Hollidays, OpenSim and SL on your cell phone!

Hollidays have arrived and we all want to stay in touch with our virtual friends in OpenSim or Second Life, but how? My cell phone!

Now that I spent (too) much time sitting outside in the sun and not behind my computer in my office it is good to check some apps that can connect me to my favorite grid to keep in touch with my friends overthere. For both Android and iPhone/iPad I found apps that do the trick.

No 3D view, no voicechat!
First I want to mention the things these apps do not have... 3D view and voicechat. Lets have a look what both the Android and iPhone apps do have...

Android

Mobile Grid Client (Android)

For Android phones I found one app called the Mobile Grid Client.  It is an OpenSim and Second Life messaging client for Android powered cell phones. What does it do?

• Local chat and instant messages – converse with your friends, groups or someone else.
• Teleport to other regions and nearby avatars.
• Region map with accurate positions of other avatars.
• Profiles – look at your own and others profiles.
• Full inventory manipulation – rename, move and delete items and folders.
• Designed with usability in mind – simple and intuitive to use, tap chat and instant messages to get more information about the sender.
• The unique always on feature – stay logged in while answering a phone call or carrying the phone in your pocket.
• And many more... for a complete list of features look at www.mobilegridclient.com/licensing

But it is not free, there is a trial periode of 14 days and after that you have to pay 250 Linden$/month (one real Dollar) for the standard version or 450 Linden$/month (or 4500 L$/year) for the Pro version.

After downloading and installing it I just had to pick out my favorite grid in the list, in my case the virtyou maingrid and log in. On the map I could directly see where I am and if there are any other avatars around. Most usefull is the chatpage, where I can see which avatars are around me including the distance in meters and I must say, sending the chat message into the virtual world goes very fast.

Teleporting to other locations is also working fine, just find the right landmark in your inventory and teleport there. So if you have all your favorite locations as a landmark it is easy. On OpenSim there are still some problems like when someone offers me a TP, I cannot make the jump yet. And walking is not an option in this app. More information you can find at: www.mobilegridclient.com Take a look at the video on the 'How to use it' page.

iPhone and iPad

Pocket Metaverse (iPhone/iPod/iPad)

Here we have the Pocket Metaverse which has a free and a paid version (4.99$). The free version has the following features:

• IM
• Chat
• Payments
• Profiles
• Maps
• and Teleporting.

You can upgrade from within the app to unlock the following Pro features:

• Groups, Search
• Giving, Receiving, and Managing Inventory
• Read Notecards and view Snapshots and Textures
• Upload and Download from the Photo Album and Camera (iPhone only)
• Ability to connect to any OpenSim grid
• Turn off advertising
• and much more...

I use this one allready for a year now on my iPod touch and iPad (big screen, looks good), and it does the same tricks as the Mobile Grid Client for Android. One small advantage is that walking is possible with the Pocket Metaverse app.

More information can be found at  www.pocketmetaverse.com

Both worth trying out this summer. Enjoy!