That was fast. Since launching on June 25, Second Life's mobile app for iOS and Android has been downloaded well over 20,000 times. That's a safe estimate, because Google Play now lists the Android version of the app as having over 10,000 downloads, and smartphone usage between iOS and Android typically skews 50/50, very roughly speaking. Based on previous reporting, I'd estimate iOS/Android ownership among SLers skews about 60/40, so estimating 20,000+ is on the conservative side.
Notably, that's double the Google Play downloads from only last week.
Also notable: Only Premium/Premium+ users can currently use the app, so quite a lot of them have installed the mobile app:
Thanks to Tyche Shepherd's data tracking, we know there were 68,000+ SL Premium/Premium+ subscribers as of 2022. So about in 1 in 3 of them have downloaded the app within the first month of its launch.
This is good traction for an optional app in the middle of the Summer. My guess is quite a lot of these mobile downloads are by SLers traveling on vacation who wanted to stay connected with their virtual community but didn't necessarily wanted to drag their heavy ass gamer laptop with them.
The next tier on the Android counter is 50,000, so that's the next big milestone to look for. But I wouldn't expect that until the app is open to the entire Second Life userbase.
Competitively, there's still a long road ahead. For instance, virtual worlds IMVU and Zepetto are fairly similar to Second Life (on the surface at least), and they have, respectively, over 10 million and over 100 million downloads on Google Play alone.
Please support posts like these by buying Making a Metaverse That Matters and joining my Patreon!
What android phones are compatible?
I can't find that info.
My older galaxy apparently isn't.
Posted by: DAG | Wednesday, July 17, 2024 at 01:30 AM