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

[Aethelwine]

Lumiya was running much better for me last week when I was using it than Radegast was on my netbook.

I don't need it often, but when I do it is nice it is there

[Ivy Mysterious]

I don't recommend a mobile client for everyday use, especially if you wanna take photo's, role-play, shop etc, but I do recommend it if you need to hop on an alt for whatever reason, need to pay rent, send something to a friend, etc, or if your on lunch break at work and you wanna log in and talk while you eat, small stuff like that

[Claireschen Hesten]

Just because i've had times where i've not had a working computer i would put myself between must have & nice to have only if it was a graphical viewer like Lumiya. When i have been computer-less Lumiya has been essential for logging in to pay rent or very limitedly doing my regular activities. I wouldn't want to use it as my primary viewer if i didn't absolutely have to moving around/navigating is a pain and rendering is slow i did find an option in the settings that made a small improvement. normally i'd use it for quick things like to log an alt in check it's balance or transfer funds

[LysippeAriti]

Mobile clients are kind of a must-have if you run an inworld business.

I work a lot in RL, so before I was out of SL for a year - a text client was the way I kept social-track of my several friends who (for various reasons) would not use out-of-Sl messaging options.

[Arielle Popstar]

I am finding it increasingly a must have for a degree of mobility while maintaining an ongoing presence inworld. It allows me to keep up contact with some important people in my virtual life as well as staying up to date with some groups i get a lot out of without being tethered to a desktop. Also as I don't use voice and am not a fast typer, I love the "talk to text" feature in Lumiya as well as enjoying the Virtual Reality feature it has on occasion.

It would be great if Lumiya were to get continuing development as it likely will take ages for an alternative to come up to the level it already has but whatever way it goes, I feel an android Mobile client is a must have for S/L in general, considering it is taking an increasingly larger market share of operating systems in the younger age groups.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

15 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

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. 

My cell phone is a simple flip phone on a pay as you go carrier.  Costs about $10 a month and it's used for what's made for --- chatting. Some tell me I should get a smart phone, etc, but I'm old school and don't need to be glue to the thing 24/7.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

I've always believed that LL should axe the old non-material rendering system and fix the material one to support a wider range of hardware but i always get a big NOPE from LL about this.

[Zeta Vandyke]

It would be a nice to have

Would only use it for the IM function. Good example when I agreed on meeting a friend in SL to do something and RL prevents me from being at the PC at the agreed time, it would be nice to send out an IM so they will not be waiting or can arrange for other things to spend their time.

 

[Aggie Rowlands]

I've found it extremely useful to have a mobile client that lets me interact with scripted objects when I'm away from my home laptop. Yes, I get that the experience is unlikely to be anywhere near as rich, but being to be 'there' inworld with someone and sit and play - normally to them, which matters - makes a huge difference. ATM, Lumiya is borked and I'd love to see it straightened out. I'd pay for a 'fresh' v4.

[Ted McGregor]

It  is strange looking at this picture now realising that was over 4 years ago. I did notice, whhile switching in the meantime to several devices. Lumiya dropped off of Google' s Playstore. I hadn' t considered using it since.

I however found back then it was very impressive they achived the only working graphical viewer on Android.

Come to think of it though, I have no use for it anymore.

Edited July 15, 2019 by TDD123

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Didn't lumia just used cloud rendering?

[Rolig Loon]

Personally, I can't imagine ever wanting to have a mobile client, for most of the reasons that everyone else has offered.  I use my phone for phoning people, mostly.  I read e-mail when the phone is my only option, and I very occasionally open a web browser to look up something vital (like the weather or a train schedule).  I don't play games or send texts except to my daughter, who is remarkably patient with my thumb typos.  Other apps leave me cold. Blame it on clumsy thumbs and an aging brain. 

I just came back from three weeks in the Canadian Maritime provinces, where I could not log in to SL.  I kept in touch with a few friends by e-mail, posted a few responses in the forums each day, and paid my monthly land fees (yes, you can do that stuff without needing to go in world, at least if you are not paying an in-world rent box).  It's next to impossible to write scripts on a cell phone, so I had an enforced vacation from that end of SL, which I truly needed. I survived quite well. 

[Parhelion Palou]

3 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Didn't lumia just used cloud rendering?

From what I read (somewhere, long ago), the person who created Lumiya replaced LL's graphics code with their own in order to display graphics on Android devices. That's more work than the usual third party viewers have to do, since they're mostly LL's code.

[Ted McGregor]

20 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

From what I read (somewhere, long ago), the person who created Lumiya replaced LL's graphics code with their own in order to display graphics on Android devices. That's more work than the usual third party viewers have to do, since they're mostly LL's code.

The code also had to be suited to run with OpenGLes I believe, a variant of the OpenGL LL' s code is based on.

Last version of Lumiya I used still couldn' t handle sculpties all to well.; especially objects with a high count of vertexes.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

3 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Personally, I can't imagine ever wanting to have a mobile client, for most of the reasons that everyone else has offered.  I use my phone for phoning people, mostly.  I read e-mail when the phone is my only option, and I very occasionally open a web browser to look up something vital (like the weather or a train schedule).  I don't play games or send texts except to my daughter, who is remarkably patient with my thumb typos.  Other apps leave me cold. Blame it on clumsy thumbs and an aging brain. 

Amusingly, calling/answering people is the absolute last thing I will use a phone for, even if it's an emergency. (Weird anxiety related reasons.)

I'll listen to Youtube, look stuff up, read the forum, and text/chat because my phone is big enough for that. Mobile games gross me out, though.

[Coffee Pancake]

Once LL come out with an iOS companion app, it's going to become mandatory .. especially as use of the app will not come with an in world presence.

You will be able to talk to people on your friends list without an avatar in SL.

Chat on your phone, and seamlessly continue when in world.

[Arielle Popstar]

25 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

You will be able to talk to people on your friends list without an avatar in SL.

Chat on your phone, and seamlessly continue when in world.

Why bother with an app then? Wouldn't it be simpler to do it directly from a browser?

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Why bother with an app then? Wouldn't it be simpler to do it directly from a browser?

Why does any online brand with a website have an app ? They literally all do.

[Aethelwine]

I would say a mobile client is close to a must have for me. Important relatives are of an age where there are times I have to go visit at short notice and would otherwise be unable to keep up with tier payments or let friends in SL know where I was. 

[Ren Toxx]

Nice to have.