SL and iPhone?

Hey guys! Someone asked me this question earlier today, and I was kinda stumped - "Can I run SecondLife on my iPhone?"

Naturally, first thing I thought was "Ok, iPhone is from Apple, who does iTunes, and you have to have QT for both iTunes & SL, so yeah, that should be good...." then went digging around, pulled up the SL "system requirements" and went hunting for the iPhone system req's...couldn't find them! So I'm wondering if anyone's tried to find this out, and could please throw me an answer? Thanks guys, love you all!

Tov

I don't think you're running SL directly on the IPhone. From this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJF3LBREabk

it seems that you are projecting the images through a server, from a computer running SL? I'm not entirely sure.

http://www.techdigest.tv/2008/02/mwc_2008_second.html - Also explains a little bit of what we're seeing there.

That is a very helpful link thank you very much Klackie! While it does not seem that SL can go moble with the current phones out there today, hopefully someone will design a better "iPhone" that can run a fully functioning client of SL and allow for use, just like we get on our computers. Again, thank you ^_^


Tov

Doesn't look like it's Friday, so I'll assume it's an honest question and bite...

Short answer: No.

Long answer: In an ideal world your arguments would have some merit, but companies don't normally do what you expect from them. An iPhone simply doesn't have the computing power, a version of Second Life that could run on an iPhone does not exist. Even if one could be compiled for iPhone's processor and OS, (which might be possible in theory) a full-featured SL client would not run on current iPhones for that reason.

However, an iPhone can probably be used for communication with other SL residents by using http://movablelife.net/ as a non-graphical client.

It is also probably possible to run SL on a PC, and access it from iPhone using a VNC client or a similar remote screen solution, however the performance of such a combination is likely to be atrocious.

I've seen some cell-phone SL clients.. at least I've seen them mentioned on webpages and tech blogs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwRnjbkljnc
http://www.vollee.com/secondlife

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18195/?a=f

I've used AjaxLife on my iPhone.

oooo whats Ajaxlife?

Thank you very much for the replies everyone!!

@Rika - Lol no, it was a serious question! Thank you for treating it as such and giving some very informative information. I've actually seen where the iPhone was used as a "mobile screen" if you will, relaying the user input from the iPhone back to the server and back etc to make it move...looked just like a normal SL client, but the iPhone was just an image relay.

Maybe I phrased my initial question wrong and make it too specific. That was the question put to me, so I will rephrase it (I have a Cingular 8125 with mobile Windows OS).....Is there ANY phone out there today, that could run a full client of SL? I am trying to find out for market analysis if SL is able to go completely mobile, so that when (for example) you go on vacation and are states away from your PC, could you run and use a fully functional client of SL on a mobile phone (with G3 access I'm assuming to access the internet)?

<3 you guys here at the SL community, the BEST by far I've ever come across! <3

Tov

No, such phones do not currently exist. Due to the peculiarities of the rendering engine (all objects may be moved) many optimizations common to the 3D games are not possible in SL. As a result it is extremely demanding on hardware. You can run SL on an Eee PC, I'm doing just that from time to time, and that is the most mobile you ever get with it. But with frame rates of 2-4 FPS it is hardly an experience very pleasant.

Also, I'm not sure, but I don't think 3G bandwidths are sufficient for SL. SL has a light client that is a major traffic hog, because the total mass of content available within SL is measured in terabytes and impossible to download beforehand - or manage, if you did. Most of the time you're in SL, it is downloading something you don't see but might want to look at in a few seconds. Waiting for a room to download would take ages on a 3G connection...

http://www.ajaxlife.net/

It is a stripped down mainly-text-only SL. It also has an iPhone interface available.

...already been mentioned twice, including once by you.

Full client no, but the Vollee client works and downloads a room across 3G without the issues that you suspect exist.

My sincere apologies. I was replying to Faithless and must have been a bit late. Sorry, again.

thanks marianne..never appologise for giving information...regardless of how often you repeat it ,someone didnt hear it, see it, read it the first time! im going to check ajax out right now woot!

*reads up on that*

Well, indeed it says it does. Mind you though, this isn't actually running a client natively on a phone device, it is yet another thin client remote screen solution, which requires a computer the actual client is running on -- in this case, provided by Vollee. I suppose 3G is fast enough for a decent remote screen, and with a service running the viewer remotely for you this approach might be viable for a full SL client on an iPhone, or anything else for that matter.

Whether 3G would be sufficient for the requirements of a full local Second Life viewer, I don't know, since I only heard of someone trying that once, by connecting their laptop through a 3G phone. I saw them come online inworld, but... it didn't rez at all.

Well.. depends on how patient you are, i've done it and with HSDPA it's certainly not a problem.