An Interview with the Lead Designer of Shelfari.com
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Ray Fix's Profile
Last Visit: Apr 15, 2009
Latest comments made by: Ray Fix
I think the AppleTV's value is directly proportional to the value of your iTunes library. If you have a large library, it's pretty awesome. My one reservation about AppleTV is the fact that it is an "always on" device that takes 18 Watts to drive. I wish there was a more elegant way to power it down (other than just pulling the plug which is what I currently do). That said, even when you are using it to watch movies it only consumes about 20 Watts. Pretty amazing. Compare that to the XBox360 which uses about 180 Watts. That's almost 10X the electricity cost (and CO2 emission). On the other hand, the XBox powers off cleanly and conveniently from the controller and there is virtually zero "vampire" power draw.
Ray Fix had this to say on Aug 21, 2008 Posts: 21
Is Apple TV the Stupidest Apple Product Ever?
I believe you got the MPAA to blame for the current mess. Ripping DVDs is legally cloudy territory. For example, play a DVD with iDVD and try to make a screen shot. You can't even do that. Then there is this whole region encoding thing.
Ray Fix had this to say on Dec 10, 2007 Posts: 21
When Will Apple Decide Ripping DVDs Is Cool Too?
Hey guys. I thought Leopard was announced to be feature complete at WWDC2007. I think you have to admit that the whole sandboxed quicklook architecture is pretty cool. I hope it works well in practice because I think it has the potential to really change how people experience finding and sharing files. And for some wild speculation: With the initial schedules (before the iPhone delay) I suspect they were originally planning to release iLife/iWork '08 as Leopard only releases. However, when the delay happened they worked at back-porting pieces of Core Animation so they could release on Tiger. The silver lining of the leopard delay was that Tiger became slightly more capable than it would have been otherwise. Still the, the big difference is that on Leopard the APIs are available to 3rd party devs. I don't know how "Top Secret" this is but it is going to make a difference in terms of the quality of Native apps available. There will be a real reason to make a native port of your app to Mac OS X because it will just look awesome.
Ray Fix had this to say on Oct 17, 2007 Posts: 21
Sorry, Children, Leopard's Top Secret Features Aren't Real
The reason I am impressed with the new iMac line is that they were purportedly designed from the beginning with recycling in mind. Aluminum and glass. I don't know what the future will bring in the way of a new tech aesthetic, however I do hope cradle-to-cradle type of thinking in hardware design becomes even more sophisticated and important to consumers. Lets face it, today's speedy machine runs like a boat anchor 5 years from now. If old computers could be truly recycled into new computers instead of the situation we have today where they are downcycled into something else that eventually sees a landfill, I wouldn't care what color it was really. (as long as it wasn't Zune-brown ;-) Apple has made a more recyclable machine that looks great. Got to give them some credit for that.
Black Is the New...er...Black
I think the new iMac is a brilliant consumer machine. I appreciate how the engineers focused on Cradle-to-Cradle design creating it with highly recyclable components. Further, although it might not have the performance of an hardcore gamer machine, it can nicely do the majority of what consumers want it to. Consider that an nVidea 7600 GT eats 213 Watts under load while the maximum power consumption of the entire 20" iMac is only 200 Watts. I would be interested to know what the average idle power consumption of one of these guys is but I am guessing it is far below even 100 Watts and well below 3 watts in sleep.
Mac Consumers Rewarded for Their Patience
Does putting in your own RAM invalidate an AppleCare warranty?
Ray Fix had this to say on Jul 18, 2007 Posts: 21
Shop Around for RAM Before Buying a Mac
There is no such thing as perfection... you can always do better and I am sure the iPhone will get better over time via both software and hardware updates. That said iPhone 1.0 is an extremely compelling product and I am very happy to be able to own one. Mad props to all the people at Apple that made this thing come together so well.
The iPhone is Perfect
I got an iPhone because (1) I need a phone as I lost mine a couple weeks ago (2) I am fortunate to be able to afford one right now. I like the idea of having to lug my laptop less and still be connected. BTW, this thing is freakin' beautiful but unfortunately I am still waiting for AT&T to complete the activation process. Until then the only thing I can do is call 911.
Ray Fix had this to say on Jun 29, 2007 Posts: 21
Before You Buy the iPhone...
There are a great set of new APIs for developers. Don't underestimate these. 3rd party Leopard apps are going to kick.
Ray Fix had this to say on Mar 28, 2007 Posts: 21
What If There Are No Top Secret Features in Leopard?
The question should be, how do you educate your users? I am sorry but when your monitor is on you will be consuming anywhere from 30 to 150 Watts. That adds up to a lot of kWh, and a lot of CO2 emmision for a large deployment. This is a big deal. Check out this EnergyStar report. http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/revisions/downloads/computer/ComputerPowerMnmt.pdf It estimates that 18 million tons of CO2 could be saved just by smarter settings on your machine.
Ray Fix had this to say on Feb 12, 2007 Posts: 21
AAM: Screensaver for Login Window
It's like this. Apple never really wanted to support the PC... but they had to in order to get mp3 marketshare. Even though they are committed to supporting PCs it must be frustrating as hell to them when some chinese manufacturer ships them a preformatted drive with a virus on it. Yes, they should have double checked the preformatted drives and they didn't. I think they are just being honest about how they feel, angry with the world (windows) and *more* angry with themselves.
The iPod Virus: Apple Arrogance
The reason why the operating system matters. Security. People want to own there stuff. As cool as Web 2.0 applications are, I am glad to be able to run my own apps, my own servers. Even though it might be possible to do all my home finances with a new Google app, I probably won't for fear of it getting hacked or misused.
Ray Fix had this to say on Sep 27, 2006 Posts: 21
The Operating System Is Dead
I have a 30+ gb library including a couple hundred purchased from iTunes. No issues here.... seems to work well. The interface seems much more polished than before.
Upgrading To iTunes 7:0? You Might Want To Wait
Focusing on open standards and and leveraging open source was a great decision. I hope they continue to expand in this domain.
10 Best Apple Decisions of the Last Decade
I attended the keynote and dozens of sessions following it. Apple is putting a ton of work into developer tools and system level frameworks for Leapard. Not only is the OS going to get better but so is 3rd party stuff. It is going to be great!
Leopard Preview: Letdown or Return to Normalcy?