Sony Songpal

[Xtreemmells]

Looks like the recent Songpal update has screwed up any chance of playing music on my HTXT3 & SRS-hg1's. Everything was working fine until the update, now totally unusable. Why do Sony mess up something that was functioning without any problems. How long do we wait for this to be fixed?

[Anonymous]

Hi there

Sorry for the delayed reply - are you still having an issue with this?  Maybe a simple factory reset might help if you are?

Cheers

[BollyDave]

Re:Songpal, now known as Sony Music Center

I just had the warning on the last update of this app on my IOS devices, that the next iteration will cease to support my STR-DN1050 AV receiver. No reason given, many other devices will continue to have support from the app.

If this is true then needless to say, I am bloody furious. I bought the unit on strength of industry awards etc and the fact it offered clean lines, and the means of managing detail settings via a handheld device. Yes I know I can use my TV as a monitor but when solely listening to music it makes little sense to switch on a dirty great plasma telly does it?

Does anyone know how true this is, and if Sony are going to bother reviewing this decision or indeed offering an alternate app?

Not happy about what is effectively a strategy of planned obsolescence vs. my hard earned purchase.

[Anonymous]

Hi @BollyDave

It does indeed seem to be true.  I checked both iTunes and Google Play Store and both have the same message.  However I have added a red box to a key passage of the message.  Simply disable auto-updates so this app doesnt get updated.

Cheers

[BollyDave]

The slight issue is that AFAIK it is not possible to selectively set a given app to be excluded from updates.

Now I don't know about anyone else but over recent years it would seem that Apple have lost the plot too, and it staggers me how many app updates I have to deal with each week across tablet and phone. As a result I mostly just tell the device to "update all" - which of course would be disastrous where Songpal/Music Center is concerned.

I have to say I am extremely hacked off with the like it or lump it attitude of Sony.

I only have the 1050 as my previous 1040 was left high and dry by them where the farce of streaming services was concerned. I bought that model partly on the strength of a wealth of online material to enjoy, only to find that due to their unprofessional handling of whatever agreement was concerned it (Vtuner) stopped working, with no real clue as to when it would be fixed. Amateurish management of 3rd party contracts in my eyes

And now this. It feels like a right kick in the balls, No discussion, no reason given, just selective exclusion from the future functionality of that app. TBH the app could be damn frustrating anyway, taking ages to load, and not letting you do things like set a default input to save time - but once it was running it was ok.

So what they are basically implying now is that even if you just want to listen to music, and you need to tweak sounds, which I often do - not just due to the variations of sound sources, but also to try to work around hearing issues - I may have to resort to switching on a big plasma TV.  Where's the logic in that?

If an independant 3rd party came up with an alternate app, I'd even pay for the continuity, and probably expect better service from the originator too.

So here's my challenge to you SONY, either revert the decision to exclude certain models, offer an alternate app that will work or offer me a bloody good discount off a model that I can expect to have continued support.

I doubt any of those things will happen. But as far as I am concerned if things remain unchanged I've made my last purchase from Sony. The arrogance is stunning.

[Anonymous]

Hi there

I cant disagree with you on that and fully understand where you are coming from - especially after the whole vTuner saga.

One thing you can do is to post that same reply in the reviews on the app store.  Im not familiar with iTunes, but Google Play Store allows you to.

Cheers

[BollyDave]

There's another "slight" issue with this farce that may not happen immediately but stands to add to the problem in time. Apple are hell bent on moving all "apps" away from 32bit versions, which presumably means as they age out older (and perfectly functional) apps, if you have the need to rebuild your iCrap you may only find the latest 64 bit, and not compatible version for it, leaving you with, nothing, to remotely control the receiver. Coupled with their dubious crusade to constantly introduce updated versions of IOS (which seem to have little other purpose than push your device down the road to redundancy, we're screwed. Also, if you decide to treat yourself to a newer version of an Apple device, you're screwed there too.

Another gotya is if you've not already backed up your device, along with the older version of the app, if you need to rebuild it, you'll start with the out of the box IOS version when you reset it, with no apps, and when you go to reload your Sony app from the store...that's right folks, the version YOU need won't be there, so bye bye remote control.

Considering the complete lack of response from Sony on this issue, I'm done with them.

Appalling lack of consideration to existing customers that are not in the habit of replacing perfectly good kit every couple of years.

[BollyDave]

As a trivial update, for completeness more than anything...

Tonight, amusingly, I have received a request from Sony to provide feedback about the "support" they gave me.

That's a laugh, as the only progress I made at all (Tunein issue) was via the help of this community. As a brief reminder I was unable to remove internet station favourites, and one of the first responses from Sony "support" was to ask what type of antenna I had connected...really? I mean...really?!! That says a lot in itself.

Neither ticket I raised with Sony was resolved as far as I am concerned. That demonstrates the skill levels of the people managing customer tickets. Bottom line there is it was another case of deflecting blame to 3rd party developers, completely overlooking the fact that the hardware is Sony branded and it is their responsibility to either fix a problem within their direct abilities, or to more effectively manage any 3rd parties that contribute components or software which makes their product work as marketed and sold. It's not rocket science, and I find their attitude deflective and insulting.

On the bigger issue of literally being discriminated against, as the owner of an STR-DN1050, I have got nowhere. Sony surely have the ability to put this farce right by co-maintaining 2 versions of Sony Music Centre, one for whatever path of development they are hell bent on crusading at cost of lost business (i.e. mine) and one for us low valued legacy customers.

So they asked for feedback and I gave it. Zero for everything, laughing in their face as to whether I'd recommend their products, and laying it on the line about the abysmal experience I've had, which has led to my decision to never buy Sony again. As ever I leave the door open for them to man up, contact me and put things right for not just me, but presumably hordes of other owners that feel abandoned on this issue.

I'd like to thank the contributors here for the help I've had, it's just a shame the manufacturer could not care less.