Just Landed • Hacker News Board

Re: Just Landed

#111

Post by iloveyouocean » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 5:28 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #51

frisco wrote: post #15

This is the quintessential first world problem. Out of the range of problems facing society that you could solve, of all the ways you could create value by making peoples' lives better, you settled on "making airport pickup easy". Now, this is probably a completely rational move from the company's perspective. Silicon Valley over the last few years has been backstopped by acquihires and other such soft landings, and…

Are you sure you wouldn't say the same thing if it was 1975 and they'd made a Basic interpreter for a toy computer used by a few hobbyists? Big things often start small. In fact, usually start small. And in any case it's just mean of you to piss all over these guys' efforts. It makes me embarrassed for HN when people launch something new, and this is the sort of response they get.

Totally agree. When I first joined HN (2100+ days ago) there were posts nearly every day of the 'Show HN: My new startup/website/app/etc' type and the thoughtful feedback and comments were genuinely helpful and insightful. It wasn't uncommon for multiple people to actually take screenshots and rework design elements, provide thorough user interaction impressions and potential improvements, offer assistance in numerous ways (debugging, introductions, alpha/beta testing, etc.), and be generally supportive. HN truly seemed like a community of semi-collaborative or at least fully helpful hackers.

It saddens me that the most common response these days seems to be some version of 'Let me list all the reasons why this is crap.'

What happened?

Re: Just Landed

#112

Post by Sukotto » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:11 AM UTC

jgrall wrote: post #52

frisco wrote: post #15

This is the quintessential first world problem. Out of the range of problems facing society that you could solve, of all the ways you could create value by making peoples' lives better, you settled on "making airport pickup easy". Now, this is probably a completely rational move from the company's perspective. Silicon Valley over the last few years has been backstopped by acquihires and other such soft landings, and…

Disclosure: I created Just Landed. Thanks for posting the app on HN! @frisco: I can understand how you lumped Just Landed in with other Silicon Valley startups some of whom are creating frivolous apps and raising vast sums of money against small ideas. I suppose those irritate me too for the same reasons you mentioned. However, in this case, you would be wrong to assume that Just Landed is just another overfunded sta…

Any plans to make this a web-based service I can use from my laptop? I think this would be a good replacement/improvement to flightaware.com which I use to track my wife's inbound flights.

Re: Just Landed

#113

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:19 AM UTC

frisco wrote: post #15

This is the quintessential first world problem. Out of the range of problems facing society that you could solve, of all the ways you could create value by making peoples' lives better, you settled on "making airport pickup easy". Now, this is probably a completely rational move from the company's perspective. Silicon Valley over the last few years has been backstopped by acquihires and other such soft landings, and…

[deleted]

Re: Just Landed

#114

Post by ajhai » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:23 AM UTC

kunle wrote: post #13

Have used this app since the summer/fall. It hasnt been wrong once and the UX is really great (The push notifications even sound like airport bells). No idea what the business model is, but the 8 or 9 times I've used it, I've been extremely happy. I would say - if they supported longer lead times (so I could put in someone's info a week or a month in advance, and it would notify me, that would extend the value quite…

Haven't used the app myself but from reading what it does, one possible business model could be to land in deals with cab providers and allowing the user to book a cab when he is ready to leave.

Re: Just Landed

#115

Post by cmccabe » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:25 AM UTC

tjbiddle wrote: post #84

jgrall wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I created Just Landed. Thanks for posting the app on HN! @frisco: I can understand how you lumped Just Landed in with other Silicon Valley startups some of whom are creating frivolous apps and raising vast sums of money against small ideas. I suppose those irritate me too for the same reasons you mentioned. However, in this case, you would be wrong to assume that Just Landed is just another overfunded sta…

If you don't mind me asking - What did you spend $15k on? For just a "fun side project" that sounds like an outrageous amount so spend, and I can't particularly think of what it would be spent on as I'm assuming flight information is public. Don't mean for this to sound judgmental - just genuinely curious as I must be missing something.

If you don't mind me asking - What did you spend $15k on?

15k isn't really that much. One month of his time is probably at least 10k, especially once you start thinking about health care and other benefits.

Re: Just Landed

#116

Post by Ogre » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:27 AM UTC

I've got this, I've used it a couple of times when I needed to pick my wife up. I think the last time I saw it on HN was a day or two before she was flying back from somewhere, so I gave it a shot just for fun. It worked great, thanks!

I've got a suggestion though. On the last flight I was on myself, just a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to the two guys next to me and one of 'em said something about wishing there was an app that would do basically what Just Landed does. I knew I had it but I couldn't remember the name of it and didn't manage to find it to show him before the conversation turned elsewhere. Neither "Flight" nor "Airplane" nor "Airport" in the search page turns this app up. It seems like it's possible for it to - "Flight" shows TripAdvisor's app for example. You might have been a couple of bucks richer if I'd been able to find the dang thing to show it off for you. I don't know how you get things other than your app name to work on the search page, but if TripAdvisor manages it, you can too! I believe in you! Make it happen! Also because I'm going to forget what it's called again by the next time I have to pick someone up at the airport.

Re: Just Landed

#117

Post by mkoble11 » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:40 AM UTC

jgrall wrote: post #52

frisco wrote: post #15

This is the quintessential first world problem. Out of the range of problems facing society that you could solve, of all the ways you could create value by making peoples' lives better, you settled on "making airport pickup easy". Now, this is probably a completely rational move from the company's perspective. Silicon Valley over the last few years has been backstopped by acquihires and other such soft landings, and…

Disclosure: I created Just Landed. Thanks for posting the app on HN! @frisco: I can understand how you lumped Just Landed in with other Silicon Valley startups some of whom are creating frivolous apps and raising vast sums of money against small ideas. I suppose those irritate me too for the same reasons you mentioned. However, in this case, you would be wrong to assume that Just Landed is just another overfunded sta…

We're constantly reading content on here that tells us to follow our passions, take risks and solve problems.

Just Landed does that, but it's not an "important" enough problem to solve. He "wasted" his talent and should have focused on the larger problems that plague humanity.

I get that entrepreneurs need feedback, but there's a difference between helping and just plain being an asshole.

This kind of stuff isn't helpful to the community - we see it over and over. My hope is that people won't be deterred by it in the future....otherwise HN will lose it's value.

@jgraili I think this app is cool - kudos to you for the awesome execution. I'm downloading it - I could have totally used it yesterday :)

Re: Just Landed

#118

Post by sheri » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:40 AM UTC

frisco wrote: post #15

This is the quintessential first world problem. Out of the range of problems facing society that you could solve, of all the ways you could create value by making peoples' lives better, you settled on "making airport pickup easy". Now, this is probably a completely rational move from the company's perspective. Silicon Valley over the last few years has been backstopped by acquihires and other such soft landings, and…

How is this a first world problem? Air traffic is growing means of transport in lots of developing countries. India's air traffic has been growing at 17-20% per year. Smartphone ownership is also growing in developing countries.

Now think of the fuel and productivity costs of airport pickups. Usually if I'm early I end up driving around the airport, or worse, spending lots of money on parking. In India people typically wait at the side of the road with their AC on. If this app works perfectly, there is a lot of real gain to be had, and not just in the US.

Re: Just Landed

#119

Post by Lewisham » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:43 AM UTC

antrix wrote: post #93

jgrall wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite, as far as I know.

I picked up my parents from the airport last month. It showed me the time of arrival updated in realtime while I was going to the airport. At the airport, once the flight had landed, it started showing me the checked baggage collection belt number.

Yep, similar experience. I don't think it yet says "You should leave for the airport now" (I think the implicit use for it is for flights you're actually on) but it does everything else: showing you where the flight is, ETA, terminal, gate.

If you use the Google Now widget, it'll prioritize the flight and show you where it is.

Re: Just Landed

#120

Post by noonespecial » Wed, Apr 10, 2013, 6:52 AM UTC

frisco wrote: post #15

This is the quintessential first world problem. Out of the range of problems facing society that you could solve, of all the ways you could create value by making peoples' lives better, you settled on "making airport pickup easy". Now, this is probably a completely rational move from the company's perspective. Silicon Valley over the last few years has been backstopped by acquihires and other such soft landings, and…

This is a place where we talk about the technical merits of projects and provide useful feedback for making them better.

Posting a comment just to say that someone shouldn't have built it in the first place is profoundly unhelpful. Actually, its worse than that. Its un-useful.