Who - aside from users - will benefit from the Mobile Ap

[Jaylinbridges]

In a busy club with the high script count avatars and physics, the region itself will be affected, adding lag to everyone.  Setting Max# of avatars, and de-rendering the crowd will do nothing to reduce the region lag.  That is why I can set Max# to 4, and still only get 15 fps on a modern desktop system - because the region itself was overloaded with 80 avatars. 

Add to that animesh bots, lighting systems, high triangle oount mesh furnishings and you still have too much for a Mobile phone. Cutting the # avatars might let you stay without crashing, but it won't be much of a social experience if everyone is invisible.

The next test will be the SL21B Linden speeches, where 3 regions for the crowd will all be at capacity.  Let's see how well the mobile phone will handle 300 avatars, even if 296 of them are invisible.  The stage region is always blocked to residents, so the speakers don't keep crashing.  

 

Edited June 5 by Jaylinbridges

[Arielle Popstar]

20 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I wouldn't get too discouraged. It's still an alpha. I feel like it's at the point of development where they just get stuff working, not optimized, complete, etc. They call it an alpha but it's really just something that's not nearly complete they are letting people test, probably because they don't have enough internal testers. Limiting to Premium+ was probably their way of making sure it doesn't get in the hands of too many people because it's got a long way to go. And even when it releases, it's still going to have a long way to go.

Maybe the one lone developer who works on it part time wouldn't be able to keep up with the reports? It would be easy enough to roll it out to more but maybe part of it is that they are indicating they want residents to pay for the mobile experience, no matter what stage of development it is.

It seems like a major clustercluck in the making. 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I wouldn't get too discouraged. It's still an alpha.

It's not alpha in that it's "broken", more that it's "incomplete" or "minimalist". Features that are present in the mobile client are expected to function reasonably well. Which in my experience they do. Under ideal "indoor wifi" conditions.

Outdoors, on actually good "city" mobile data with a major US carrier, with all the grace and understanding a long term SL user who's used to all the weirdness can muster, it's a time consuming exercise in masochism.

The fundamental problems with the platform that exist under ideal desktop conditions (and are generally overlooked) become amplified. Stuff doesn't load reliably or repeatably, including your own avatar that can be fine prior to a teleport and forever busted after. Movement is ... an adventure. A crowd is a crash trap .. if you can even see them.

For this to really work there is going to need to be a rethink of how SL delivers initial assets to the viewer. Perhaps there could be a precooked seed package that includes everything you need to see a 64m sphere, assets, textures, the works (this would be of benefit to desktop users too).

Even with that, none of this addresses how mobile users are perceived by nearby desktop users. Fast to move, prone to bumping into everything, slow to respond, generally ignorant of local communications and unpredictable.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Even with that, none of this addresses how mobile users are perceived by nearby desktop users. Fast to move, prone to bumping into everything, slow to respond, generally ignorant of local communications and unpredictable.

In other words, "noobs"!

[Coffee Pancake]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

In other words, "noobs"!

Not at all like noobs.

Noobs respond to messages, don't move at flight speeds indoors, can see the big texture based signs with rules or directions, can see all the stuff in a location and don't generally ''navigate by braille' crashing into literally everything.

Mobile users inadvertently playing ignorant-avatar-pinball would be reason alone to move a club to A land.

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

don't move at flight speeds indoors

Yeah, that mobile "joystick" is a killer. Too sensitive, unintuitive, etc. (At one point they even changed how it worked.)

 

[JeromFranzic]

Any clue as to when there will be a public beta for the plebeians to try out? I know, long shot still but I keep hearing about iOS users. I need more insights for those of us who prefer Android!

Nothing against iOS devices, maybe in the future I might have a few... js.

[JeromFranzic]

11 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yeah, that mobile "joystick" is a killer. Too sensitive, unintuitive, etc. (At one point they even changed how it worked.)

 

About the same for speedlight, IME.

[Arielle Popstar]

57 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It's not alpha in that it's "broken", more that it's "incomplete" or "minimalist". Features that are present in the mobile client are expected to function reasonably well. Which in my experience they do. Under ideal "indoor wifi" conditions.

Outdoors, on actually good "city" mobile data with a major US carrier, with all the grace and understanding a long term SL user who's used to all the weirdness can muster, it's a time consuming exercise in masochism.

The fundamental problems with the platform that exist under ideal desktop conditions (and are generally overlooked) become amplified. Stuff doesn't load reliably or repeatably, including your own avatar that can be fine prior to a teleport and forever busted after. Movement is ... an adventure. A crowd is a crash trap .. if you can even see them.

For this to really work there is going to need to be a rethink of how SL delivers initial assets to the viewer. Perhaps there could be a precooked seed package that includes everything you need to see a 64m sphere, assets, textures, the works (this would be of benefit to desktop users too).

Even with that, none of this addresses how mobile users are perceived by nearby desktop users. Fast to move, prone to bumping into everything, slow to respond, generally ignorant of local communications and unpredictable.

 

Somehow this didn't seem to be such a problem with past SL mobile viewers so what have they messed up that it would be now?

[CaerolleClaudel]

10 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I'm glad you're actually trying it, not just complaining without having tried it (like most people)! 

I think more people (me for example) would actually try it if more people actually *could* try it without paying $100 for the privilege of being a beta (alpha?) tester for LL. I feel a lot of the complaints and reservations are due to the lack of information on what is going on with the project (me for example).

Really, I should just shut up about it, because I *don’t* know what is going on with it. And honestly I would almost certainly never use it. My interest is more about the future of SL.

Also, I finally went to the Mobile forum, which I did not even know existed until you mentioned it a few days ago, and it looks like they have been working on this for over a year? Honestly, I did not really dig into the threads, so I could be wrong but this whole thing just seems like Sansar all over again, except probably with a lot fewer financial risks.

I guess it is good they are trying to do something about the long-term success of SL, and I hope they succeed. I would just feel a lot better if I understood why they think this strategy will work to attract more people to SL. I am just an armchair critic ofc, but it seems to me for SL to be an attractive experience on mobile they have to think of it more holistically than it seems to me they are doing now; rather than just trying to make a viewer for SL I would think they need to a new way of onboarding and of interacting with SL while keeping the character of SL that makes it unique. Good luck with that last one.

FWIW…

[CaerolleClaudel]

6 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I wouldn't get too discouraged. It's still an alpha. I feel like it's at the point of development where they just get stuff working, not optimized, complete, etc. They call it an alpha but it's really just something that's not nearly complete they are letting people test, probably because they don't have enough internal testers. Limiting to Premium+ was probably their way of making sure it doesn't get in the hands of too many people because it's got a long way to go. And even when it releases, it's still going to have a long way to go.

😬

If they release it to the general public while it still has ‘a long way to go,’ I personally feel they are doomed to fail. I think it has to work well right off or people will just uninstall it and move on the something with a higher fun to frustration ratio.

[CaerolleClaudel]

6 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

In a busy club with the high script count avatars and physics, the region itself will be affected, adding lag to everyone.  Setting Max# of avatars, and de-rendering the crowd will do nothing to reduce the region lag.  That is why I can set Max# to 4, and still only get 15 fps on a modern desktop system - because the region itself was overloaded with 80 avatars. 

Add to that animesh bots, lighting systems, high triangle oount mesh furnishings and you still have too much for a Mobile phone. Cutting the # avatars might let you stay without crashing, but it won't be much of a social experience if everyone is invisible.

The next test will be the SL21B Linden speeches, where 3 regions for the crowd will all be at capacity.  Let's see how well the mobile phone will handle 300 avatars, even if 296 of them are invisible.  The stage region is always blocked to residents, so the speakers don't keep crashing.  

 

I wonder if for mobile they will have to develop a separate region that limits SL in a lot of ways, such as max# of avatars that can be there (I think MCVU does that?). IMO cuts *way* down on the reason I at least I want from SL. That also perhaps would allow them to police the ‘naughty,’ prudish-grandma-offending content and activities. Which means essentially creating an SL Mobile world. I don’t see that as within LL’s ability. I guess that is why they are not doing that, but instead are trying to cripple SL to the point it will run on mobile and get past the censors and uptight people. 

[CaerolleClaudel]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

In other words, "noobs"!

Which is who LL wants to attract, and a LOT of them. 

[CaerolleClaudel]

3 hours ago, JeromFranzic said:

Any clue as to when there will be a public beta for the plebeians to try out? I know, long shot still but I keep hearing about iOS users. I need more insights for those of us who prefer Android!

Nothing against iOS devices, maybe in the future I might have a few... js.

At this point even the hoi polloi iOS users cannot access it. Just the Premium+ ones.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, JeromFranzic said:

Any clue as to when there will be a public beta for the plebeians to try out? I know, long shot still but I keep hearing about iOS users. I need more insights for those of us who prefer Android!

Nothing against iOS devices, maybe in the future I might have a few... js.

Android and iOS users are at exactly the same testing level. 

You keep reading "iOS this" and "iOS that" merely because of whoever is posting. 🙂

When the "Beta" (beyond the "Premium+ Only" Alpha) is rolled out, that should be for both the Android and iOS users both.  No idea if you will still have to "fill out forms" to get access to the "Beta". (My guess is, probably.)

(I'm sure that someone will call BS if I got any of the above wrong.)

 

[Dorientje Woller]

I have a question that isn't popped up: When are you going to use the app. On the job/classroom? During the breaks? During shopping? While commuting to & from the job? Or at home when you have your PC/laptop at arms reach?

Edited June 5 by Dorientje Woller

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

I have a question that isn't popped up: When are you going to use the app. On the job/classroom? During the breaks? During shopping? While commuting to & from the job? Or at home when you have your PC/laptop at arms reach?

All the above.

[Arielle Popstar]

57 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Android and iOS users are at exactly the same testing level. 

You keep reading "iOS this" and "iOS that" merely because of whoever is posting.

(I'm sure that someone will call BS if I got any of the above wrong.)

[Coffee Pancake]

8 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Somehow this didn't seem to be such a problem with past SL mobile viewers so what have they messed up that it would be now?

previous mobile viewers were communication and utility focused first and foremost.

[Claireschen Hesten]

7 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

I have a question that isn't popped up: When are you going to use the app. On the job/classroom? During the breaks? During shopping? While commuting to & from the job? Or at home when you have your PC/laptop at arms reach?

All of the above really, any time you need to get in to SL and can't be at your computer. A mobile app would have been useful to me very recently while I spent nearly two weeks in hospital, it wasn't urgent as i always keep some weeks paid up but i could have used it to pay my rent box if I needed to 

[Vanity Fair]

On 6/5/2024 at 2:04 AM, Love Zhaoying said:

I thought Mobile has a debug setting (everything is a debug setting) for Max# avatars. Did you try that and still crash?

Yes, at various settings of the maximum number of avatars to show. If a region has past a certain number of avatars nearby, I'm going to say 25 to 30, the app consistently crashes, no matter what the debug setting is. I am still testing, on both the 8th generation iPad and the iPad Pro 11.

Edited June 19 by Vanity Fair