2021 Mobile Apps For Second Life

There are mobile apps on iOS and Android that can be downloaded to access Second Life during 2021. As many know already Linden Lab are working to launch a Second Life mobile client on iOS very soon followed by a Android release later on.

Touch Life, Sparkle IM, LittleSight and AjaxLife have gone offline now. SLGo closed down at the end of April 2015 after OnLive was acquired by Sony. Lumiya no longer releases updates and the website is no longer being maintained.

Below are iOS apps and Android apps to access Second Life/OpenSim as of 27th April 2021.

iOS

SpeedLight

• SpeedLight is a mobile viewer for Second Life featuring teleport access, IMs, group search, world view rendering, group management, L$ transactions history and more
• Price: $23.99
• Size: 71.4 MB
• iPhone requires iOS 10.0 or later
• Latest Version: 12.102.0758 – 13th April 2021
• Download

MetaChat

• MetaChat is a text-only viewer for Second Life/OpenSim
• Price: $2.99
• Size: 54MB
• iPhone requires iOS 13.0 or later
• Latest Version: 1.2.9131 – 1st April 2021
• Download

Android

SpeedLight Viewer

• SpeedLight is a mobile viewer for Second Life featuring teleport access, IMs, group search, world view rendering, group management, L$ transactions history and more
• Price: Free
• Size: 3.9MB
• Requires 7.1 and up
• Current Version: 12.097.0719 – 7th April 2021
• 10, 000+ downloads / 158 reviews via Google Play
• Download

Mobile Grid Client

• Mobile Grid Client is a messaging client/viewer with local chat, group chat, IM, search, mini-map, the ability to teleport, inventory support and more
• Price: First 28 days of usage are free (pay monthly starting at L$250 for usage)
• Size: 1.9MB
• Requires 4.0 and up
• Current Version: 1.29.1280 – 23rd September 2020
• 100, 000+ downloads / 3, 331 reviews via Google Play
• Download

SL Friends

• SL Friends is a tool application to get notifications about Second Life friends
• Price: £1
• Size: 4.8MB
• Requires 5.0 and up
• Current Version: 1.09 – 28th July 2019
• 500+ downloads / 30 reviews via Google Play
• Download

Caution! Lumiya version 3.2 can still be downloaded via SlideMe but it’s $2.95. This app was last updated on 27th November 2016. Lumiya is a Second Life and OpenSim client offering a 3D world view, the ablitiy to send/receive messages, teleporting, local chat, manage inventory and more. Lumiya supports server-side appearance, mesh content and it’s compatible with RLV.

Please spread the word and in about a year or two I will post up another mobile apps update blog post.

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Second Life Mobile Development – April 2021 Update

In recent months Linden Lab have been pretty quiet on the Second Life mobile development for anything to do with the iOS and Android versions of it. There are Second Life web user group meetings which are normally held on the first Wednesday of the month from 2pm SLT to 3pm SLT located at Denby.

The Web User Group meeting is a public monthly meeting used for discussion of issues around the Marketplace, Profiles, Place Pages, Search and Mobile related updates.

Upcoming Web User Group Meetings

• Wednesday, May 5th, 2021
• Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021
• Wednesday, July 7th, 2021
• Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
• Wednesday, September 1st, 2021
• Wednesday, October 6th, 2021
• Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021
• Wednesday, December 1st, 2021

Linden Lab are focused on the non-graphical aspects for a Second Life mobile viewer like IM, group chat, friendship management and more. I believe there is still NDA for those that are working/testing the iOS and Android versions at the moment.

Keira Linden has mentioned in the Second Life Forums mobile section last year that once there is a beta version of it available then it will be open to everyone to try it out. It’s expected the lab will make an announcement in the weeks/months ahead hopefully. There is potential here for the lab to make this a huge success and another way of bringing in revenue maybe.

Back on Monday 22nd June 2020 Ebbe Altberg CEO of Linden Lab talked about future plans for the Second Life Mobile Companion app for iOS and Android devices. Almost a year later development is slowly getting there.

The iOS version of the Second Life mobile client has been rejected by Apple a few times or so now over the past six months. Apple seems to be making life hard for Linden Lab in terms of passing the app through its evaluation process.

Second Life Mobile News – April 2021 Update

iOS Version

• The app is now very close to being ready to go (internal tests are being carried out)
• Waiting for Apple to pass the app via their evaluation process
• Launch could happen before the end of the summer 2021 (my prediction)

Android

• Development is way behind that of the iOS version
• Internal testing is still on-going
• Launch could happen later this year/early 2022 (my prediction)

Hopefully it won’t be too much longer until the lab announces more about Second Life mobile launch in the weeks or months ahead.

The Kitely Market Surpassed 500 Grids Milestone

According to Hypergrid Business latest statistics published recently the Kitely Market has now passed the 500 grid milestone which is very good news indeed. Kitely has now delivered content to a total of 506 OpenSim grids in terms of closed and hypergrid enabled ones.

In recent years exportables and listings have been increasing on the Kitely Market offering a useful way for OpenSim users to buy legal and legitimate content. The latest stats show that there are “currently 18,469 product listings in Kitely Market containing 36,871 product variations, of which 31,736 are exportable”.

Here is a graph showing exportable (green) and non-exportable (red) growth on the Kitely Market since July 2014.

Kitely Market strong growth continues (Hypergrid Business Data)

Kitely now has 19, 101 regions, there is roughly 1, 130 active users that have logged in during the past month and in total there are 123, 936 total residents on the Kitely grid.

• April 2021 OpenSim Grid Stats
• (HG grid.kitely.com:8002)

OpenSim land area increased this month however active users fell for a second month running. There was a net loss of 452 active users in the last 30 days.

OpenSim land area over the years (Hypergrid Business Data)

The Kitely grid recently announced that they now support the Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) where you can change the world’s environment in terms of the sky and water. Kitely now runs on the latest stable release of OpenSim 0.9.1.1.

New Second Life Homepage Goes Live

First Preview of the new look Second Life website

Linden Lab have revamped the Second Life homepage this week which is now available to view. When you first visit the Second Life homepage there is a big shiny blue Second Life logo that appears for a few seconds then the main page loads up. There now is a picture of a avatar like person like from the Avatar movie with a moto saying Explore, Discover and Create.

A new world is waiting is featured on the left hand side with a Join Free blue button under that. There are some quick links in the top right corner for Download, Marketplace, Language, Login and Sign Up.

Moving towards the bottom half of the new look Second Life homepage there are three mini sections

• Expect the Unexpected – explore the thousands of virtual experiences and communities
• Remote Meetings Redefined – learn more about meetings in Second Life
• Imagine the Possibilities – shop the Second Life Marketplace

Finally there are useful Second Life, Tilia and Linden Lab links at the bottom of the Second Life homepage.

The blue Second Life logo appears for a few seconds or so

Here is the full view of the new look Second Life homepage…

The new Second Life homepage goes live

What do you think of the new look Second Life homepage ?

InWorld Map Tiles Now Working In Second Life

The new Chalet regions now show up on the map

Breaking News

After months of waiting Linden Lab have now fixed the Inworld map tiles via the world map in Second Life which is fantastic news. Maestro Linden and Nat Linden worked directly on the re-coding of the Map Tile generation system for some time.

New Update posted on 19th April 2021 via Second Life Status page.

Monitoring – Hooray! We have a working system for generating map tiles again, along with a few other fixes to maps (zoom). We’re still monitoring the results. Thank you for your patience during this long wait, and happy navigating.
Apr 19, 09:10 PDT

The Devs and QA teams at the lab have been working hard to bring the maps back and fix the zoom levels. If you visit SLURL (Second Life Maps) it now shows updated region tiles. Yay.

Alexa Linden shared the good news via Twitter on Saturday 17th April 2021.

I could do this all day! Our Linden Devs & QA have been working so hard to bring maps back and fix map zoom levels! Thank you for all your hard work! #SecondLife pic.twitter.com/vrTVTnfth3

— AlexaLinden (@AlexaLindenLL) April 17, 2021

Thanks so much Linden Lab for fixing this issue.

Bellisseria Turns 2

The Latest Chalets Linden Home Theme

Today 15th April 2021 mark’s Bellisseria second anniversary in Second Life. The second generation of Linden Homes started with Traditional and Houseboats. The Moles/Lindens released more Linden Home themes since then featuring Trailers/Campers, Victorian, Log Cabins, Stilts and now Chalets. There are more new themes reveals after SL18B has finished in early July 2021.

Bellisseria Fairgrounds – 15th April 2021

There will be a special celebration marking Bellisseria second anniversary. There will be partying planned for everyone at the Bellisseria Fairgrounds starting at 10am SLT today through until 4pm SLT. DJs will be playing tunes, there will be a particle show and a fireworks display. More details here.

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The Bellisseria community has been growing more and more over the past few years. The Bellisseria inworld groups have been active every week with interesting discussions about a variety of things. The events have been awesome that have been hosted on Bellisseria. Great job! 🙂

When Bellisseria first opened to the public there was only 384 regions to explore back in April 2019 and there was huge excitement about it. Two years later the Bellisseria continent is supermassive that spans over 800+ regions connecting three existing continents on the grid. Wooot! 🙂

Bellisseria Continent opening day – 15th April 2019

The first 80 SSP regions arrived on the grid back in late August 2008. The SSP thread on the Second Life Forums started soon after which today goes on for 215 pages. The growth of the Bellisseria continent has been fun seeing it progress over the past two years.

August 20, 2018 – First SSP regions arrive

The Moles/Lindens have done a great job from building amazing new areas, appearing on interviews/events and most importantly improving the overall Premium experience. Everyone that has worked on this new continent for the past few years should be very proud of themselves of this huge achievement.

It’s still unclear what Linden Lab will do with the old Linden Homes from 2010. I think it would be good to see the regions moved closer to Bellisseria with water regions connecting them. Maybe the inactive areas/homes could be closed down to free up more space.

Old Linden Homes locations on the map in blue

April 2020

This time last year roughly the new log home continent opened with over 230 regions and over 4, 000 log homes. Today work on the east coast is still happening but it won’t be long until its all finished. The log home continent came with the expansion of the railway line, new water areas, new community area named Randelsham Forest and much more.

Bellisseria Continent – 15th April 2020

April 2021

The Stilts and the Chalet Linden Homes have been added during the past 12 months. Due to the inworld map tiles not working (uplift) the chalet regions are not showing on the map below. It’s going to be great once this issue has been fixed to see the Chalet regions in full. Then it will be fun exploring around the new areas.

I can’t wait for the new Linden Homes to be announced and released hopefully later this year and next year.

Bellisseria Continent – 15th April 2021

Here are some of my favourite Bellisseria snapshots from the past two years.

Learn more about Linden Homes here.

Linden Homes Introduction & FAQ

Press Release 2021 RelayStock & Bid The Lindens Bald

The Relay Rockers have sent out this press release for the upcoming 8th RelayStock event happening on 14th to 16th May 2021. Linden Lab will be participating (5th year running) in Bid The Lindens Bald to support the American Cancer Society and Relay For Life of Second Life. For full details see below.

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
April 10, 2021

Contact: Nuala Maracas, Captain, Relay Rockers relayrockers@relayrockers.org

MUD MUSIC & HOPE: RelayStock Returns For 8^th Year!
Moles Join Lindens for Bid The Lindens Bald 

The Relay Rockers announced the return for the 8^th year of its much anticipated multi-team Relay For Life event RelayStock, May 14 – 16.  RelayStock brings together Relay teams from diverse communities across Second Life for a celebration of the Relay season.  Teams raise their banners above makeshift tents and old VW campers as they gather for 3 days of Peace Love Music and Hope. Joining the Rockers for the 5^th year, Linden Lab will be participating in Bid The Lindens Bald to support the American Cancer Society and its signature fundraiser, Relay For Life of Second Life.

Teams can sign up online at RelayRockers.org beginning April 11^th. Teams can choose a team site and book stage time blocks.  Each participating team can place kiosks, RFL vendors, and Gotchas at their site as part of their fundraising efforts on behalf of the ACS. “RelayStock is not only a fundraiser, although last year we raised nearly L$1.2 million with various teams collecting more than L$750,000 towards their season goals” said Arizona Ballinger, who organizes the event for the Relay Rockers.“ it’s a well needed break in the Relay Season and allows volunteers to spend time with each other, share stories and ideas, and get ready for the last push toward Relay Weekend in June.”

In addition to team events on the stage, RelayStock once again will host the Finals of the Celebrate Remember Fight-Back Top DJ Fundraising Competition. The CRFB event features Club and Radio DJs from all over Second Life as they try to see who among them can raise the most Linden$ in support of the Relay For Life. In 2020 the two finalists, DJ Baggie and DJ Kayla raised more than L$330,000 during their final sets with DJ Kayla taking home top Honors.

The last and perhaps most popular event at RelayStock is the annual Bid The Lindens Bald (BTLB21) challenge. This year the Moles will join in as Teams of Lindens  challenge each other to raise as much as they can and “Save Their Hair,” with the team with the lowest total pledging to go bald in Second Life until the annual SL Birthday event. BTLB Began in 2017 and has helped to raise more than L$ 3,000,000.   “Every year, I look forward to the Rockers’ Bid Me Bald fundraiser” said Stingray Raymaker, American Cancer Society representative in Second Life, “This is one of the longest running team fundraisers in our Relay’s history and it has become a touchstone moment for so many of us. I have enjoyed watching the event grow and evolve over the years and am grateful to the Lindens for getting into the spirit of this time-tested fundraising challenge.” 

Click Here for This Year’s Teams (When available)
 
Final bidding and Official Haircutting will take place Wednesday May 19^th beginning at 12 noon.  

This is a not to be missed event and one of the annual highlights of the Relay For Life season in Second Life. Make plans now to join the volunteers who make up the 5^th largest Relay event in the world at RelayStock2021 and help Bid The Lindens Bald May 14, 15  and 16.!

Please spread the word 🙂

Inworld Map Tiles: Linden Lab are “continuing to work on a fix for this issue”

On 2nd April 2021 Linden Lab updated the Second Life Status page in the Inworld Map Tiles Information Currently Unavailable section saying that they are continuing to work on a fix for the issue. It’s been six months now broken.

For most now in the community it’s been very frustrating not being able to see updated map tiles on the world map in Second Life. From what I am hearing from various sources this is turning out to be a complex issue.

There is some good news though as there are two alternatives to view the world map. New improvements are being made on a regular basis.

• Eddy OFarrel World Map
• Chaser Zaks World Map

Still no ETA from Linden Lab on when we can expect a possible fix.

Update – We are continuing to work on a fix for this issue. We appreciate your continued patience!
Apr 2, 08:05 PDT

Update – Now that Uplift has finished we are working to restore the map tile functionality. We still do not have an ETA, but please follow this blog for updates and thank you for your patience!
Jan 21, 11:23 PST

Identified – We have identified the issue and will be implementing a fix, but not not have an ETA for the resolution. Please note the map tile issue also affects new region owners as well as current owners. Thank you very much for your patience, and watch this blog for updates.
Nov 19, 06:49 PST

Investigating – We are aware that currently inworld map tiles are not updating, and we are working on the issue. We appreciate your patience. Please watch this blog for further updates.
Nov 18, 16:10 PST

Stay tuned for further updates.

Second Life Grid Statistics – April 2021 Update

We are now four months into 2021 and it’s time to look at the latest Second Life grid statistics to see what’s going on.

New: Traffic Lights

• Green: Stats showing positive growth
• Orange: Stats remaining stable / possible rise soon
• Red: Decline in the stats / data stopped

Second Life Regions

Good news is that the Second Life grid is showing positive net growth at the moment. Most of the growth is coming from the expansion of the Bellisseria continent with new Linden owned regions being added. As many know already the lab connected the Bellisseria continent with Satori continent. 

The Second Life land store is open which is making a positive difference now to the grid numbers overall. There has been more interest in private estates since the end of 2020 which is fantastic news. Let’s hope this positive trend will continue for the rest of 2021 and into 2022.

The Second Life grid size as of 11th April 2021

• Total Main Grid Regions: 26, 504
• Private Estates: 17, 864
• Linden Owned: 8, 640
• Total Area: 1736.97 (KM)

As of 28th February 2021

• Total Main Grid Regions: 25, 729
• Private Estates: 17, 302
• Linden Owned: 8, 427

Back on 27th December 2020

• Total Main Grid Regions: 25, 614
• Private Estates: 17, 084
• Linden Owned: 8, 531

Second Life Daily Concurrency

The Second Life daily concurrency levels have remained steady since the start of 2021. There have not been any huge peaks in the maximum daily concurrency yet. The highest recorded so far for 2021 was on 29th March 2021 with 57, 767 residents online.

It would be nice to see the daily concurrency surpass 60, 000 in the months ahead. Between March 2020 and May 2020 the daily average maximum Second Life user concurrency stayed around the 60, 000 mark.

April 2021 Daily Concurrency Stats

• Maximum Daily Concurrency: 51, 000 to 57, 000
• Median Daily Concurrency: 41, 000 to 45, 000
• Minimum Daily Concurrency: 31, 000 to 34, 000

Second Life Signups

It seems that the Second Life Grid Survey no longer publishes daily metrics for Resident Signups to date. The last update was made on 21st October 2020 with 64, 687, 961 total residents.

This was a useful metric to see the population growth in Second Life and hopefully the data feeds will resume soon.

Second Life Website Traffic

It appears that during February 2021 SecondLife.com traffic dropped to 9.4 million visits. Back in December 2020 it peaked at 12.7 million visits. During March 2021 the website traffic increased to 11 million visits. I would imagine the website traffic will increase in the months ahead.

Useful Resources

• Second Life Grid Survey
• Second Life Main Grid Stats

My next Second Life grid statistics will be published in July 2021.

Bellisseria Second Anniversary Celebration

On Thursday 15th April 2021 marks Bellisseria second anniversary since the opening of the second generation of Linden Homes for Premium members. There will be partying planned for everyone at the Bellisseria Fairgrounds starting at 10am SLT through until 4pm SLT. DJs will be playing tunes, a particle show and fireworks.

Everyone is welcome to come along.

You don’t want to miss this! 🙂

Bellisseria Continent Opened On 15th April 2019

The Bellisseria continent over the past few years has grown into a supermassive continent featuring a lot of nice Linden Home themes to live in. The Bellisseria community is amazing and it’s growing every week. I have enjoyed following the developments since the Bellisseria regions first appeared on the grid with just 80 regions back in late August 2018. In early September it grew to 384 regions and since then its kept on growing. Now it’s connected with existing continents in Second Life which is fantastic.

Bellisseria Map – April 2019

Bellisseria Map – April 2021

The Moles and the Lindens have done a great job on expanding the Bellisseria continent adding more new interesting areas and more Linden Homes. Can’t wait to see what comes next.

One of the first snapshots I took on opening day

August 20, 2018 – First SSP regions arrive

It’s amazing how far Bellisseria has come since 20th August 2018 back when it was named SSP. The SSP thread on the Second Life Forums has been running since 21st August 2018 now at 214 pages+.