Mobile Clients: Must-have, Nice to have, or Absolutely Unneccessary?

[ThorinII]

To be honest, I couldn't care less about any mobile client to access Second Life. Especially when it comes to pure text clients (like that proposed iOS client by LL).

From my point of view, SL is a rich virtual world, and I even consider the 15" screen of my laptop as "too small" pretty often, that's why I mostly use my desktop computer with its big monitor to log in. Even if there were a service that streamed SL onto the mobile screens: The screens of smartphones and even tablets are simply way too small (in my opinion) to have a good look on the virtual world. And whenever I enter SL, then ONLY on laptop or PC - even though both my smartphone and my tablet could handle Lumiya easily.

So, what use is a mobile client anyway? And what can't wait until you (the general "you") boot your laptop or PC and run a "normal" viewer?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 minutes ago, ThorinII said:

From my point of view, SL is a rich virtual world, and I even consider the 15" screen of my laptop as "too small" pretty often

This, completely. We talk about SL as an "immersive" environment: to my mind, the immersion would be almost entirely lost on a cell phone or tablet. (Although I have friends who have used SL on tablets.)

I know that "mobile" is the wave of the future, yada yada yada. But I suspect that, should the day come when most residents are accessing it on mobile devices, the platform will begin to change utterly. The focus will shift from environments and interactive engagement, to playing Barbie dolls.

[Fritigern Gothly]

I vote for "nice to have"

It's nice to have if you are downtown and suddenly remember you have to pay rent on your land. Quickly log in on your phone, pay, and poof.
It's nice to have if you have an friend on SL who badly needs to talk to you, and with the mobile client, you can do that anywhere. 
It's nice to have if your PC suddenly decides that it has lived long enough, you can use your mobile client to tell your boss in SL that you can't work for a while.
It's nice to have if your internet suddenly cuts out for who knows how long, you could still use your phone to log into SL and keep in touch with people.

But a must-have? No, not at all. But nice to have as an alternative means to log in. 

 

Edited July 14, 2019 by Fritigern Gothly

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

I tell some about SL and some will ask "Can I play it on my phone?"  It's funny when my husband is DJing from our RL bar into SL and he'll say "Tonight we're playing into the virtual world of Second Life" and some patrons will pull their phones out. Cracks me up.

[Pixie Kobichenko]

I think it would ideally be nice for many SLers to have access to a decent endorsed mobile/tablet client.

Lumiya is no longer on the 3rd party list & doesn't seem to be updating, because it's become next to unusable other than as a text client to one of my friends who only has a tablet atm.

Tonight, for instance, it got even worse, and alphas would not stick to him. 

[CaffineFab]

I'm mad that Lumiya is gone from the play store it was nice to have for my tablet especially when other people is using the computer and i wanted to get on Second Life.

[Kotelle]

nice to have for me - I am able to run SL on my small macbook and it feels almost like iPad so it is not a big difference in size and comfort. But I don't see any option to fully experience SL on mobile, so maybe only for basic communication purposes or some simple activities, when you just want to leave a message or chat with someone without any more interaction, pay rent, etc. 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I think it would be nice to have for times when I'd like to speak with someone in a different time zone from my own, at a time when I can't log on with a full computer (like when I am at work). My partner's time zone is six hours' ahead of mine, so our chat time is kind of limited. It would be cool to be able to have a quick chat on my lunch break now and then.

[Erwin Solo]

The good: I used a mobile client to contract friends about SIM business when I can't be online, but when I can use my voice.  My phone (and most modern phones with the help of either Google or Apple's cloud), perform excellent speach-to-text which removes the burden of tiny keyboard typing, except for corrections.

The bad:  People contact me all the time via their mobile clients, and expect me to do all their typing for them

Example:

Them: Hi

Me: Hi

(long pause)

Them: CU move it?

Me: (A) <guess at it #1>  (B) <guess at it #2>, .... (Z) None of the above?

Them: Z

Me: ?

...

 

[Selene Gregoire]

The only reason I ever have a cell phone is because the other half insists on it. I so rarely use the things that we're basically just throwing money away on it. Reason being, I'm the sort that much prefers to see your eyes and your body language when conversing and hear your tone of voice. Otherwise, pick up the phone and call me, don't text me. If you have the phone in your hand why are you texting and not calling? What are you hiding? If you don't have the time to talk, you don't have the time to text.

ETA: There's also that small detail where I need to be able to see your lips while you are speaking so I don't have to ask you to repeat things you say 5 or 10 times since I have high frequency hearing loss probably due to the tinnitus I've had since I can remember. Turns out, while it may have sounded like crickets, what I was hearing, as a child, at night, trying to go to sleep was not. It was my own ears. Sometimes I hear crickets now but mostly a high pitched constant squeal that only varies in volume. Sometimes it is loud enough to drown nearly every sound around me out. Apparently my ears are overly sensitive to electrical current. 

Edited July 14, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Clara Hollyberry]

I vote "nice to have" but likely would never have occasion to use it, preferring instead the richness of full-screen immersion.  I imagine, however, quick-and-easy customer service for easy problems might be achieved in timely ways by content creators assisting with their creations when they might not otherwise have been able to do a full login at that moment, as one possible example of a benefit. So, nice to have... not essential, in my opinion.

[Raevyn Addams]

Nice to have.

Or was. For a good while I was using Lumiya every other day while on lunch breaks or just as I was heading off to bed as that was about the time many of my friends were coming online. I barely used it for the graphics because it was... well, it was a poor imitation to be frank. The screen was too small, the FPS was pretty woeful, and controls so clunky I could do little beyond stand there anyway. I enjoyed the IM/chat feature, but things have since progressed to WhatsApp so Lumiya's been left behind. Apparently good timing too from what I read in the posts before mine; I didn't even know it wasn't being updated anymore. But to get back on track, it was nice to have when all else failed or I couldn't get to my computer and I wanted to get in touch with my friends overseas. I'd probably try another app should it deliver better quality and have better controls on a smaller screen. Not sure if it's possible but who knows.

Yes, nice to have. Not a must-have. Not quite bordering on absolutely unnecessary. Yet.

[Solar Legion]

Count me as "nice to have" - I've used Lumiya in the past to poke a friend or two or to pay the rent on the parcel I have on an island.

Outside of that though ... yeah, as it stands that's about the only use I have for a mobile client.

Mind I am also one of those types where I cannot stand to be on the phone for extended periods of time (actual phone calls) outside of talking to my immediate family or extremely close friends. I prefer text based communication - with few exceptions such as a Discord or Telegram call, perhaps use of Marco Polo - if not in the immediate presence of a given person.

Then again, having a major visual impairment (for distance based - I do use reading glasses for close in) is a major influence for this ... I will miss a visual cue when talking face to face with someone and instead must rely on both macro and micro variances in tone of voice.

All of that also contributes to my view of text based communication: If possible, say exactly what you mean and try not to react to what is not right in front of you, spelled out in the text itself (no subtext or attempts to read intent or such) ...

Not easy to do ... at all.

ETA: Yes I do realize a bit of that is somewhat contradictory but frankly ... it is how I am. On a side note, scam mailers and such have never gotten me and yes that does include the ones that do not have spelling/grammar issues. They're often far more vague than a proper communication from the company they're impersonating/type of company they're pretending to be.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Solar Legion

[animats]

For marketing reasons alone, SL needs a mobile client. A visual one, with the viewer hosted somewhere and a video stream sent to the client. Two way voice. Movement. But probably not much else - little that needs a keyboard.

[Magnek Fang]

I'm certain that I don't want it on Apple's app store, because it was the removal of the Tumblr app from there that triggered last year's adult art purge.

[Maitimo]

I'd say nice to have, for the same reasons that Fritigern mentioned.

[Orwar]

   Meh, I'd go as far as to say relatively absolutely unnecessary.

[Solar Legion]

23 minutes ago, Magnek Fang said:

I'm certain that I don't want it on Apple's app store, because it was the removal of the Tumblr app from there that triggered last year's adult art purge.

That was coincidental. Their new owners already had plans laid out for said purge and would have done so anyway.

[Sorciaa]

I cant imagine trying to play SL on anything but a computer. my desktop can grind to a halt playing SL, i cant imagine what it would do to a phone or a tablet.

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

I do love to use Lumiya.

 

Why? because in RL I'm a shift worker, so I can often be working the night shift on my own, so bearing in mind the timezones, UK may be sleeping, but the USA, Australia, New Zealand etc are awake/just waking up.

 

So, there's always someone around to get into a debate with, or a group chat to join in on.

 

The trick with Lumiya, on mobile data is this - find a quiet spot, on an empty sim, and park your avi there (personally, I park in my skybox on my land), so local data use is minimal, and only more used for Im etc.

 

However, saying that, Lumiya on Wifi is great IMHO - even using it's 3d mode is relatively stable.

[Peony Sweetwater]

For me as a small-time merchant, it would be nice to have a basic client for my iPad. Yes, I can reply to offline ims via email, but it's a clunky system and I'm never sure how reliable it is. The bigger problem is if people notecard me - I can't do anything to help them unless I log in. And that could be hours away since a large number of OS people are on SL while I'm on my way into RL work. With a mobile client a large majority of my support requests could be addressed while I'm on my hour-long train commute. 

[AutresDeSade]

I think its a waste of time.  You can use voice and video chat on instagram,fb,skype,whatsapp etc. Why do you need SL on your bloody phone. If you miss a day paying rent log in the next day. Most wont kick you off the land for one day and if they do they arent worth renting from and Id move on. I think there are more things to improve and bring to sl than mobile access,last names etc. I just put a period between my first and last screen name. 

[Nalates Urriah]

For occasional use there is Remote Desktop. It works well on my S8 and worked on my S5. It almost gives you the Bright Canopy experience.

 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

33 minutes ago, AutresDeSade said:

I think its a waste of time.  You can use voice and video chat on instagram,fb,skype,whatsapp etc. Why do you need SL on your bloody phone. If you miss a day paying rent log in the next day. Most wont kick you off the land for one day and if they do they arent worth renting from and Id move on. I think there are more things to improve and bring to sl than mobile access,last names etc. I just put a period between my first and last screen name. 

Well.... first of all, not everyone uses voice at all.

I like the idea of having the option of being able to make payments for whatever reason, do stuff with inventory, and all the other things you cannot do with FB, etc. (And that's aside from the fact that FB is hostile to "fake accounts" like SL avatars.)

The mobile apps I've used in the past were not developed by SL, so they took nothing away from SL developers' time. 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

As someone who tends to stay out of the house the entire day whenever I go out, a text-based mobile client is all I would need/want.

3D view would just eat my battery life way too much for it to be worth anything. Inventory is not important. Movement is not important. Script interactivity is not important.

Just let me log into a clean-looking chat and get notifications while my phone is locked. I might even buy Premium if LL made that a requirement. (inb4)