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 As seemingly everyone on the planet knows Steve Jobs’s defining quality was perfectionism. The development of the Macintosh for instance took more than three years because of Jobs’s obsession with detail. He nixed the idea of an internal fan because he thought it was noisy and clumsy. And he wanted his engineers to redesign the Mac’s motherboard just because it looked inelegant. At NeXT the company Jobs started after being nudged out of Apple in 1985 he drove his hardware team crazy in order to make a computer that was a sleek gorgeous magnesium cube. After his return to Apple in 1997 he got personally involved with things like how many screws there were in a laptop case. It took six months until he was happy with the way that scroll bars in OS X worked. Jobs believed that for an object to resonate with consumers every piece of it had to be right even the ones you couldn’t see.
好像地球人都知道,，喬布斯對(duì)質(zhì)量的要求近乎完美,。比如麥金托什計(jì)算機(jī)，就因?yàn)閱滩妓箤?duì)細(xì)節(jié)的執(zhí)著,，才使得它的開(kāi)發(fā)花了三年多的時(shí)間才完成,。他覺(jué)得電腦加內(nèi)置風(fēng)扇是愚蠢的行為,，而且會(huì)產(chǎn)生噪音,，所以他否決了這個(gè)想法。他還會(huì)要求他的工程師重新設(shè)計(jì)Mac的主板,，就僅僅因?yàn)樗X(jué)得那主板看上去比較粗糙,。在1985年被蘋(píng)果公司掃地出門(mén)后，喬布斯開(kāi)辦了NeXT公司,。在NeXT,，他要求他的硬件小組把電腦設(shè)計(jì)成一個(gè)光滑精致的鎂盒，這幾乎把他的硬件小組給逼瘋了,。1997年他回到蘋(píng)果公司后,，就連筆記本電腦需要多少個(gè)螺釘他都親自過(guò)問(wèn)。OS X操作系統(tǒng)里滾動(dòng)條的工作方式,，做到他滿(mǎn)意花了6個(gè)月的時(shí)間,。喬布斯相信，一個(gè)商品要與顧客產(chǎn)生共鳴,，必須每個(gè)細(xì)節(jié)都精益求精，即使是一些你看不見(jiàn)的地方也不能放過(guò),。
This perfectionism obviously had a lot to do with Apple’s success. It explains why Apple products have typically had a feeling of integrity in the original sense of the word; they feel whole rather than simply like collections of parts. But Jobs’s perfectionism came at a price too. It could be literally expensive: back in the eighties Jobs insisted that in magazine ads and on packages the Apple logo be printed in six colors not four which was thirty to forty per cent more expensive. And there were more important costs: Jobs’s vision required Apple to control every part of the user experience and to make everything it possibly could itself. Its hardware was proprietary: the company had its own Mac factory and favored unique cables disk drives and power cords rather than standardized ones. Its software was proprietary too: if you wanted to run Apple software you needed to own an Apple computer. This made Apple’s computers more expensive than the competition. It also made them hard to customize which businesses didn’t like. So while Apple changed the world of computing in the eighties with machines that were more user-friendly and powerful than your typical I.B.M. clone most users never touched a Macintosh. They ended up with P.C.s instead.
這種對(duì)完美的執(zhí)著很大程度上造就了蘋(píng)果公司的成功,。這就解釋了為什么蘋(píng)果的產(chǎn)品給人的感覺(jué)就是完整,。就如同字面的意思，它們感覺(jué)生來(lái)就是個(gè)整體,，而不是一些零部件的組裝,。但是，喬布斯的完美主義也付出了代價(jià),。代價(jià)的確很大：回顧80年代,，喬布斯堅(jiān)持在雜志廣告和包裝上，蘋(píng)果公司的標(biāo)志必須用6種而不是4種顏色印刷,，這增加了30%-40%的成本,。更主要的成本在于：?jiǎn)滩妓沟膱?zhí)著使得蘋(píng)果要控制用戶(hù)體驗(yàn)的每個(gè)部分，并盡可能都自己制作,。這使得蘋(píng)果的硬件都是獨(dú)一無(wú)二的：他有自己的電腦工廠,，比起那些已經(jīng)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化的東西，他更偏愛(ài)獨(dú)一無(wú)二的數(shù)據(jù)線,、硬盤(pán)和電源線,。蘋(píng)果的軟件同樣也是獨(dú)特的：如果你想要使用蘋(píng)果的軟件，你需要擁有一臺(tái)蘋(píng)果電腦,。這使得蘋(píng)果的電腦比競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手的產(chǎn)品要貴得多,。同樣，這也使得蘋(píng)果的產(chǎn)品難以自定義,，企業(yè)都不喜歡難以自定義的產(chǎn)品,。所以，在80年代,，蘋(píng)果雖然改變了計(jì)算機(jī)產(chǎn)業(yè),，使得電腦擺脫了簡(jiǎn)單的IBM模式的克隆，而功能更加強(qiáng)大且更加用戶(hù)化,，但絕大多數(shù)用戶(hù)從來(lái)就沒(méi)用過(guò)麥金托什電腦,，他們最終都選擇了PC。
When Jobs returned he still wanted Apple to as he put it “own and control the primary technology in everything we do.” But his obsession with control had been tempered: he was better you might say at playing with others and this was crucial to the extraordinary success that Apple has enjoyed over the past decade. Take the iPod. The old Jobs might well have insisted that the iPod play only songs encoded in Apple’s favored digital format the A.A.C. This would have allowed Apple to control the user experience but it would also have limited the iPod market since millions of people already had MP3s. So Apple made the iPod MP3-compatible. (Sony by contrast made its first digital music players compatible only with files in Sony’s proprietary format and they bombed as a result.) Similarly Jobs could have insisted as he originally intended that iPods and iTunes work only with Macs. But that would have cut the company off from the vast majority of computer users. So in 2002 Apple launched a Windows-compatible iPod and sales skyrocketed soon afterward. And while Apple’s designs are as distinctive as ever the devices now rely less on proprietary hardware and more on standardized technologies.
當(dāng)喬布斯回到蘋(píng)果,，他要求公司做到,，就如同他所說(shuō)的，“擁有和控制所有產(chǎn)品的原始技術(shù)”,。但是，他對(duì)于控制的執(zhí)念已經(jīng)緩和了很多：他在與別人共事時(shí),，比原來(lái)更容易相處了,，這是蘋(píng)果過(guò)去十年輝煌的決定性因素。拿iPod來(lái)說(shuō),，原來(lái)的喬布斯可能會(huì)堅(jiān)持iPod只播放蘋(píng)果偏愛(ài)的編碼格式（AAC）的音樂(lè),。這樣雖然能讓蘋(píng)果掌控用戶(hù)體驗(yàn),，但這樣會(huì)限制iPod的市場(chǎng)，因?yàn)槌汕先f(wàn)的人都用MP3格式,。所以,，蘋(píng)果讓iPod兼容MP3格式的音樂(lè),。（相比之下，索尼一開(kāi)始的音樂(lè)播放器都只能播放索尼自己的編碼格式,，這使得索尼付出了慘痛代價(jià)。）相似的,，他原本想讓iPod和iTunes只能在Mac電腦上使用,，但這樣會(huì)讓公司遠(yuǎn)離絕大多數(shù)電腦用戶(hù),。所以在2002年，蘋(píng)果開(kāi)發(fā)了與windows系統(tǒng)兼容的iPod,，并很快在隨后銷(xiāo)量猛增,。同時(shí)，蘋(píng)果的設(shè)計(jì)也和原來(lái)不同,，比起依靠專(zhuān)有的硬件，它的設(shè)備如今更傾向于使用標(biāo)準(zhǔn)技術(shù),。
The iPhone signalled a further loosening of the reins. Although Apple makes the phone and the operating system itself and although every app is sold through the App Store the system is far more open than the Mac ever was: there are more than four hundred thousand iPhone apps written by outside developers. Some are even designed by Apple’s competitors—you can read on the Kindle app instead of using iBooks—and many are so inelegant that Jobs must have hated them. Such apps make the iPhone messier than it would otherwise be but they also make it much more valuable. The old Jobs might well have tried in the interest of quality to contain the number of apps: he always talked about how saying no to ideas was as important as saying yes. Though Apple does vet apps to some extent the new Jobs essentially said Let a thousand flowers bloom.
iPhone的限制更少,。即便蘋(píng)果給手機(jī)開(kāi)發(fā)了獨(dú)立的操作系統(tǒng)，而且所有的應(yīng)用軟件只能在App商店購(gòu)買(mǎi),，但這個(gè)系統(tǒng)比Mac電腦更加開(kāi)放：有大約10萬(wàn)個(gè)iPhone的應(yīng)用軟件是由公司外的開(kāi)發(fā)者編寫(xiě)的,。其中有些軟件甚至是蘋(píng)果的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手設(shè)計(jì)的——你可以不用iBooks而用Kindle的應(yīng)用軟件在iPhone上看電子書(shū)。有些應(yīng)用軟件如此粗糙,，喬布斯肯定恨死它們,。這些應(yīng)用軟件可能使得iPhone不像它應(yīng)有的那樣精致，但這同樣也使得它更有使用價(jià)值,。原來(lái)的喬布斯肯定會(huì)出于質(zhì)量的考慮,，反復(fù)驗(yàn)證這些軟件，并對(duì)軟件數(shù)量加以限制：他經(jīng)常說(shuō)對(duì)創(chuàng)意說(shuō)不要比說(shuō)是更加重要,。雖然蘋(píng)果對(duì)這些軟件在某種程度上進(jìn)行檢查,，但新喬布斯和他原本說(shuō)的那樣，讓它們百花齊放,。
The introduction of the iPad has ratified this new reality since developers have already released more than a hundred thousand apps for the tablet. The result is that the network effects that worked against Apple in the eighties making it essentially a boutique company are now working in its favor: the more apps Apple’s products have the more people want to use them which in turn makes developers want to develop for them and so on.
iPad的推出證明了這個(gè)新現(xiàn)實(shí),，因?yàn)殚_(kāi)發(fā)者們已經(jīng)為這個(gè)平板電腦開(kāi)發(fā)了超過(guò)10萬(wàn)個(gè)應(yīng)用軟件,。結(jié)果就是，使得80年代那個(gè)追求精品的蘋(píng)果公司失敗的網(wǎng)絡(luò)效應(yīng),，現(xiàn)在使得它更受歡迎：蘋(píng)果的產(chǎn)品擁有更多的應(yīng)用軟件，就有更多的人使用它們,，同樣的,，使得開(kāi)發(fā)者們?yōu)樗麄冮_(kāi)發(fā)更多的應(yīng)用軟件，如此良性循環(huán),。
There’s no doubt that Apple’s success in the past decade depended on Jobs’s uncanny ability to introduce products that captured the zeitgeist. But what turned Apple into the most valuable company on the planet was that Jobs did more than just create cool new devices. Rather he presided over the creation of new market ecosystems with those devices at their heart. And if the ecosystems were more chaotic than he might have liked they were also more powerful and more profitable. It’s true that by the standards of today’s open-source computing world Apple’s platforms are still very much closed. After all when Google designed a phone operating system Android it simply handed it out to phone manufacturers to use as they liked. But by the standards of its old ethos Apple is much more open than one would ever have thought possible. In giving up a little control Jobs found a lot more power. ?
無(wú)疑蘋(píng)果近十年的成功歸功于喬布斯那不可思議的能力,，他推出的產(chǎn)品代表了一個(gè)時(shí)代。但是,，讓蘋(píng)果成為全球市值最高公司的原因,，不僅僅是因?yàn)樗麆?chuàng)造好的新產(chǎn)品，而是因?yàn)樗鲗?dǎo)創(chuàng)造了新的市場(chǎng)生態(tài)系統(tǒng),，讓他的產(chǎn)品更加深入人心,。如果這個(gè)市場(chǎng)生態(tài)系統(tǒng)比他原本希望的更加混亂，那也將更加強(qiáng)大,，更加有利,。在通常都公開(kāi)計(jì)算機(jī)源代碼的今天，蘋(píng)果公司的操作平臺(tái)的確還很閉塞,。最終,，Google設(shè)計(jì)出一個(gè)手機(jī)操作系統(tǒng)Android并簡(jiǎn)單地將它交給手機(jī)制造商們，讓其隨意使用,。但是和蘋(píng)果原來(lái)可以想象的老標(biāo)準(zhǔn)相比,，它已經(jīng)開(kāi)放的多了。只是放棄了一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)控制,，喬布斯就找到了更多的力量,。 |
How Steve Jobs Changed
by James Surowiecki October 17, 2011
As seemingly everyone on the planet knows, Steve Jobs’s defining quality was perfectionism. The development of the Macintosh, for instance, took more than three years, because of Jobs’s obsession with detail. He nixed the idea of an internal fan, because he thought it was noisy and clumsy. And he wanted his engineers to redesign the Mac’s motherboard, just because it looked inelegant. At NeXT, the company Jobs started after being nudged out of Apple, in 1985, he drove his hardware team crazy in order to make a computer that was a sleek, gorgeous magnesium cube. After his return to Apple, in 1997, he got personally involved with things like how many screws there were in a laptop case. It took six months until he was happy with the way that scroll bars in OS X worked. Jobs believed that, for an object to resonate with consumers, every piece of it had to be right, even the ones you couldn’t see.
This perfectionism obviously had a lot to do with Apple’s success. It explains why Apple products have typically had a feeling of integrity, in the original sense of the word; they feel whole, rather than simply like collections of parts. But Jobs’s perfectionism came at a price, too. It could be literally expensive: back in the eighties, Jobs insisted that in magazine ads and on packages the Apple logo be printed in six colors, not four, which was thirty to forty per cent more expensive. And there were more important costs: Jobs’s vision required Apple to control every part of the user experience, and to make everything it possibly could itself. Its hardware was proprietary: the company had its own Mac factory and favored unique cables, disk drives, and power cords, rather than standardized ones. Its software was proprietary, too: if you wanted to run Apple software, you needed to own an Apple computer. This made Apple’s computers more expensive than the competition. It also made them hard to customize, which businesses didn’t like. So, while Apple changed the world of computing in the eighties, with machines that were more user-friendly and powerful than your typical I.B.M. clone, most users never touched a Macintosh. They ended up with P.C.s instead.
When Jobs returned, he still wanted Apple to, as he put it, “own and control the primary technology in everything we do.” But his obsession with control had been tempered: he was better, you might say, at playing with others, and this was crucial to the extraordinary success that Apple has enjoyed over the past decade. Take the iPod. The old Jobs might well have insisted that the iPod play only songs encoded in Apple’s favored digital format, the A.A.C. This would have allowed Apple to control the user experience, but it would also have limited the iPod market, since millions of people already had MP3s. So Apple made the iPod MP3-compatible. (Sony, by contrast, made its first digital music players compatible only with files in Sony’s proprietary format, and they bombed as a result.) Similarly, Jobs could have insisted, as he originally intended, that iPods and iTunes work only with Macs. But that would have cut the company off from the vast majority of computer users. So in 2002 Apple launched a Windows-compatible iPod, and sales skyrocketed soon afterward. And, while Apple’s designs are as distinctive as ever, the devices now rely less on proprietary hardware and more on standardized technologies.
The iPhone signalled a further loosening of the reins. Although Apple makes the phone and the operating system itself, and although every app is sold through the App Store, the system is far more open than the Mac ever was: there are more than four hundred thousand iPhone apps written by outside developers. Some are even designed by Apple’s competitors—you can read on the Kindle app instead of using iBooks—and many are so inelegant that Jobs must have hated them. Such apps make the iPhone messier than it would otherwise be, but they also make it much more valuable. The old Jobs might well have tried, in the interest of quality, to contain the number of apps: he always talked about how saying no to ideas was as important as saying yes. Though Apple does vet apps to some extent, the new Jobs essentially said, Let a thousand flowers bloom.
The introduction of the iPad has ratified this new reality, since developers have already released more than a hundred thousand apps for the tablet. The result is that the network effects that worked against Apple in the eighties, making it essentially a boutique company, are now working in its favor: the more apps Apple’s products have, the more people want to use them, which, in turn, makes developers want to develop for them, and so on.
There’s no doubt that Apple’s success in the past decade depended on Jobs’s uncanny ability to introduce products that captured the zeitgeist. But what turned Apple into the most valuable company on the planet was that Jobs did more than just create cool new devices. Rather, he presided over the creation of new market ecosystems, with those devices at their heart. And if the ecosystems were more chaotic than he might have liked, they were also more powerful and more profitable. It’s true that, by the standards of today’s open-source computing world, Apple’s platforms are still very much closed. After all, when Google designed a phone operating system, Android, it simply handed it out to phone manufacturers to use as they liked. But, by the standards of its old ethos, Apple is much more open than one would ever have thought possible. In giving up a little control, Jobs found a lot more power. ?
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