12 ms·

Just Landed

133 points by jacobwg 14y ago

kunle 14y ago
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 a bit). Otherwise, this app nails it.
- bradleyjg 14y ago
  I've used it several times as well. Great app. The only time it didn't work so hot was on an international arrival. It didn't account for the time they spent going through customs, so I was waiting a while.
  - jgrall 14y ago
    Thanks for using the app, and I'm sorry if we let you down on an international arrival. It happens - customs and baggage claim are both pretty unpredictable. As it turns out, we do try to factor additional time for international customs, but it's just an average since there's no real-time data available on customs wait times (which vary widely by airport, time of day, what passport the traveler has, and season). I also expect the customs folks don't make this information available because perhaps it would raise an airport security issue that could be exploited. In any case, I plan to submit freedom of information act requests for customs wait times, baggage wait times, and airport security wait times (that latter the TSA currently collects, but only makes available via their myTSA app). Anyone have experience with filing freedom of information act requests, who might be able to help?
    - bradleyjg 14y ago
      A minor quibble with an otherwise great app. Glad you're on it. Every federal agency is required to designate a FOIA officer. In my limited exerperiance, the helpfulness of these officers vary wildly between agencies. http://www.dhs.gov/foia-contact-information http://www.dhs.gov/foia-contact-information TSA's is about 2/3 of the way down the page. Good luck!
      - eli 14y ago
        FOIA letter generator: http://www.rcfp.org/foia http://www.rcfp.org/foia Note that there's an art to writing an effective request. Too broad and you will be told 100,000 pages are responsive and how would you like to pay for the photocopying. Too narrow and you will get back "no responsive records found." I think getting useful data on customs clearance would be a long shot -- good luck.
    - bernardom 14y ago
      Hey, I don't know whom you may be able to get to help, but I would bet that the government doesn't actually have great data on custom wait time- I've never seen them track someone from entry to pass-through. I strongly doubt they have that. Rather, I think you may have come upon a really cool opportunity- find a way to track it! You'll have data no one else on the planet has. It's like when Uber starts in a new city- the error on their time estimate starts high and decreases over time. If enough people use it, you'll get really got at predicting the wait time based on the factors you mentioned. Idea: let the traveler download a free companion to the app. Then the user links to the traveler. Once the traveler lands, they can turn on their phone and let you see location. The user gets an alert "Bob has landed!" and actually see where the traveler is. Over time, you'll get really great at refining the wait time prediction algorithm. You can ask nationality, etc. Potential problems: No phone, international traveler can't use phone in destination due to roaming charges, can't have phone on in certain custom areas.
      - blakewatters 14y ago
        We do this in GateGuru already. I think you are underestimating the scale needed to produce statistically significant models across airports (or even within one across checkpoints). MyTSA even has trouble with the crowd sourcing and they have TSA brand. It's a classic chicken and egg problem: nobody wants to use the app until its meaningful and it's not meaningful until you have huge numbers using the app. Our approach in GateGuru is to bundle the security wait time functionality with other, highly engaging and free services (such as flight tracking, itinerary management, and our amenity database) in a completely FREE app and scale our way into it. We are deep into it and its an ongoing part of our strategy, but its not clear to me how you could generalize this and build a business around it without an amazing solution to this fundamental problem.
    - jgrall 14y ago
      Startup idea: Waze for waiting in lines - insights into line length/wait times, when to join the line etc. Potential applications: airports; theme parks; customs; popular restaurants; product launches; movie premieres.
    - JacobAldridge 14y ago
      The biggest variable I found travelling around Europe last year (38 flights in 35 weeks) was which passport queue you had to join. If you're a citizen entering your own country, customs is usually much faster - it's an added variable, not sure how easy (or helpful) it might be to build in. (My beautiful wife and I were lucky in that we could cherry pick - I was travelling on my UK passport, she on her Australian, so depending on which queue was shortest we either went through together in the UK / Europe line (I'm travelling with my wife) or the Other Passports line (My wife is travelling with me)).
- ajhai 14y ago
  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.
GGNH 14y ago
very well done landing page. nice job guys!
- jgrall 14y ago
  Props to @partlysean for the site design. :)
jacobwg 14y ago
I should probably mention that I'm not affiliated with this app or website in any way besides being a fan! :)
marban 14y ago
From my experience, there's a ~30min. difference between various data providers and even the airport on a flight status so I'm not sure if this would be my primary source of information.
- mimiflynn 14y ago
  I've not had the same experience, at least with the Google results I've gotten from the flight number. I've not tried anything otherwise, but I do track a lot of flights since I travel a lot as well as my family. Where have you been checking?
- jacobwg 14y ago
  FlightTrack Pro (http://www.mobiata.com/apps/flighttrackpro-iphone http://www.mobiata.com/apps/flighttrackpro-iphone) has always worked exceptionally well in realtime for me...
- jgrall 14y ago
  Just Landed's times are actually quite accurate (especially for major carriers), but they differ from the times that the airlines some other sources publish for two important reasons: - The airlines publish scheduled gate arrival times, whereas we show runway landing times and then factor time to the gate and time through the terminal when telling you when to leave. - The airlines pad their times by 15-30 minutes depending on the route to allow them to be a little late and not get penalized for it. Our times will almost always be earlier than the time printed in the itinerary or shown on the airline website. This is normal and intentional, and does not mean the data is wrong - in fact it's just giving a more accurate estimate of the actual landing time. I feel very comfortable making this statement as I have verified it in my own field testing, and I've also heard from thousands of happy customers who write to me to say how surprisingly accurate the app is in a real airport pickup scenario.
spacesuit 14y ago
Spectacular landing page. Really great. App looks nicely designed as well. Best of luck!
vowelless 14y ago
Isn't it a little short sighted to not have an android app? I get linked to the iTunes store on my phone. I also can't find it in the Play store.
- jacobwg 14y ago
  The FAQ has a bit about Android: http://www.getjustlanded.com/iphonefaq http://www.getjustlanded.com/iphonefaq
  - j_s 14y ago
    Why link the FAQ instead of pasting in: > When will Just Landed be available for Android? > If you’d like to see an Android version, please let us know. > (links: mailto:support@getjustlanded.com?subject=Just%20Landed%20for%20Android. )
- jamesaguilar 14y ago
  Google Now already does this on Android.
  - jgrall 14y ago
    Not quite, as far as I know.
    - sahaskatta 14y ago
      At Google I/O last year they stated that the Google Now cards which show flight arrival times would figure out when a flight lands and how far you are away from the airport (including traffic) to predict the best time to leave.
    - antrix 14y ago
      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.
russtrpkovski 14y ago
Just noticed the plane fly by in the background. Nice touch!
0x0 14y ago
Why not link to https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/just-landed/id520338005?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/just-landed/id520338005?mt=8 instead of http://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=apps%2flittledetailsllc%2fjustlanded http://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/... which just prompts me to open iTunes?
- jgrall 14y ago
  The latter converts to better since there's one less step to get to the download :)
  - 0x0 14y ago
    On the iPhone it ends up in the same place anyways, on the desktop it's just really annoying.
frisco 14y ago
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 big companies desperate to hire outstanding talent are often very willing to pay high prices for a great team. From the landing page at least, it certainly doesn't look like the Just Landed guys are amateurs. They're probably a very talented, capable team. If they're successful, I won't begrudge them their success. However, I do lament the idea that the best minds of a generation are being focused on getting people to click on ads and minimizing the number of loop-arounds you have to do at the airport. I don't buy the idea that these guys wouldn't be focused on "harder" problems if consumer web didn't exist; of course they would. This kind of talent rises to the challenge. The idea that these are the problems whose solution drives us forwards is just a monumental lapse of creativity. Technology is an amazing thing, and we can do so much with it. I really think it's just an exposure issue -- people are used to web, and fields like the life sciences or hardware seem mysterious and complex. How do those become opened up?
- BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
  Wow, what an absolutely unnecessary and unwarranted judgment.
- itafroma 14y ago
  Entire generation? It's three people[1]. It seems you personally don't find value in this app, and that's okay, but it's a bit hyperbolic to write off an entire generation over it. There are most assuredly people who are doing more than getting people to click on ads and writing airport pickup apps. [1]: http://www.getjustlanded.com/about http://www.getjustlanded.com/about
  - incision 14y ago
    Yes, that's right, the parent literally meant that an entire generation - millions upon millions of people without exception are dedicating themselves to precisely this cause. I think it's pretty clear what he means and there's plenty of room to argue against that, no need for this kind of post.
viame 14y ago
From my experience all I need know is if there is a delay or not, which I check quickly on the airport's page. If on time: For international flights and large airpors if you have about 1h to travel (traffic, distance etc) leave when the plane is landing. By the time the plane gets to the gate, people get out, find their luggage and so on, it will be ~ 1 hour. You won't need to park your car, go straight to the door for pickups. Speaking from experiences. Also my gf is a FA.
- jgrall 14y ago
  Yeah, everyone has their own airport pickup estimation method. I guess after mine failed me enough times, I decided to solve it with computers ;)
lcusack 14y ago
Love the app and just downloaded it. I do airport runs all the time for my roommates. Really beautiful.
hansy 14y ago
No this doesn't solve great universal problems, but monitoring a flight and figuring out when to leave is definitely annoying enough for me to warrant at least trying out the app. Ultimately my time is my most valuable asset, so anything I can do (no matter how little) to maximize time efficiency will always be useful to me.
tempaccount9473 14y ago
How unfortunate, another "app" that would be more useful implemented as a web page and text messaging service. I realize web pages have discovery problems, but so do apps at this point. But if the goal is an aquihire, I guess they can get bigger bonuses as an app development team rather than a web development team.
- gfodor 14y ago
  Apps are easier to get paid to build.
johnrob 14y ago
Feature idea: let the passenger schedule a text message to the pickup person when it's time to leave. The same logic that powers the app could also send an appropriately timed message.
- jgrall 14y ago
  The app is really designed for the person who is doing the picking up (it shows no departure information), and does notify them when to leave (as well as prompting you to text your passenger on arrival at the airport). It sounds like you'd like to be able to use it as a passenger and remind the pickup person (who perhaps doesn't have the app) that they need to leave. Is that right? Would like to understand the use case you're envisioning.
  - johnrob 14y ago
    That's correct - a passenger could use this service to send a timely reminder to their ride. This is doubly useful since, even if a passenger were to track the flight and determine the correct departure time (which the app does automatically), there is no easy way to send a message while on the flight.
DigitalTurk 14y ago
This app is not available in my local iTunes Store. Does it perhaps only do US airports?
- jgrall 14y ago
  Yes, unfortunately Just Landed is only officially supported in the US & Canada for now. The limitation stems from getting good enough global flight data (surprisingly difficult & expensive). The app actually works reasonably well in other countries (I used it in Turkey last summer) but given the known gaps in the flight data coverage for flights landing outside North America, I don't feel comfortable selling it in other countries (yet).
shocks 14y ago
Well polished everywhere and looks great, but... is there really a demand for this?...
- jgrall 14y ago
  To my surprise, there is :)
mtp0101 14y ago
I think this is a prime example of the vast potential of computers to generate material value beyond what we could have ever dreamed of in the 1960s. Finally I can avoid making all those painful driving time estimates. This is really a significant improvement over plugging the flight name into Google. It could save me seconds, no minutes of valuable time that I could be spending developing my revolutionary messaging app that allows you to send small cartoon images of ice cream cones to your friends and family for a nominal fee.
- jgrall 14y ago
  LOL. Seriously though, there are real benefits: don't be late or forget to go to the airport and leave your guest stranded; don't go to the airport too early in the event of a delay and spend hours hanging out at the terminal. I've done both of those, and I'm glad I no longer have to.
mccolin 14y ago
The app looks beautiful, and solves a problem elegantly, but it's not a problem that I would pay any amount of money to solve better than a text message or airport/airline's flight tracker does. Even the 99¢ price tag seems like an overpay.
- jgrall 14y ago
  Thankfully lots of other people (limo and taxi drivers in particular) feel differently. Some ppl have actually stated that they would pay significantly more than the current price.
  - mccolin 14y ago
    Good to hear! I think anyone picking folks up from the airport with any regularity (including friends and spouses of business travelers) would definitely find it useful.
    - pitchups 14y ago
      This proves the fact that as developers we can greatly underestimate the real demand for a product if we base it just on our own needs. One can now see the app being very useful for taxi and limo drivers by automating a crucial part of their business and saving them lots of time and hassle.
scep12 14y ago
Yikes - the HN cynics are out in full force lately. Kudos to Jon, Graham, and Sean for putting together a great app. Looks clean and works wonderfully - can't ask for much more!
hugorodgerbrown 14y ago
Great app guys, congrats on getting it out. In my previous role I worked on myskystatus.com, which was a similar idea, originally built as part of an airline marketing campaign. We could see the potential and were desperate to get them to invest in its future, but they didn't bite, and it was eventually mothballed. Are you working with FlightStats?
somesay 14y ago
Your website sucks 30-35% of one of my CPU cores. Likely that's the parallax cloud effect since it's only happening when the tab is visible. You may optimize that.
- jgrall 14y ago
  Yes, I think you're correct. I didn't build the landing page, but perhaps I will optimize that. It's currently just shifting the various cloud layers using JQuery's animate() method. I imagine the main hit is layout & rendering, but that's just a preliminary guess. Specific ideas for improvements?
  - kawsper 14y ago
    It is lagging a lot on a Retina macbook with i7 and 16 gigs of RAM. I suspect the problem might be with the Retina Macbooks. I know that the animations is fancy, but are they really necessary?
  - tricolon 14y ago
    You'll want to use CSS transitions instead: http://css3.bradshawenterprises.com/blog/jquery-vs-css3-transitions/ http://css3.bradshawenterprises.com/blog/jquery-vs-css3-tran... In addition, you may also want to try forcing hardware acceleration: http://davidwalsh.name/translate3d http://davidwalsh.name/translate3d
  - somesay 14y ago
    3d transition with css (even if it's a 2d move) might help since this may use the GPU. Also make sure it isn't nested in too many elements since chances will cause rerendering the DOM elements up to the root. It isn't that bad and at least here smooth and only if the page is visible. But may have bad effects on mobile/retina/...
jpatte 14y ago
Am I the only one thinking there is something strange with the numbers in the screen capture ? the time is 4:42, the plane lands at 5:23, it's a 33 minutes drive... so you should leave in 8 minutes, not in 18 minutes.
- jgrall 14y ago
  It's correct. The numbers won't match your back-of-the-envelope calculations because it's a tad more involved than you're assuming. Among other factors, there's additional time for the plane to debark and for passengers to make it to baggage claim. You don't want to arrive at the airport just as the plane is landing. Plus, I'm not sure how Sean edited that video together when he did the screen capture. Props for noticing tho ;)
  - jpatte 14y ago
    That makes sense; however as a visitor of this page I don't know about all these details so I might think it's a possible error and I shouldn't trust your app. Basically there is a small risk to lose potential users here. I suggest choosing another example with a calculated vs intuitive time gap different from exactly 10 minutes.
  - partlysean 14y ago
    I did a screen recording of the app as it tracked a real flight and during the editing process I made sure to stay true to the times.
coherentpony 14y ago
Not available in the UK store.
wallflower 14y ago
Beautiful app. Love the custom animations. Focused and effective. Based on the apps I've worked on and the range of reviews to app downloads, this app probably has enjoyed the success of 200,000 to 500,000 downloads.
Ogre 14y ago
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.
auston 14y ago
I love this app! I remember seeing it when it first came out, do you guys support other iPhones now?
- jgrall 14y ago
  Thanks! We support the iPhone 3GS and newer.
kmack 14y ago
Really loving the design here, it's truly beautiful
chacham15 14y ago
One thing that I think would be REAAAALY cool with the homepage is if the plane moving would actually change the UI displayed on the app. It would be an easy, non-obtrusive way to demo the app without waiting for someone to click on a play button. Looks great though!
rdl 14y ago
I'd probably use this a lot more if it weren't so single-purpose. I don't think I'd use an airport pickup specific app enough to remember to use it (unless I routinely went to the airport to pick people up, in which case I might have my own knowledge about traffic and time of day, on top of flight info). What I would use is a more generalized "you must leave by X to get to Y" where the time of Y and travel time from me to Y both change dynamically. And things like "you must start watching this movie now in order to have it finish before your flight lands". I think Google Now does some of this (I'm not sure), but iOS alone would be a market for it, and a non-Google option would be worthwhile anyway. I'm not disputing that "when do I need to go to the airport for an incoming flight" isn't important, but it just isn't frequent enough on its own for me.

133 points by jacobwg 14y ago

kunle 14y ago

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 a bit). Otherwise, this app nails it.

bradleyjg 14y ago
I've used it several times as well. Great app. The only time it didn't work so hot was on an international arrival. It didn't account for the time they spent going through customs, so I was waiting a while.
- jgrall 14y ago
  Thanks for using the app, and I'm sorry if we let you down on an international arrival. It happens - customs and baggage claim are both pretty unpredictable. As it turns out, we do try to factor additional time for international customs, but it's just an average since there's no real-time data available on customs wait times (which vary widely by airport, time of day, what passport the traveler has, and season). I also expect the customs folks don't make this information available because perhaps it would raise an airport security issue that could be exploited. In any case, I plan to submit freedom of information act requests for customs wait times, baggage wait times, and airport security wait times (that latter the TSA currently collects, but only makes available via their myTSA app). Anyone have experience with filing freedom of information act requests, who might be able to help?
  - bradleyjg 14y ago
    A minor quibble with an otherwise great app. Glad you're on it. Every federal agency is required to designate a FOIA officer. In my limited exerperiance, the helpfulness of these officers vary wildly between agencies. http://www.dhs.gov/foia-contact-information http://www.dhs.gov/foia-contact-information TSA's is about 2/3 of the way down the page. Good luck!
    - eli 14y ago
      FOIA letter generator: http://www.rcfp.org/foia http://www.rcfp.org/foia Note that there's an art to writing an effective request. Too broad and you will be told 100,000 pages are responsive and how would you like to pay for the photocopying. Too narrow and you will get back "no responsive records found." I think getting useful data on customs clearance would be a long shot -- good luck.
  - bernardom 14y ago
    Hey, I don't know whom you may be able to get to help, but I would bet that the government doesn't actually have great data on custom wait time- I've never seen them track someone from entry to pass-through. I strongly doubt they have that. Rather, I think you may have come upon a really cool opportunity- find a way to track it! You'll have data no one else on the planet has. It's like when Uber starts in a new city- the error on their time estimate starts high and decreases over time. If enough people use it, you'll get really got at predicting the wait time based on the factors you mentioned. Idea: let the traveler download a free companion to the app. Then the user links to the traveler. Once the traveler lands, they can turn on their phone and let you see location. The user gets an alert "Bob has landed!" and actually see where the traveler is. Over time, you'll get really great at refining the wait time prediction algorithm. You can ask nationality, etc. Potential problems: No phone, international traveler can't use phone in destination due to roaming charges, can't have phone on in certain custom areas.
    - blakewatters 14y ago
      We do this in GateGuru already. I think you are underestimating the scale needed to produce statistically significant models across airports (or even within one across checkpoints). MyTSA even has trouble with the crowd sourcing and they have TSA brand. It's a classic chicken and egg problem: nobody wants to use the app until its meaningful and it's not meaningful until you have huge numbers using the app. Our approach in GateGuru is to bundle the security wait time functionality with other, highly engaging and free services (such as flight tracking, itinerary management, and our amenity database) in a completely FREE app and scale our way into it. We are deep into it and its an ongoing part of our strategy, but its not clear to me how you could generalize this and build a business around it without an amazing solution to this fundamental problem.
  - jgrall 14y ago
    Startup idea: Waze for waiting in lines - insights into line length/wait times, when to join the line etc. Potential applications: airports; theme parks; customs; popular restaurants; product launches; movie premieres.
  - JacobAldridge 14y ago
    The biggest variable I found travelling around Europe last year (38 flights in 35 weeks) was which passport queue you had to join. If you're a citizen entering your own country, customs is usually much faster - it's an added variable, not sure how easy (or helpful) it might be to build in. (My beautiful wife and I were lucky in that we could cherry pick - I was travelling on my UK passport, she on her Australian, so depending on which queue was shortest we either went through together in the UK / Europe line (I'm travelling with my wife) or the Other Passports line (My wife is travelling with me)).
ajhai 14y ago
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.

GGNH 14y ago

very well done landing page. nice job guys!

jgrall 14y ago
Props to @partlysean for the site design. :)

jacobwg 14y ago

I should probably mention that I'm not affiliated with this app or website in any way besides being a fan! :)

marban 14y ago

From my experience, there's a ~30min. difference between various data providers and even the airport on a flight status so I'm not sure if this would be my primary source of information.

mimiflynn 14y ago
I've not had the same experience, at least with the Google results I've gotten from the flight number. I've not tried anything otherwise, but I do track a lot of flights since I travel a lot as well as my family. Where have you been checking?
jacobwg 14y ago
FlightTrack Pro (http://www.mobiata.com/apps/flighttrackpro-iphone http://www.mobiata.com/apps/flighttrackpro-iphone) has always worked exceptionally well in realtime for me...
jgrall 14y ago
Just Landed's times are actually quite accurate (especially for major carriers), but they differ from the times that the airlines some other sources publish for two important reasons: - The airlines publish scheduled gate arrival times, whereas we show runway landing times and then factor time to the gate and time through the terminal when telling you when to leave. - The airlines pad their times by 15-30 minutes depending on the route to allow them to be a little late and not get penalized for it. Our times will almost always be earlier than the time printed in the itinerary or shown on the airline website. This is normal and intentional, and does not mean the data is wrong - in fact it's just giving a more accurate estimate of the actual landing time. I feel very comfortable making this statement as I have verified it in my own field testing, and I've also heard from thousands of happy customers who write to me to say how surprisingly accurate the app is in a real airport pickup scenario.

spacesuit 14y ago

Spectacular landing page. Really great. App looks nicely designed as well. Best of luck!

vowelless 14y ago

Isn't it a little short sighted to not have an android app? I get linked to the iTunes store on my phone. I also can't find it in the Play store.

jacobwg 14y ago
The FAQ has a bit about Android: http://www.getjustlanded.com/iphonefaq http://www.getjustlanded.com/iphonefaq
- j_s 14y ago
  Why link the FAQ instead of pasting in: > When will Just Landed be available for Android? > If you’d like to see an Android version, please let us know. > (links: mailto:support@getjustlanded.com?subject=Just%20Landed%20for%20Android. )
jamesaguilar 14y ago
Google Now already does this on Android.
- jgrall 14y ago
  Not quite, as far as I know.
  - sahaskatta 14y ago
    At Google I/O last year they stated that the Google Now cards which show flight arrival times would figure out when a flight lands and how far you are away from the airport (including traffic) to predict the best time to leave.
  - antrix 14y ago
    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.

russtrpkovski 14y ago

Just noticed the plane fly by in the background. Nice touch!

0x0 14y ago

Why not link to https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/just-landed/id520338005?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/just-landed/id520338005?mt=8 instead of http://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=apps%2flittledetailsllc%2fjustlanded http://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/... which just prompts me to open iTunes?

jgrall 14y ago
The latter converts to better since there's one less step to get to the download :)
- 0x0 14y ago
  On the iPhone it ends up in the same place anyways, on the desktop it's just really annoying.

frisco 14y ago

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 big companies desperate to hire outstanding talent are often very willing to pay high prices for a great team. From the landing page at least, it certainly doesn't look like the Just Landed guys are amateurs. They're probably a very talented, capable team. If they're successful, I won't begrudge them their success. However, I do lament the idea that the best minds of a generation are being focused on getting people to click on ads and minimizing the number of loop-arounds you have to do at the airport. I don't buy the idea that these guys wouldn't be focused on "harder" problems if consumer web didn't exist; of course they would. This kind of talent rises to the challenge. The idea that these are the problems whose solution drives us forwards is just a monumental lapse of creativity. Technology is an amazing thing, and we can do so much with it. I really think it's just an exposure issue -- people are used to web, and fields like the life sciences or hardware seem mysterious and complex. How do those become opened up?

BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
Wow, what an absolutely unnecessary and unwarranted judgment.
itafroma 14y ago
Entire generation? It's three people[1]. It seems you personally don't find value in this app, and that's okay, but it's a bit hyperbolic to write off an entire generation over it. There are most assuredly people who are doing more than getting people to click on ads and writing airport pickup apps. [1]: http://www.getjustlanded.com/about http://www.getjustlanded.com/about
- incision 14y ago
  Yes, that's right, the parent literally meant that an entire generation - millions upon millions of people without exception are dedicating themselves to precisely this cause. I think it's pretty clear what he means and there's plenty of room to argue against that, no need for this kind of post.

viame 14y ago

From my experience all I need know is if there is a delay or not, which I check quickly on the airport's page. If on time: For international flights and large airpors if you have about 1h to travel (traffic, distance etc) leave when the plane is landing. By the time the plane gets to the gate, people get out, find their luggage and so on, it will be ~ 1 hour. You won't need to park your car, go straight to the door for pickups. Speaking from experiences. Also my gf is a FA.

jgrall 14y ago
Yeah, everyone has their own airport pickup estimation method. I guess after mine failed me enough times, I decided to solve it with computers ;)

lcusack 14y ago

Love the app and just downloaded it. I do airport runs all the time for my roommates. Really beautiful.

hansy 14y ago

No this doesn't solve great universal problems, but monitoring a flight and figuring out when to leave is definitely annoying enough for me to warrant at least trying out the app. Ultimately my time is my most valuable asset, so anything I can do (no matter how little) to maximize time efficiency will always be useful to me.

tempaccount9473 14y ago

How unfortunate, another "app" that would be more useful implemented as a web page and text messaging service. I realize web pages have discovery problems, but so do apps at this point. But if the goal is an aquihire, I guess they can get bigger bonuses as an app development team rather than a web development team.

gfodor 14y ago
Apps are easier to get paid to build.

johnrob 14y ago

Feature idea: let the passenger schedule a text message to the pickup person when it's time to leave. The same logic that powers the app could also send an appropriately timed message.

jgrall 14y ago
The app is really designed for the person who is doing the picking up (it shows no departure information), and does notify them when to leave (as well as prompting you to text your passenger on arrival at the airport). It sounds like you'd like to be able to use it as a passenger and remind the pickup person (who perhaps doesn't have the app) that they need to leave. Is that right? Would like to understand the use case you're envisioning.
- johnrob 14y ago
  That's correct - a passenger could use this service to send a timely reminder to their ride. This is doubly useful since, even if a passenger were to track the flight and determine the correct departure time (which the app does automatically), there is no easy way to send a message while on the flight.

DigitalTurk 14y ago

This app is not available in my local iTunes Store. Does it perhaps only do US airports?

jgrall 14y ago
Yes, unfortunately Just Landed is only officially supported in the US & Canada for now. The limitation stems from getting good enough global flight data (surprisingly difficult & expensive). The app actually works reasonably well in other countries (I used it in Turkey last summer) but given the known gaps in the flight data coverage for flights landing outside North America, I don't feel comfortable selling it in other countries (yet).

shocks 14y ago

Well polished everywhere and looks great, but... is there really a demand for this?...

jgrall 14y ago
To my surprise, there is :)

mtp0101 14y ago

I think this is a prime example of the vast potential of computers to generate material value beyond what we could have ever dreamed of in the 1960s. Finally I can avoid making all those painful driving time estimates. This is really a significant improvement over plugging the flight name into Google. It could save me seconds, no minutes of valuable time that I could be spending developing my revolutionary messaging app that allows you to send small cartoon images of ice cream cones to your friends and family for a nominal fee.

jgrall 14y ago
LOL. Seriously though, there are real benefits: don't be late or forget to go to the airport and leave your guest stranded; don't go to the airport too early in the event of a delay and spend hours hanging out at the terminal. I've done both of those, and I'm glad I no longer have to.

mccolin 14y ago

The app looks beautiful, and solves a problem elegantly, but it's not a problem that I would pay any amount of money to solve better than a text message or airport/airline's flight tracker does. Even the 99¢ price tag seems like an overpay.

jgrall 14y ago
Thankfully lots of other people (limo and taxi drivers in particular) feel differently. Some ppl have actually stated that they would pay significantly more than the current price.
- mccolin 14y ago
  Good to hear! I think anyone picking folks up from the airport with any regularity (including friends and spouses of business travelers) would definitely find it useful.
  - pitchups 14y ago
    This proves the fact that as developers we can greatly underestimate the real demand for a product if we base it just on our own needs. One can now see the app being very useful for taxi and limo drivers by automating a crucial part of their business and saving them lots of time and hassle.

scep12 14y ago

Yikes - the HN cynics are out in full force lately. Kudos to Jon, Graham, and Sean for putting together a great app. Looks clean and works wonderfully - can't ask for much more!

hugorodgerbrown 14y ago

Great app guys, congrats on getting it out. In my previous role I worked on myskystatus.com, which was a similar idea, originally built as part of an airline marketing campaign. We could see the potential and were desperate to get them to invest in its future, but they didn't bite, and it was eventually mothballed. Are you working with FlightStats?

somesay 14y ago

Your website sucks 30-35% of one of my CPU cores. Likely that's the parallax cloud effect since it's only happening when the tab is visible. You may optimize that.

jgrall 14y ago
Yes, I think you're correct. I didn't build the landing page, but perhaps I will optimize that. It's currently just shifting the various cloud layers using JQuery's animate() method. I imagine the main hit is layout & rendering, but that's just a preliminary guess. Specific ideas for improvements?
- kawsper 14y ago
  It is lagging a lot on a Retina macbook with i7 and 16 gigs of RAM. I suspect the problem might be with the Retina Macbooks. I know that the animations is fancy, but are they really necessary?
- tricolon 14y ago
  You'll want to use CSS transitions instead: http://css3.bradshawenterprises.com/blog/jquery-vs-css3-transitions/ http://css3.bradshawenterprises.com/blog/jquery-vs-css3-tran... In addition, you may also want to try forcing hardware acceleration: http://davidwalsh.name/translate3d http://davidwalsh.name/translate3d
- somesay 14y ago
  3d transition with css (even if it's a 2d move) might help since this may use the GPU. Also make sure it isn't nested in too many elements since chances will cause rerendering the DOM elements up to the root. It isn't that bad and at least here smooth and only if the page is visible. But may have bad effects on mobile/retina/...

jpatte 14y ago

Am I the only one thinking there is something strange with the numbers in the screen capture ? the time is 4:42, the plane lands at 5:23, it's a 33 minutes drive... so you should leave in 8 minutes, not in 18 minutes.

jgrall 14y ago
It's correct. The numbers won't match your back-of-the-envelope calculations because it's a tad more involved than you're assuming. Among other factors, there's additional time for the plane to debark and for passengers to make it to baggage claim. You don't want to arrive at the airport just as the plane is landing. Plus, I'm not sure how Sean edited that video together when he did the screen capture. Props for noticing tho ;)
- jpatte 14y ago
  That makes sense; however as a visitor of this page I don't know about all these details so I might think it's a possible error and I shouldn't trust your app. Basically there is a small risk to lose potential users here. I suggest choosing another example with a calculated vs intuitive time gap different from exactly 10 minutes.
- partlysean 14y ago
  I did a screen recording of the app as it tracked a real flight and during the editing process I made sure to stay true to the times.

coherentpony 14y ago

Not available in the UK store.

wallflower 14y ago

Beautiful app. Love the custom animations. Focused and effective. Based on the apps I've worked on and the range of reviews to app downloads, this app probably has enjoyed the success of 200,000 to 500,000 downloads.

Ogre 14y ago

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.

auston 14y ago

I love this app! I remember seeing it when it first came out, do you guys support other iPhones now?

jgrall 14y ago
Thanks! We support the iPhone 3GS and newer.

kmack 14y ago

Really loving the design here, it's truly beautiful

chacham15 14y ago

One thing that I think would be REAAAALY cool with the homepage is if the plane moving would actually change the UI displayed on the app. It would be an easy, non-obtrusive way to demo the app without waiting for someone to click on a play button. Looks great though!

rdl 14y ago

I'd probably use this a lot more if it weren't so single-purpose. I don't think I'd use an airport pickup specific app enough to remember to use it (unless I routinely went to the airport to pick people up, in which case I might have my own knowledge about traffic and time of day, on top of flight info). What I would use is a more generalized "you must leave by X to get to Y" where the time of Y and travel time from me to Y both change dynamically. And things like "you must start watching this movie now in order to have it finish before your flight lands". I think Google Now does some of this (I'm not sure), but iOS alone would be a market for it, and a non-Google option would be worthwhile anyway. I'm not disputing that "when do I need to go to the airport for an incoming flight" isn't important, but it just isn't frequent enough on its own for me.