When will SL be brought to the mobile era?

[Bebe Bunny]

Good day!

I been without a desktop for a while now and after the only phone that handles Lumiya died I haven't had much chance on coming in SL other than a glitchy text viewer for emergencies. So, missing a touch of a virtual world I ventured myself again on SL's biggest competitor (I won't name it because I imagine it's against the rules?) and was baffled with knowing their regular online user count is around 90.000. I'll make a quick comparison between both platforms that corrobore with why I was astonished to know that they have almost twice as active users as SL has:

THEY:
- Limited movement, you can only stand on premade spots.
- Money hungry, they charge EVERYTHING, they have a VIP package, a Mature content package, they charge you to change your name, to get married, to create certain contents (charge a LOT) and they would probably charge your sneeze too.
- Lower graphic quality (which can be either a pro or a con depending on your setup, any toaster can run it)
- Limited creation capabilities (I didn't see many good looking stuff there, the ones I saw were suspiciously close to SL products I know)

But they also have:
- Free "home"
- Official mobile support on both site and app
- Good CSR (at least when I tried it it was fast and efficient)
- Lower cost for their currency

I believe their bigger numbers are mainly because they have a mobile app that works fairly well. Which leads me to the question:

When will SL officially supports mobile?

At least the website? The only mobile friendly part of SL I visited so far is the forum (I'm currently on a borrowed machine, or I wouldn't bother typing all of this lol). Both website and marketplace look heavily outdated and if you want to do a quick look using your phone you're prone to headaches.

I know SL is a much more complex virtual platform than the other one is, but if someone had the initiative to make it possible (with Lumiya) why not the LL team step forward and provide not only more access to it's users as well for a better support for who can't (or simply won't) be in front of a desktop or a laptop for long periods of time?

I wanted to enrich this topic with a research but since I don't have a lot of time for a deeper study on SL population, but work ate all my brains so I could only come this far on the topic. Link to a study that illustrates the mobile usage over the past years: https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

 

[Coffee Pancake]

There is a companion iOS app in the works, initially it will allow you to log in (without an in world avatar presence) and IM / group chats etc. More features will follow, although Oz has expressed doubt that it will ever be a full 3D client.

[Bebe Bunny]

Sadly it means LL keeps their own platform from reaching out to new residents or even keeping the current ones more active.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Sylvannas Zulaman

[Coffee Pancake]

A full 3D reliable client that meets the extended session times typical of SL users would be a technical miracle.

Lumiya did do 3D .. and it would eat all your devices ram and boil the processor .. and then crash. There is no way an app with SL performance requirements will survive Apple's store.

[Sammy Huntsman]

6 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

A full 3D reliable client that meets the extended session times typical of SL users would be a technical miracle.

Lumiya did do 3D .. and it would eat all your devices ram and boil the processor .. and then crash. There is no way an app with SL performance requirements will survive Apple's store.

With the way SL is with computers, you will be waiting a while for them to have a fully 3D reliable client on mobile phone.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

This sounds like IMVU, is it IMVU? (Talking about other games/virtual worlds/platforms/whateveryoucallthem is totally fine.)

On 7/12/2019 at 12:09 AM, Sylvannas Zulaman said:

- Money hungry, they charge EVERYTHING, they have a VIP package, a Mature content package, they charge you to change your name, to get married, to create certain contents (charge a LOT) and they would probably charge your sneeze too.

SL has Premium/VIP, marriage fee, upload fees, and will charge for name changes. The only difference is the Access Pass, which enables mature content.

The lesser requirements for running IMVU comfortably is probably the biggest reason why they have so many (more) concurrent users. It's also more accessible due to the simplified controls and dress-up. (No need to deal with mesh with separate appliers and applier-appliers (Omega), for example.)

I'm skeptical about the mobile client having much of an impact on the difference between the two -- but it definitely doesn't hurt. The mobile client has been brought up here a lot and LL is (once again) working on an iOS chat app.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator