Just Landed Is Shutting Down • Hacker News Board

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#71

Post by Karunamon » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #62

Karunamon wrote: post #15

Tangential, but the flawed "android rampant piracy" article made an appearance here again. It's flawed because as an app developer, you don't have a way to tell if the app hitting your servers is legitimate or not. Just counting: (sold copies) - (unique hits on our server) = pirated copies ..is not even close to accuracy. What about reinstalls? What about developers/tinkerers who are probably flattening their devices…

>What about reinstalls? What about developers/tinkerers who are probably flattening their devices on a regular basis? IIRC Google gives you access to all that information in the Google Play dashboard, and for my apps, "reinstalls"/device upgrades were very rare.

Presumably that feature can only work if you redownload the app from the Play store. If you're restoring a backup or using any other method, it won't get counted.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#72

Post by lentil » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:44 PM UTC

manarth wrote: post #30

zippergz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a purely practical standpoint, it's easier to charge for the app and let Apple do the billing and payment processing, than to set up a system to handle recurring billing (and then you need to deal with cancelations, chargebacks, etc.). I've gone through this thought process for a few side projects, and unless I anticipate really large MRR, it's hard to convince myself to go through the hassle of setting up subsc…

Apple supports in-app purchase of subscriptions, so you can still use the standard App-store tools to handle recurring billing.

I think they're restricted to certain types of apps, though? The app review guidelines[0] say:

> "Apps may only use auto-renewing subscriptions for periodicals (newspapers, magazines), business Apps (enterprise, productivity, professional creative, cloud storage), and media Apps (video, audio, voice), or the App will be rejected"

I assumed that's why so many iOS apps use non-recurring billing instead. You can still sell access to your service, but users have to manually purchase at each subscription interval.

[0] - https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#pur...

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#73

Post by untog » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #18

polpo wrote: post #6

From the article: While the app was initially used primarily by individuals who made a few airport pickups per year, today Just Landed is increasingly used by professional limousine and taxi drivers, airline professionals, and travel companies. So they were seeing increasing use by commercial users. Sounds like a ripe opportunity to start charging for such access.

No kidding, this was the weirdest shutdown statement I've read in a while, "we found users who derive commercial benefit from using us... so we're shutting down"

Corporate customers that are paying you money would be a lot more demanding. And it sounds like this was only ever a side project.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#74

Post by abakker » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:50 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #45

old-gregg wrote: post #38

This sucks for us long-term users of Just Landed. I want to congratulate John for making something people _clearly_ wanted. Apparently sometimes that's not enough... This jumped out at me: "...Just Landed has outlived several of the services that it originally depended on, and each time a service provider has disappeared..." This statement refers to the less than 4 years old app, which speaks volumes about value prop…

My buddy enjoys rendering weather data. Using just one source- NOAA - he has to update the app several times a year to respond to their capricious, random changes to web interfaces, server names, random hosting requirements and so on. Its a real thing to factor into any data-repackaging app.

Definitely true. APIs aren't standard, they aren't guaranteed, and they require constant vigilance from the consuming app's POV. Notably though, these aren't mostly paid APIs. If its free data, then the developers should do what they think best presents the free data they are giving away.

On the other hand, if you want a great example of how to do it right, salesforce.com has a pretty great API strategy. rather than try for some "version-less ideal" API, they release new versions and new endpoints, and have only ever deprecated old APIs for security reasons.

I suspect that when APIs are changing all the time, it is because the API's implementation is too close to the underlying application or data structure. In an ideal state, the APIs are only supposed to present data in a certain way, and shouldn't necessarily be determined by the actual structure of that data in an application or database.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#75

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:50 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #46

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the article, its clear that won't ever happen. The data sources are expensive.

I've been thinking recently about crowdsourcing our own dataset of airplane data. When you get on a plane, tap a button that says 'we're delayed 5 mins'. When you land, tap a button that says you've landed. In fact, you probably don't even need users to tap those buttons. The better way would be to use the accelerometer and barometer to automatically detect takeoff and landing. Airplane data sources are ALWAYS wrong…

[deleted]

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#76

Post by jimkri » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

I wish I would have known about this before it shut down, but this is a great idea for Trains as well. Just Arrived.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#77

Post by jgrall » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #49

> With well over 2 million apps by now (oﬃcially 1.5M as of July 2015), the iTunes App Store is an incredibly crowded place where it’s almost impossible to get noticed. Despite the persistent myth of the app developer millionaire, it’s extremely hard to make a proﬁt—let alone a living—as an iOS app developer. The Google Play Store is a similar story, except with the added bonus of rampant piracy and a zillion devices…

I wouldn't go as far as saying that Google and Apple are actively deceiving developers. However, they do have a strong incentive to keep things the way they are, and to keep the end user ignorant of how the app economy functions.

You might be surprised to know that many customers on the App Store, and even some members of the press, seem to think that apps being featured by Apple have been bought by the company. I would get emails like: "how have things changed for you since Apple bought your app?"

If people knew how bad the app economy has become, there'd be far fewer app developers than there actually are, and the device makers would have a serious PR problem on their hands.

In the end though, I do believe that the short-term thinking I alluded to in my post will soon come home to roost. I do hope that Apple and Google course-correct before we end up in a situation where indie apps are a distant memory. It's in their long-term interest to keep the App Store diverse and the app economy healthy.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#78

Post by abakker » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

rgbrgb wrote: post #43

Xcelerate wrote: post #2

I know there's a big push against Not-Invented-Here-Syndrome, but he makes a good point about how a lot of small apps and websites depend on services that drastically change or disappear over the course of a few years. I wonder if in some cases it's better to simply develop an in-house solution for a service — it may be more expensive and less refined, but at least you know that service will be there as long as your…

To me it would make sense to go airline by airline (or datasource by datasource as long as they're tied to something users will understand), do the full integration, then advertise which airlines you support. Then you could guarantee a good experience for every officially supported airline. Additionally, as you do this you're building tech that is super valuable (sounds like only 2 other people have done it?). Real e…

The sad part is that we really need to completely displace/replace the MLS in its entirety. The value prop is there, as is the technology, but it would take a marketing miracle to convert everyone to a new system. Still, it is genuinely amazing that there isn't a better service for it.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#79

Post by jgrall » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:54 PM UTC

wehadfun wrote: post #19

Do you plan to pivot to become one of these airline data brokers?

God no, but I'd like to see someone take on the incumbents.

Re: Just Landed Is Shutting Down

#80

Post by jgrall » Thu, Feb 25, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #53

Does something like this have any value to an acquirer even if just to keep the lights on and no cash is involved?

Lots of people have asked me this, or suggested it. I have been approached by a number of companies over the years about selling Just Landed, including some household names. The trouble is, almost none of them wanted the app – they just wanted me as an employee. These weren't companies I could get super excited about working for - especially since I love being an entrepreneur and working for myself. Of the few who did want the app or the tech, their quality bar/taste wasn't a good fit. It was never about the money.