Sonos Update Will Break Audible Playback Support

Sonos has announced that it will be updating its software next week, and while updates are almost always a good thing, this one will unfortunately come with an unwanted side effect: it will break support for Audible, meaning downloaded Audible audiobooks won't be playable over Sonos. Says Sonos, "We realize this is frustrating. It frustrates us, too."

The information was sent to Sonos customers over email today. It's a tricky issue, one that revolves around the goal of streaming audiobooks rather than downloading and playing them. "When we originally added support for Audible, the world was all about downloads," says Sonos. That world is no more, though, and everyone's streaming.

Sonos and Audible were prepared to work together to bring audiobook streaming to Sonos. Something went awry, however, and before that work got underway, "several pieces of code in this update broke compatibility with the older format found in Audible downloads."

That means once the update rolls around, those who play downloaded Audible audiobooks over Sonos will no longer be able to. It is disappointing, but that doesn't spell the end of Audible and Sonos compatibility; the company says it is committed to "working with Audible on a new and improved way to stream" those audiobooks. A timeframe for when that functionality will arrive wasn't provided.