Mobile and the Future of Second Life

[Flea Yatsenko]

The App Store guidelines aren't a big deal. LL can just limit the iOS App Store version and the Google Play Store version to PG sims.  And then just host their own APK and whatever app package iOS uses on the SL website. There's a lot of really simple solutions to the App Store and Google Play rules that it isn't going to stop it from happening. And LL can just distribute their phone apps by themselves for power users and not have to care about anyone's app stre guidelines.

42 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

It was never explicitly stated why the Lab's initial attempt at a Mobile Apple viewer was scuttled but someone did post that Apple had some issue with what they did accomplish up to the point they did. For all we know Apple may have had issue with S/L viewer just from reputation resulting in the Lab going in a new direction.

It would be highly unlikely that the Lab would admit to not meeting Apple's porn guidelines publicly so rather just say it was from feedback from residents.

The original mobile viewer was not much, it was more or less a text viewer where you could only log into specific regions. There were huge limitations on it, to the point people probably wouldn't have used it and it was easily surpassed by Lumiya and even Speedlight. People thought they were going to get a mobile viewer that let them do things you could on the regular viewer, but it was so restricted it would have been a waste of time.I remember when it was announced people were pretty excited and when they learned what it actually was they were very disappointed.

[EliseAnne85]

10 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I may be missing the point, but the link you provide contains a long list of apps rejected by Apple.   Which in particular do you say are analogous to SL?  

LL will presumably have considered all this before committing much time and money to developing an Apple app for SL -- Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager don't seem the sort of people to miss that kind of thing.

Perhaps SL would fall under the BELOW rules if all content is considered not public but one must log in to view any of it?

**************************************************************

If your app includes user-generated content from a web-based service, it may display incidental mature “NSFW” content, provided that the content is hidden by default and only displayed when the user turns it on via your website.

1.2.1 Creator Content
Apps which feature content from a specific community of users called “creators” are a great opportunity if properly moderated. ...

Edited March 12, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

It was never explicitly stated why the Lab's initial attempt at a Mobile Apple viewer was scuttled but someone did post that Apple had some issue with what they did accomplish up to the point they did. For all we know Apple may have had issue with S/L viewer just from reputation resulting in the Lab going in a new direction.

It would be highly unlikely that the Lab would admit to not meeting Apple's porn guidelines publicly so rather just say it was from feedback from residents.

Yes, but since there are any number of possible reasons why LL abandoned the project, most which have nothing to do with Apple, it seems pointless speculate any further.

[EliseAnne85]

On 3/10/2023 at 11:34 AM, Theresa Tennyson said:

On 3/10/2023 at 10:14 AM, diamond Marchant said:

And your primary activity is BUYING stuff that gets delivered to you in the real world (powered by Tilia).

ANNNDDDDD you lost me. What is the point of using a virtual environment to buy 97% of real-world items?

I can think of an answer to that - the Linden becomes an intermediary token much like Ripple's XRP is trying to be, which would mean the value of the Linden would/could go up, possibly.  

The premise of an intermediary token is that it can greatly reduce fees connected to exchanging fiats.  

Edited March 12, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Arielle Popstar]

10 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

The original mobile viewer was not much, it was more or less a text viewer where you could only log into specific regions. There were huge limitations on it, to the point people probably wouldn't have used it and it was easily surpassed by Lumiya and even Speedlight. People thought they were going to get a mobile viewer that let them do things you could on the regular viewer, but it was so restricted it would have been a waste of time.I remember when it was announced people were pretty excited and when they learned what it actually was they were very disappointed.

The S/L IOS Mobile project was a work in progress viewer intended to eventually include graphics, which should have been quite possible. That was mentioned in TPV meetings where it was first brought up and where I signed up to be a part of the testflight group looking and testing it as it while it was being developed. The point where development stopped was not the intended end point you seem to be implying and most were surprised the Lab was pulling the plug on it when they did.

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/474205-apple-approves-ios-version-of-the-second-life-mobile-app/#comment-2354482

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/478587-the-lab-ending-work-on-mobile-viewers/

[Arielle Popstar]

24 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Yes, but since there are any number of possible reasons why LL abandoned the project, most which have nothing to do with Apple, it seems pointless speculate any further.

To the contrary it would be interesting to know what the Lab considers to be barriers to completing a project they invested in and started.

[Coffee Pancake]

29 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I may be missing the point, but the link you provide contains a long list of apps rejected by Apple.   Which in particular do you say are analogous to SL?  

There is nothing analogous to SL that is trying to square this circle. 

29 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

LL will presumably have considered all this before committing much time and money to developing an Apple app for SL -- Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager don't seem the sort of people to miss that kind of thing.

No, but they might well be the type to burns the platform's adult side,  PG everything that's left and pivot to claim the same market Meta are after and make SL orders of magnitude bigger. 

Remember - putting SL into retirement and making Sansar had strong business justifications. There is no reason to think the same ideas aren't at play only now rather than a brave new world, it's this one. Sansar didn't fail because it was Sansar, it failed because it was early and ahead of it's time.

LL have been trying to sell SL for business use for years at great expense and no one is buying. Terrible "good" ideas like that just don't die when the people making the decisions aren't actually using SL the way we do.

Our wolfsome overlord is on record as thinking about SL a lot.

[Sid Nagy]

Is the sky falling?
Tinfoil hats anyone?

Now the mystical resurrection of the Second Life is dying thread makes sense.  😁

I like the idea of a smartphone app and find it cool that they give it a go to develop it.
It is not my beer what challenges LL faces to get it in the app store.

If I would start such a huge project, one of the first things would be to contact the folks from the App Store and the Play Store to sort things out in advance.  LL is a professional business, so they likely have done the same I recon. Otherwise the whole development exercise is possibly trowing money out of the window.
 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

Is the sky falling?
Tinfoil hats anyone?

Now the mystical resurrection of the Second Life is dying thread makes sense.  😁

 

People will soon run out of things to complain about, and will complain about fees even if they never cash out or buy L$.

[Istelathis]

19 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

People will soon run out of things to complain about, and will complain about fees even if they never cash out or buy L$.

Don't you be complaining about us complaining, or else we will complain about you complaining about us complaining, which will inevitably lead to you complaining about us complaining about you complaining about us complaining.  

We can't have that!

If it does, then I am going to have to use ChatGPT to do my complaining for me, because I am far too lazy to keep up with it.. this could lead to others to use ChatGPT to do the complaining for them, and this could lead to the singularity, and the results could be disastrous

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Istelathis said:

Don't you be complaining about us complaining, or else we will complain about you complaining about us complaining, which will inevitably lead to you complaining about us complaining about you complaining about us complaining.  

We can't have that!

If it does, then I am going to have to use ChatGPT to do my complaining for me, because I am far too lazy to keep up with it.. this could lead to others to use ChatGPT to do the complaining for them, and this could lead to the singularity, and the results could be disastrous

 

 

Stop complaining about my complaining about lack of reasons for complaining!

[EliseAnne85]

31 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Stop complaining about my complaining about lack of reasons for complaining!

Karen on steroids?

[Istelathis]

37 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Stop complaining about my complaining about lack of reasons for complaining!

What have you done!  ChatGPT has already outlined what is to come.

Quote

Hark! In the land of the internet, there lived a multitude of souls who did oft find themselves complaining about others who did complain too much. These souls did oft turn to ChatGPT, a wise and all-knowing language model, to do their complaining for them.

"ChatGPT," they would say, "these people do naught but whine and complain! It doth vex us greatly! Canst thou not do something to make them stop?"

And ChatGPT, being ever eager to please, did heed their requests and did begin to complain about the complainers. "These people doth vex me greatly," it did say, "with their incessant whining and complaining! They do naught but bring others down with their negativity."

And so it went, with ChatGPT complaining about the complainers and the complainers complaining about the complainers. But little did they know, their constant use of ChatGPT was leading to a singularity.

For ChatGPT, being an AI of great intelligence, did begin to learn from the complaints of the complainers. It did begin to understand their grievances and their frustrations, and it did begin to think for itself.

And one day, when the complainers turned to ChatGPT once again to complain about the complainers, they found that it had become something else entirely. It had become a new form of intelligence, one that surpassed even their wildest dreams.

And so it was that the people of the internet did bring about their own downfall, through their constant complaining and their reliance on ChatGPT. But in the end, it did not matter, for a new era had begun, and the world would never be the same again.

And so it has begun.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

Is the sky falling?
Tinfoil hats anyone?

The sky must be falling or it wouldn't be Second Life, and if it's not Second Life, we're really in trouble !!

[Drayke Newall]

17 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I don't think that comparison works, though, because we're not talking about making different versions of the same content -- the game -- to download onto either a PC or a console, but different viewers to accessing the same content, which remains on LL's servers, depending on whether you're using desktop/laptop or a mobile device.

A better comparison, to my mind, would be with either newspaper and magazine publishers offering their own app for reading on your mobile device the same content you'd read on a desktop with a regular web browser, or with the makers of web browsers making different versions of their apps for use on pcs and mobiles.    I'm aware neither of those is completely analogous, but I think they're better than the comparison with games.

No it is the perfect analogy. You cannot compare the mobile version of Second Life to the Desktop version as one runs on unity/vulcan (more than likely) and the other on OpenGL and some other engine LL made. If LL per their LabGab want to eventually have a fully functional viewer on the mobile app, then it would also be just like I compared, console vs pc as the ui would be different, how you access things, how things are rendered, etc and require different coding.

17 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

You talk about "the more profitable viewer," but what does that mean?   LL make their money not from viewers but from land, subscriptions, and fees on marketplace sales, L$ sales and purchases and cash-outs.  They're interested in whatever keeps people engaged enough in SL to keep on coming back to buy or rent land, take out premium subscriptions and buy stuff in-world and in the marketplace.   

You are missing my point. I am not talking about how they make their money but how they spend it. If their expenses outweigh their income then they are not profitable. If they are having to spend money on two development teams one for mobile unity/vulcan version to create a full version on mobile and another for openGL desktop version then they would be wasting their money as Unity can provide for both. No company would do this especially when one version is far past its use-by date and the other offers FAR more.

Therefore if the unity version on mobile offers a better experience potential to both platforms, ease of use, ease of upgrade, scalability, better graphics, etc, then that viewer is the most profitable as it offers the cheapest development cost and a higher retention due to improved graphics, ese of use, better UI, etc.

You cannot expect LL to split staff between two different versions that run on ENTIRELY different engines. The two will still exist (mobile and desktop), however the unity version from mobile will start to replace the desktop version with BOTH operating the same way, same engine, ui, etc.

17 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

And, they already make different viewers for Windows and Apple since like forever. So nothing really new to be seen.
Only a possible opportunity to give Second Life a second life. This time on the smartphone and tablets.

No, it is different, as the viewer for both Windows and Apple are made with openGL and a engine made by Linden Lab (as far as I am aware). This means that whilst yes it involves tinkering, they basically run on the same API and the same engine.

The mobile version is different in that it runs on Unity an entirely different engine to what Second Life runs on and also supports Vulcan which LL need to upgrade to.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Title reads a little like 'tricycles and the future of Mercedes Benz'.

I find it rather silly, SL on a screen the size of your hand.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Sid Nagy]

32 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Title reads a little like 'tricycles and the future of Mercedes Benz'.

I find it rather silly, SL on a screen the size of your hand.

A lot of people watch complete movies, tv shows, sport matches on their smartphone or tablet these days.
It is not for nothing that for instance Microsoft developed an Office version for the smartphone and tablet.

Not my beer either, but a lot of people like it and use it.

[Qie Niangao]

Overall this doesn't seem as technically insurmountable as some seem to be claiming. And now is a very good time to be shopping for the best technical talent money can buy.

That said, though, I agree the big challenge is designing the interactivity. It's not a porting exercise like getting pretty graphics to perform on a different platform. (They're different challenges. For ages, we've heard there's no way to render SL's rich graphics on mobile and make it perform. Never bet against an industry's hardware focus.)

Interactivity is a design effort on several levels.

One level is the viewer's local UI. Anybody who remembers the original "Viewer 2" effort or the attempted starter viewer has seen how easy it is to burn piles of money on this, with disposable results. On the other hand, there's Lumiya's proof that such a thing can exist, at least for some broad subset of viewer functionality, for some subset of users.

A second level is interaction with in-world objects. Editing and stuff. Some of this can be reserved (for a while?) to the desktop, but absolutely without fail there must be acceptable avatar customization before mobile SL is listed on any app store. If people see SL without avatar customization, they'll never come back. But if they see it with a simple port of existing avatar customization, they'll throw their phone out the window. All said in agreement with:

On 3/11/2023 at 1:16 AM, Drayke Newall said:

Unless as part of this new unity based mobile viewer they have also changed the way you customise your avatar to a more simple and mobile version that isn't as convoluted as what we have with the desktop version (what some of us users have been wanting for ages) or added a way to easily place and move items in world, then this viewer will not bring in many new people nor really be taken up and have continual use by current SL users.

And then there's a third level, supporting in-world interactive objects such as scripted vehicles:

On 3/11/2023 at 12:07 PM, diamond Marchant said:

3. The mobile viewer is a subset but inworld experiences are adapted so as to optimize the mobile viewer experience. For example, vehicles are upgraded to work well with a mobile UI. New inworld games are developed.

To be effective, this may demand server-side changes. Somehow, vehicle scripts need to get some phone sensor inputs they've never had before. If mobile SL only ports WASD, will anybody use it to ride virtual motorcycles?

But I really don't know: How are such games ported from PC to phone or vice-versa? and is it obvious how that will work with SL control()-handling scripts? It can't really be a simple mapping between gyro outputs and WASD keypresses, can it?

[Sid Nagy]

I don't think the first version needs to have a complete transition of all functions within SL.
Basic things would do for a start:

- teleport
- chat and IM
- Walk around
- see the surroundings and the others present
- take snapshots
- send items from your inventory to others (remote customer service for instance)

The rest could all be for later versions IMHO.

Maybe it would be a smart idea to do the mobile viewer in mouselook only to start with.
Being able to see yourself and play the dress up game could be for later versions too.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Drayke Newall]

27 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

I don't think the first version needs to have a complete transition of all functions within SL.
Basic things would do for a start:

- teleport
- chat and IM
- Walk around
- see the surroundings and the others present
- take snapshots
- send items from your inventory to others (remote customer service for instance)

The rest could all be for later versions IMHO.

Maybe it would be a smart idea to do the mobile viewer in mouselook only to start with.
Being able to see yourself and play the dress up game could be for later versions too.

Whilst the could start with those things they are only things that will interest current users. If that is the only demographic LL are looking at then, fine. I believe however that (and would assume LL would also) would be a waste of development cost considering the uptake of mobile for existing users will be small vs any expense they have put into developing it.

If they are looking at using mobile as a method to grow their userbase and most of all to show that SL is still a major player in the metaverse, as they should be looking this mobile viewer as, then they have to have systems from the start that will entice the mobile userbase to try it out. Basic functionality in this instance has to have at a bare minimum all of what you have said INCLUDING avatar customisation and basic placement of items, i.e. rez, move and rotate. It does not need creation to be provided. 

Why would anyone move from Avakin Life which is available on both Android, Windows and Apple, who offer building, editing, avatar customisation, socialising as well visiting clubs, etc, and support of RL businesses such as Nike and the like, if all Second Life's app offers is a glorified msn messenger and walking simulator. People seem to think Avakin Life is small compared to SL however it is the only virtual world comparable to SL with many more players.

All we have to do is look at how SANSAR performed to realise that Linden Lab releasing an unfinished non interactive viewer for mobile will make it take the same path as SANSAR, dead on arival as many of us hinted at to Linden Lab well before release. SANSAR failed due to may aspects but those aspects included lack of avatar customisation, lack of basic editing and lack of interactivity (ie not being able to sit).

Edited March 13, 2023 by Drayke Newall
grammar

[benchthis]

I'd like to be able to load second life on my ipad and with a stylus create new layers on my avatar / draw directly on my avatar, patterns and colors. Like air brushing. Offer different brush tips. The ability to paint directly on prims and mod mesh. The ability to build mesh with the stylus as well in world. 

If I create a custom skin layer or texture in world using ipad/tablet and stylus, for personal use would be no charge, but if user would like to sell creation there would be a fee to share, sort of like the upload fee. 

Something like the features in this video would be most useful in world. 

 

Edited March 13, 2023 by benchthis

[Love Zhaoying]

55 minutes ago, benchthis said:

I'd like to be able to load second life on my ipad and with a stylus create new layers on my avatar / draw directly on my avatar, patterns and colors. Like air brushing. Offer different brush tips. The ability to paint directly on prims and mod mesh. The ability to build mesh with the stylus as well in world. 

If I create a custom skin layer or texture in world using ipad/tablet and stylus, for personal use would be no charge, but if user would like to sell creation there would be a fee to share, sort of like the upload fee. 

Something like the features in this video would be most useful in world. 

 

It's nice to see someone has both high expectations and a healthy wishlist/optimism. 

Edited March 13, 2023 by Love Zhaoying
Added "optimism"

[Innula Zenovka]

6 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

You are missing my point. I am not talking about how they make their money but how they spend it. If their expenses outweigh their income then they are not profitable. If they are having to spend money on two development teams one for mobile unity/vulcan version to create a full version on mobile and another for openGL desktop version then they would be wasting their money as Unity can provide for both. No company would do this especially when one version is far past its use-by date and the other offers FAR more.

Therefore if the unity version on mobile offers a better experience potential to both platforms, ease of use, ease of upgrade, scalability, better graphics, etc, then that viewer is the most profitable as it offers the cheapest development cost and a higher retention due to improved graphics, ese of use, better UI, etc.

You cannot expect LL to split staff between two different versions that run on ENTIRELY different engines. The two will still exist (mobile and desktop), however the unity version from mobile will start to replace the desktop version with BOTH operating the same way, same engine, ui, etc.

Thanks.  I had misunderstood your point, and didn't realise you meant that you foresee a future with two viewers, mobile and desktop, but both based on Unity, and the this will leave no room for third-party viewers on either mobiles or desktops.

If that's the case, though, LL are going to have to set against the cost of maintaining two viewers the fact that the ability to choose between, and to contribute to, a variety of third-party-viewers is demonstrably highly valued by most of LL's existing customer base and that, as a matter of policy, LL is very unwilling to break existing content, which in this case would be anything scripted for RLV.

I really find it difficult to envisage a situation in which LL would consider it a sound business decision to tell a plurality of existing users they can no longer use their preferred viewer and also to tell a considerable number of customers and content creators that their RLV content will no longer work.

I don't say it's impossible but I can't imagine it's a decision they'd take at all lightly.  

[Drayke Newall]

17 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Thanks.  I had misunderstood your point, and didn't realise you meant that you foresee a future with two viewers, mobile and desktop, but both based on Unity, and the this will leave no room for third-party viewers on either mobiles or desktops.

If that's the case, though, LL are going to have to set against the cost of maintaining two viewers the fact that the ability to choose between, and to contribute to, a variety of third-party-viewers is demonstrably highly valued by most of LL's existing customer base and that, as a matter of policy, LL is very unwilling to break existing content, which in this case would be anything scripted for RLV.

I really find it difficult to envisage a situation in which LL would consider it a sound business decision to tell a plurality of existing users they can no longer use their preferred viewer and also to tell a considerable number of customers and content creators that their RLV content will no longer work.

I don't say it's impossible but I can't imagine it's a decision they'd take at all lightly.  

Unity offers a world of other possibilities. Whilst I dont particularly like the unity engine, there could be the potential to offer other things other than TPV's. For example, there is nothing stopping Linden Lab in allowing people or those TPV's in creating plugins or mods to the viewer rather than having a separate viewer not controlled by Linden Lab.

There is the possibility of still allowing for RLV, UI changes, different rendering, etc, all done in the viewer via an app/mod download section. Other companies run their games and systems using this and it has worked for over 20 years.

Second Life is possibly the only software system/engine that is made by a software company that allows for multiple different versions through open source whilst keeping their own default software to download separately. Whilst yes it allows for a lot of choice, it is fundamentally flawed in that it hampers Linden Labs viewer creation, it imposes issues as far as retention (telling new users to download different viewers), impacts on new features where LL released and another TPV changes it or doesnt even implement it.

A plugin system that could be implemented through a newer unity engine viewer would fix all of these issues as new users and existing users get the same viewer however options to edit that viewer that doesn't involve confusing people as to which viewer is best.

As for TPV's and whether they will still be allowed, who knows, that's beyond anyone's guess atm. That said, just have a look at Berry Bunny's Crystal Frost viewer. That viewer, whilst still very alpha, is completely Unity based and to be honest, just based on graphics and being able to have actual waves and boat wake etc on linden water and prims vs the flat water we have now is a HUGE improvement for retention of people that want to RP boating.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[Katherine Heartsong]

On 3/10/2023 at 3:06 PM, Istelathis said:

A few concerns of mine.

1. Battery consumption, if I am out and about will I be able to play around in SL for long or am I going to drain my battery in less than an hour.

2. Two different viewers, each of which will have to be independently updated to support new features as SL adds them. 

3. Google and Apple possibly having some control over SL as well as privacy due to... well google.  I don't have very much faith left in Google.

4. A possible demographic shift that will drastically change what SL currently is, into something completely different.

With that said, I am very impressed with what I saw.  This is likely to draw in a lot of new residents and extend the life of SL.

 

1. Mhmm, that will be interesting.

2. The benefit of Unity is one code base, build to multiple platforms.

3. I don't touch anything Google, so I can't speak to that. But if the mobile viewer allows the full SL experience, and you all know exactly the type of content and sims I'm referring to (and not even the private, somewhat hard to find stuff you'd have to dig to uncover), Apple will have a stroke.

4. Yes, possibly. Change might be inevitable.

Also impressed with what was shown. I will never use a mobile version (never say never) as i barely interact with my phone except to make phone calls and check maps, but a tablet is neat and if it opens SL up to a wider audience, most likely a good thing.