Second Life and Ipad

[Ethanael Easterwood]

I would like to know if I can use Second Life in the new  Ipad 2  of Mac

Thank you  an advance

Henry

[Irene Muni]

I don't know but:

+

(and comments)

+

BTW see https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-16731

[Amethyst Jetaime]

The answer is no for the IPad.

For a Mac, check the specs against the  minimum system requirements.  Note that these are the MINIMUM and your experiece will be better the more your specs exceed them.

[WADE1 Jya]

Lindens should really get down with some form of SL on iPad & mobiles!

Constructing a MMOG SL-style virtual world for mobiles is not a big deal.

Linden Lab wouldn't have to invent anything new or make any large investments to aquire whatever lacking technologies they might require for this project. Of course, all content for the new mobile "sims" would have to be 100% mesh... creators would quickly fill this gap of missing UGC, creating a new mobile marketplace. A company with Linden Lab's resources could easily throw together something for us very quickly -- with minimal effort or risk on their behalf.

I've looked into what is involved and its extremely doable.

It would be so fun to see it happen. I think we will see SL on iPad someday because its only a natural development direction.

[Dazler]

You can access a very basic version of Second Life, using applications such as Pocket MV or Sparkle. There may be others but I have only used these two, with limited success.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I think you're way off base about the ease and expense of making SL available for tablets.  Maybe you're thinking of a viewer for tablets which is probably not difficult at all and I wouldn't think it would be terrifically expensive.  But any viewer is nothing but a specialized browser..........it's specific to virtual worlds built on the Linden Lab created server code.  And that server code would have to be completely rewritten in such a way to deliver a very limited SL to a device that does not have the CPU or the graphics power to render the world to the user.  Unless LL removes most of the capabilities of SL and it's features (all those "pretties" that make SL what SL is) not to mention 98% of the content that users have created over the years, they would have to build a "parallel" Second Life for the mobil devices..........one extremely limited so that the weak graphics of the mobil devices can render much of anything (and the lag would still probably be excrusiating). 

 

Then there's the kicker.  How would LL be able ot make SL and SL mobil able to be seen by everyone?  There would an SL for mobil users and an SL for everyone else........completely separate.  That's not going to work.  I think you might need to go back and look into it again.........it's not as doable as you think (in fact, with the technology of today, I'd venture to say it's not doable at all).

[Treasure Ballinger]

I use Pocket MetaVerse on the iPAD; drag.  I only go in to clear notecards, messages and such, and maybe brief IM with someone; Am afraid to leave my safe rez spot because being unable to see myself, unknown if I'm naked or some other oddity going on.  You can access inventory, Search, read notecards, access the World map and mini-map; and you CAN TP, I just choose not to.  No graphics, pure text.  Well I guess the map is a sorta kinda graphic, but no details.  If someone is on the sim with you, you can see their green dot.  Strictly business, no fun.  LOL

[PeterCanessa Oh]

---

WADE1 Jya wrote:

...I think we will see SL on iPad someday...

---

As I've said many times in many similar threads - yes, 'someday', when tablets and phones have better i) GPUs, ii) CPUs, iii) memory and iv) broadband.

Certainly LL can do some things to make SL lighter-weight but until the two meet I agree with Peggy (*again*!  This is becoming a habit!).  NB: All the complaints at the moment are that every new version of SL seems to need higher system specs - just like every other bit of software - so LL haven't been rushing for the bottom-feeders yet.

@OP - your bicycle can't enter a Grand Prix because it's not a car.  I'm not likely to climb Everest because my knees are too old (the rest of me's fine!).  Your gadget can't run software designed for computers.

[Bree Giffen]

What about OnLive? They seem to have something out for android phones to stream games to tablets and phones.

 

Http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2011/12/onlive-launches-mobile-app-for-streaming-games-/1

 

An interactive stream for a game like Batman Arkham City (per the article) would be the same as an interactive stream for SL as everything is done on the OnLive server end. True SL is unique amongst virtual worlds with ever changing assets w/,ownership and commerce but they can work it out on the backend. Content could possibly be even more secure via this OnLive.

 

[GothGirl Demonia]

You can run Second Life from any Tablet, such as Ipad, IPad2, Playstation 3, XBOX 360, or anything with an internet connection really. How easy it is, or how good it will run I dont know, and if you can't actually run the viewer itself I am sure you could run a basic Bot, or Text Based client like rade gast, or code your own to do such.

Can such be abused for griefing, Technically yes, you could be stalking someone in Real Life, and use Second Life to pass real pictures and such to other people with the right knowledge, Live Video feeds from an Iphone to Second Life to other users. Not only this but I know you can even run Skype on an IPhone for prank calls and really if you are using a free Wi-Fi like burger king, good luck tracking down those stalker calls to a persons real life.

However used properly such also has good things that can come of such, imagine what you could do with Second Life when you are on the go, and connect SL with LSL, custom clients, scripts, and for what can't be done in SL you redirect people with scripted objects to a broadcasting site so they can watch what you are doing on your travels such as a Virtual Tour, or on vacation chatting with friends through a text based client with voice, it can be used for good purposes as well, and yes a lot of people might or might not know how to do any of this, but hey george hotz cracked the IPhone, and PS3, and he did great things with it, Sony got angry because of it but really I see what he did as right now because of his crackign for example people can play pirated games maybe, but it has opend a great thing for all PS3 Modders for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz 

[WADE1 Jya]

"Then there's the kicker.  How would LL be able ot make SL and SL mobil able to be seen by everyone?  There would an SL for mobil users and an SL for everyone else........completely separate."

That is sort of how I am thinking it will be implemented. Separate worlds to visit, like Earth & Mars. It would be a new colony, beginning as a blank world of new beginnings. Not so 100% separated as a distant planet... Your avatar would be able to travel betweenst the two worlds easy enough. Communication of avatars between the two platforms would also be no problem.

You could of course visit everywhere -- all of mobile SL and regular SL -- from your desktop/laptop, but on mobile you could only view the new mobile SL (at first). As things developed, any SL region owner who wished to keep their new mobile visitors happy could take care to re-engineer their sim to offer appropriate functionality to all. I am talking all new content. Legacy prim & sculpty content would be the only casualty or potential loss. New SL items could easily enough be created with cross-compatibility (if merchant desired to sell in both markets). Everything moving forward (ignoring backwards compatibility) would be great

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

WADE1 Jya wrote:

Everything moving forward (ignoring backwards compatibility) would be great

---

 

Theresa Tennyson pictures Wade surrounded by an angry mob brandishing pitchforks, invisiprims and last names who frequently accidentally say in local what they wanted to say in IM.

[Antimony Battery]

I've been using the free version of Pocket Metaverse for awhile for quick operations like paying/transferring funds and answering the odd offline. It's serviceable, but because there is no actual rendering of the environment & avatars, I never venture out of my skybox with it because I share the same fears as others in terms of rezzing naked and whatnot.

Discovered another option quite by accident when the app Splashtop Remote Desktop caught my eye. Turns out that while accessing your PC/Mac using this app, you can fire up SL and run your viewer remotely throught he iPad. It looks pretty decent, too, though the controls are a bit ticklish. (Forget about building and/or competently framing a snapshot as fine camera control is basically out the window!) For a quick fix, though, it'll do until something better comes along.

And I REALLY hope something better comes along!

[melody Swashbuckler]

Splash top is great, except there is a terrible lag between when you touch something and itnactually happening. If all you want is to sit around, access full inventory, chat and stuff but not worry about graphics, then it's a great alternative to PocketMetaVerse.

[Little Enzian]

Hmm, I'm an iPad developer, and can tell you all that porting SL to the new iPad is remarkably easy, simple in fact. Might be a tiny bit more difficult, and would certainly run slower, on 1 and 2 models, but I sure can't stand the false impressions running around in here.

Think of an iPad 1 or two as being the best desktop machine of 2003 or 4. The new iPad is more like the best desktop machine of 2007 or 8. Dual core CPU's at over a gigahertz, with four cores of graphics engine that frankly, would render SL superbly. 

For those of you that obviously haven't handled one, and don't know, the current iPad blisters the pants off gaming consoles like the PS3, and will stand up and hoof it with the best of laptops...

If SL doesn't want to die a horrible death, the iPad's the only I can think of, available to save it. With tower, desktop, and even laptop sales having ALREADY fallen through the floor, SL is facing diminishing returns from a solely desktop oriented app.

Whatever you folks do from here on out, DON'T even suggest that the iPad couldn't handle the job, try realizing that SL's a typical corp these days, and wants to milk what it's got, rather than invest in a new code base. If you ANY doubts at all about this, try taking a hike over to unity3d.com and looking at what can be done without even custom optimizations. Try looking at the specs for the new iPad (how many of you, are looking at 3 megapixel screens, even on your "Powerful desktops"?) and the engines that drive them, to compare against your desktops of even two years ago. SL ran just fine on desktops then, and will run beautifully on iPads, if and when, SL gets off it's fat bottom and does something about it.

There's an installed base of over 350 million iOS devices that SL could be running on. The fact that they haven't ported this already, is a very good indicator that they've ossified to the point of incapability, not any indicator of difficulty with the port.

 

[Parhelion Palou]

You're an iPad developer, the SL client is open source, fame (but not fortune) awaits you ... get to it!

Even if you're successful, I'm waiting for an iPad with a 24" screen and a decent keyboard.

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

I just got mine today. It would be neat if they still had the browser version .. Something for when we travel .

[John Finchy]

I've been developing professional RPG games for ages now and let me enlighten you all on the difficulty of bringing SL to the mobile world.  On an i7 quad core SL puffs abit.  Game engines which have had big success on the mobile platforms like Unity measure performance in Draw Calls, Fill Rates, Tris Counts.  All this is affected by material texture sizes and shaders being used for these games running in android and iOS.  So the question is how do you run SL which not in the slightest optimised for any of these measures of performance to a mobile platform.  Linden would have to significantly rewrite much of their code and optimise it for a very cut down offering of functionality compared to the firestorm viewer style play.  This is the reason it has not been seen on the mobile devices yet.  Hope this gives some basic insight to the real issues and problems SL has on mobile platforms.

[Bay Sweetwater]

You can play around in Second Life on the iPad by accessing it remotely from your computer, via an app called Splashtop. And the best thing is, the touch interface actually works inworld! See my YouTube vid, where my avie walks, sits, tps, flies, chats, dances, changes clothes, snaps pix, hugs and kisses - all with swipes and taps on the iPad screen. 

For how-to, see my blog post http://baysweetwater.com/second-life-on-the-ipad/

[PeterCanessa Oh]

It says it all really, doesn't it: tablets are such wonderful machines that with very little extra you can connect them to a computer capable of doing the real work.  For all those people in parts of the world where broadband capacity isn't free, also please remember that you will be paying i) for all the same SL communications as ever to your PC/Mac, 2) re-sending (streaming) the rendered results out again, 3) receiving those results on the tablet.

The question has to be, if you need two computers instead of one, extra software and 3-times the broadband capacity what really is the tablet adding to the experience?

 

[Qie Niangao]

---

3-times the broadband capacity 

---

Usually, though, it's one wired connection from the Internet to the PC under the desk, then a wireless one to the tablet on the couch. And I think that's really the reason SL would get more demand from tablets than from exotic 3D headgear: however much we may like to think it's all about immersion, most users most of the time seek a lean-back experience, often multiplexed with other activities.

(I'm not saying that it's a mistake to develop for the Oculus Rift. There will be a lot of Rift owners looking for something to do with their expensive new toys, and SL should be pretty appealing to those who eventually graduate from first-person shooters.)

[Nitro Soulstar]

I hope so, would be fun and convenient.

[Sassy Romano]

---

Little Enzian wrote:

There's an installed base of over 350 million iOS devices that SL could be running on. The fact that they haven't ported this already, is a very good indicator that they've ossified to the point of incapability, not any indicator of difficulty with the port.

 

---

It doesn't matter how many iOS devices there, I don't have one thus if it runs on iPad or not is useless to me and many others.  In fact 2013 iPad growth for tablets is 65% for iPad, 282% for Samsung and 350% for Asus, the latter two being Android of course.

I have nothing against iPad's but there are other preferable platforms for better value and Android overall has a much higher market share than iOS.  The problem is that "Android" covers many flavours and across many diverse platforms, not so easy to develop a single app that would be expected to run across all of them.

However, earlier in the thread OnLive was mentioned by Bree.

LL are looking to do a beta SL "clicnt" by using OnLive.  I'm not sure how I feel about this, on the one hand yes it's a client but from what I know of OnLive, it's a virtualisation platform for which you pay for access to then be able to stream to a viewer on many platforms at home.

I do this already using Splashtop on my home PC and stream to a tablet or my phone.  It works very well, the SL interface itself isn't particularly well suited to that application but as far as rendering it's fine and so with a better designed viewer application, I can see that this could work well.

However, OnLive will surely have a subscription fee for this use as they do already for gaming and virtual desktop.  Or maybe LL will negotiate a rate with them but then I would expect LL to be passing that fee on.

In other words, LL have taken what will probably be an appropriate route to ensure adequate performance across a wide range of platforms, those which would otherwise not have been able to run a local viewer application but I would be very surprised to see this be a free solution.

Anyone who wants this free might do better running Splashtop on a home PC and stream to a devices already, there is a small one time fee for Splashtop and another small fee for remote login but it's not limited soley to Second Life and so has many other uses for a remote desktop.

There is still room for someone to compile a viewer for either iPad or Android (tablets with capable hardware) in my view, especially if it's for a one time fee.

[Sandygw1]

Apparently iPad never happened. Here we are mid 2015 and questions were asked about this 4 yrs ago, and the iPad interface that was supposed to happen, never did, because that company is out of business. Oh well, that's one way for a company to not get more biz

[Sassy Romano]

---

Sandygw1 wrote:

 and the iPad interface that was supposed to happen, never did, because that company is out of business. Oh well, that's one way for a company to not get more biz

---

You're incorrect.  The OnLive client DID happen but yes, they are now no longer operating due to being bought out by Sony and closed down.