Second Life's Upcoming Mobile App Improves World Graphics and Now Includes Instant / Direct Messaging to Other In-World SLers!

Pic by TavishBrock on the SL iOS app -- click here to teleport to compare and contrast

Linden Lab continues rolling out closed Alpha invites of its upcoming iOS/Android app for Second Life to Premium+ subscribers (see "Mobile Update" here). And by the looks of it, continues improving the app itself. Here's a new update and screenies courtesy longtime SLer TavishBrock Resident of the Rosehaven Estates, who gave us an early hands-on preview last month.

"The newest version seems significantly better than the first alpha," Tavish tells me. "The visual artifacts for missing textures are gone so the world looks much more like it should. Now I feel like I can walk around and have some sense of where I actually am (but a mini-map would really help with that as well)."

User interface looks pretty clean and simple, at least on the top level:

"There's missing functionality," notes Tavish, "but it's still early days and I assume that more will be added as things progress. The virtual joystick works fairly well, but I wouldn't say no to keyboard controls (which I assume is way down on the list of things to add, and understandably so)."

I am hoping we get some kind of "wow" UI interactions that make the user experience more magically intuitive than the desktop version, but still waiting on signs of that.

However, there's one big feature to mobile that's live: You can message other online Second Life users through the mobile app! Yes:

"Direct IMs work now too," Tavish tells me. "You can IM people nearby, or on your friends list. You can also initiate group chat with groups you belong to. You're on the main grid when using the mobile client. The only reason that you can't IM just anyone is that you have no way of doing a people search to find them in order to be able to start an IM session."

This strikes me as pretty huge: Users of the Second Life mobile app are already part of the main Second Life grid. And giving them IM/DM functionality means the app is already very useful for light interaction through the app.

Gogo of Juicy Bomb, by the way, published her own iOS walkthrough with video:

Her pros and cons so far:

• Chat with friends
• Explore Places & Destination Guide
  No world map yet
• No Linden balance
• No Land tab
• Difficult to navigate/move around.
  I have not yet mastered walking, that’s why I’m running everywhere
• Difficult to sit on objects
• Can’t select anything
• Can’t change clothes
  Can wear saved outfits (must do so by logging into desktop viewer)
• Rezzing is slowish, expected I guess?
• Looks great, way better than that dreadful Speedlight viewer

Read the rest here!

All images courtesy TavishBrock.

And thanks to the Virtual World Museum for helping support New World Notes posts like these!

Comments

[Ian]

It still seems almost absurdly lacking in basic functionality given that list, are we expecting a 2024 release? I assume so, it's entirely possible but I did think that the alpha would be at the stage of actually being a mostly-functioning viewer with basic features like inventory etc... these are fundamentals, not nice-to-haves.

It's looking good but really we're probably looking at a late 2024 release given the progress.

[Amber Nicole Draconia]

Looks a lot better than lumiya honestly lol. How much is it gonna cost to get?

[Amber Nicole Draconia]

Is it going to come out for Android too??

[LizJ]

Yes there will be an Android version. What I've been seeing as far as feedback on the SL forums is that the app will run on devices that are fairly old - on iPhones it goes back to XR. But I will want to update to a new iPad this year to get the best performance.

I would expect any earlier that mid to late 2024 even though they're making lots of progress, after all it's Linden Labs and also they are not going to want to mess this up. It will be a game-changer as there's no one else in that space on mobile that really provides this level of graphics quality.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

@Lizj a game changer? Naaah, I wouldn't say so. I'd say it will be "mostly ignored", or, at best, vaguely mentioned by one of those ultra-geek gamer e-zines that nobody reads anyway.

However, it will have a considerable impact on the current SL population (not me, I guess; my faithful iPhone 8 will probably not be supported :) ).

And I'm hoping that the redesigned user interface — namely, things like the "virtual joystick", dragging around to turn or move the camera, touch gestures, and so forth — will be part of the user experience that residents will have... on the Apple Vision Pro :) Now that will be a game-changer... a luxury for those that can afford it, of course, but, trust me, there are far, far more people in SL that can afford to buy one of those — if it supports Second Life!

Somewhere, deep in the dungeons of Meta, there is a Zuckerberg praying to all gods and demons for Linden Lab to fail in their port of SL to mobile — and potentially to VR sets next. All the buzz around Oculus & Horizon Worlds was just Zuckerberg's desperate attempt to at least control one hardware device which is not owned by Google or Apple (or, well, Microsoft — I'm thinking about the Xbox), and where he can impose whatever rules he wants. Well... if Apple suddenly has their own helmet-cum-virtual world, I guess that terminates Zuckerberg's dreams of metaverse dominance, once and for all? :-)

The future will tell. I was hoping to at least see a release before the end of 2023 — an appropriate commemorative release for the twentieth anniversary! — but being forced to coerce the Unity engine to render a world using a technology which is so radically different from whatever else is out there would always be a huge challenge. Just being able to get some things working at all is an amazing breakthrough, considering the limited resources and time that LL managed to allocate to this project (compared to the "thousands of engineers and developers" hired by Meta to work for almost a decade to create a virtual world with legless avatars, and the 100 billion US$ spent on the technology so far).

[Mr2Chill]

The autistic workers of SL and owners don't know how to run a business they should get a celebrity or something to promote the business and flow of people like they did in the early ohs but the autistic workers and owner don't know how to run a business and make things happen anyway but the worst thing about it is they should invest in a crypto coin of their stature and fund the business with the coin fun anyway that would be really good ah yeah make this happen you're my only hope