

Mark Jacobstein: Out of the Loopt, into CRV - daveb
http://venturebeat.com/2007/10/04/mark-jacobstein-out-of-the-loopt-into-crv/

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myoung8
I wonder how the Loopt guys are feeling about this.

It just occured to me that in the corporate world, employees have to worry
about losing their jobs. Conversely, in the startup world, founders have to
worry about losing their employees (especially if PG's thesis from his latest
essay is true).

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rms
All of these articles keep saying that Loopt is available on Sprint... I can
search for it on my Samsung A900 and it comes up "Loopt - Free through
2007!!!" but when I try and load the application I get "Error We're sorry,
this item is unavailable"

Am I the only Sprint user that can't get Loopt or is it unavailable for
everyone?

Edit: Just tried to sign up at the Loopt website and got "We're sorry but
Loopt is not yet supported on your phone model." Seems odd, the only Samsung
phone they support is the A920.

~~~
zach
Ah, the wonderful world of mobile apps. The way I see it, a company like Loopt
needs to do some or all of these feats:

\- get someone to buy a handset to support an app they've never used (because
it's not on their current phone)

\- develop for a handset that is very popular but is going to be removed from
the carrier's lineup in a few months, most likely in favor of an incompatible
model

\- predict which kinds of phone potential customers (by age, metro area and
income) will have 3-6 months from now

\- deal with the wildly varying capabilities and interfaces of different
handsets

\- target the market of people who are technologically-savvy yet do not have a
Blackberry (because BBs have their own thing going on) or an iPhone

Yeesh, I'm amazed that anyone has the stomach to develop for this market.

PS: Then there's the network effect, of course -- people you want to
communicate with should also have supported phones.

~~~
rms
I figured I was safe with getting apps developed for my phone first because
the Gmail application used my phone as the reference platform. I guess not.

~~~
zach
I'd guess you're in the "popular but about to be discontinued" column then.
Carriers keep introducing new phones without much regard for how great the old
ones are, because they need to get people to re-up by offering them new
hardware that's somehow more capable. Maybe you can get Loopt on it, for
example.

And besides, it's basically untenable to develop for a platform that will no
longer available at retail by the time that version is ready. There could be
half a million handsets out there, but can you imagine press that says "it's
available for seven phones, three of which are no longer sold"? Ouch.

