AYANEO has found some time between shipping out the KONKR Pocket Advance and Pocket Block handhelds to develop a new Android frontend app for its devices, which is great to see because I mentioned the somewhat bland frontend in many of my AYANEO reviews, stating that it needs some work to be a bit more user-friendly, more so on their devices with displays under 4".
AYANEO had a product sharing session today, livestreamed across their social media channels, specifically for the reveal of AYASPACE 2, they are calling it an "all-new Android software experience", which is going to be a mighty task to pull off in a time when there are so many independently made Android frontends coming to market, such as Blip, Socket and Digibitplay, that take full advantage of all types of screens, and even dual-screens too.
And, I hate to say it, but AYANEO has followed suit in comparison to the indie frontends, because this "Pocket Museum" version of their new software puts a focus on cartridge, disc and box art in a way that offers that museum feel, and one that is certainly on trend this year. I really dig it, and it will be great to see this ship with future devices as standard and be available to previous AYANEO customers to download.
It's clear that AYANEO wants this to look and feel like your personal collection, with a high level of customisation, allowing you to choose what box art, cartridge art, layout and style you want, each in its designated console section that can be explored using the shoulder buttons on your device. All of this is apparently done automatically as AYANEO is using a database of assets and "smart recognition" that will sync it all for you. Though I do need to see that in person before believing it! Because I can imagine it relies on good ROMs and perfectly titled files.
The new feature of showing what looks like a display box of all of your cartridges is a neat way to organise your consoles that feature a lot of ROMs, its one of the reasons other frontends like Socket feel a little overloaded at times, but this new style that AYANEO showed off today will make scanning through hundreds of cartridges a little easier.
Each game will feature all of the details, downloaded by its database, allowing you to even go as far as downloading 3D displays and files of the boxes themselves, with instant playability and "cross-device syncing" should you have more than one AYANEO device; you do this by logging in and sharing a "pairing code" between devices, which is pretty neat. And yes, your saves will sync too.
And you can see from the shared images exactly what AYANEO means when they want this to be a "pocket museum". The stands, the gold plaques, the top-down lighting effect, clean, high-quality storage systems for cartridges alongside minimal, aligned fonts and layouts that complement the minimal, royal look that they're going for, which will certainly pair well with AYANEO's products, but maybe not so much their KONKR line of devices with small 3" - 4" displays, but they have stated the software adapts to each handheld, not only screen size but button layout too.
This frontend will have the emulators built into the software, meaning you don't have to jump in and out of your frontend, and your in-ayaspace tweaks will map that of the emulator itself, allowing you to save, load, fast forward and even rewind in AYASPACE.
Credit: AYANEO
Overall, I am really liking what AYANEO has done here, and it puts them a step in front of the likes of Retroid, who, as of now, have a very outdated frontend, which I mentioned in my Pocket Duo Lite review recently. Hopefully this will force their hand to update theirs, and hopefully ANBERNIC too, but I can't imagine that will happen anytime soon.
AYANEO has launched an official page on their website where you can download AYASPACE 2 for the KONKR Pocket Advance, KONKR Pocket Block and the AYANEO Pocket Micro 2 for now, which is focusing on GAME BOY Advance games, and it makes sense, as that was the only console they were showcasing on the livestream. There is no information on when they'll update it for other consoles, but I can imagine it'll be quite quickly.
