airport Express and never looked back. The Airport Express never loses a connection (except once when trying to expand my Airport network using two Airport extremes - another story). Connecting via Aux input simply move the digital conversion to the Airport Express, which has a pretty good DAC. I have always been a fan of 3.5mm.
I dont downplay play how important Apple Music is to participants in this forum. However getting all uptight, selling all my Bose gear and threatening legal action seems extreme and counter productive. I certainly don’t have the resources to dump a speaker line, losing a lot of dollars on second market because of buyers remorse. Switching to Sonos, to me, is not a perfect solution. Topping my list of reasons, Sonos sounds so so.
I have tried many a digital speakers and mini receivers in my listening space. One thing for sure, the Bose Sound Touch system works well, sounds great and with an Airport Express plugged in, streams Apple Music and iTunes very well and reliably. Multiroom via aux rebroadcast also works exceedingly well with SoundTouch and Airport Express.
I have made similar posts with the hopes fellow enthusiasts will give Airport Express a try, beats selling off first rate SoundTouch gear or taking legal action.
I can't entirely disagree with you, and if our speakers today did everything that they were supposed to do when we bought them and did them well, despite not having the latest whizbang feature added, your points would be right on. Unfortunately that's not the case. There are lots of issues that go beyond AirPlay 2. And Bose's history of being secretive, not addressing issues or adding new features in a timely manner don't help create a high level of trust when Bose says they're going to add AirPlay 2 but can't / won't tell us a timeframe or even give us a list of products that will support it.
So, really, if we look beyond AirPlay 2, the situation is still unacceptable because every SoundTouch speaker is still missing features that should have been present when the speaker was purchased, and features that are there are often quirky, unreliable and don't work well or at all. There's scarecely any acknowledgement from Bose for these issues, there's no known time frame for their resolution, and really no one outside of Bose knows if Bose is even planning to resolve any of them at all.
I seriously disagree - the Soundtouch App is not properly maintained anymore and gets more buggy and unstable with every iOS Update. I have 8 (!) Bose products and am seriously pissed off. Only in December I spend another 2k€ for good sound and the guy in the Bose flagship store in Düsseldorf sweared to me they will implement Airplay again (my old ones still have Airplay 1).
Bose: get your SW engineers moving! Maintain and debug the current App (otherwise I consider this fraud) and implement Airplay 2!
Hello OleDüsseldorf! Thanks for posting and welcome to the Community.
This topic has led to much speculation and comment here in the Community. Rather than repost the official statement, for now let it suffice that as soon as we have more information on AirPlay2, we'll share it.
Best Regards,
Greg - Community Support
People only speculate when there is not enough information. Give us proper updates and we won't speculate.
@Greg_B wrote:
This topic has led to much speculation and comment here in the Community. Rather than repost the official statement, for now let it suffice that as soon as we have more information on AirPlay2, we'll share it.
Best Regards,
Yep, when . . .