Tablet computing

平板电脑

The book of Jobs

乔布斯书

It has revolutionised one industry after another. Now Apple hopes to transform three at once

苹果已先后发起一项又一项产业革命，现在则希望同时进行三项变革。

Jan 28th 2010
From The Economist print edition

APPLE is regularly voted the most innovative company in the world, but its inventiveness takes a particular form. Rather than developing entirely new product categories, it excels at taking existing, half-baked ideas and showing the rest of the world how to do them properly. Under its mercurial and visionary boss, Steve Jobs, it has already done this three times. In 1984 Apple launched the Macintosh. It was not the first graphical, mouse-driven computer, but it employed these concepts in a useful product. Then, in 2001, came the iPod. It was not the first digital-music player, but it was simple and elegant, and carried digital music into the mainstream. In 2007 Apple went on to launch the iPhone. It was not the first smart-phone, but Apple succeeded where other handset-makers had failed, making mobile internet access and software downloads a mass-market phenomenon.

苹果公司经常被评为全球创新性最强的公司，不过，其创新别具一格。它并不开发全新的产品系列，而是擅长从既有的半成熟想法入手，向全世界展示如何做才恰如其分。该公司总裁史蒂夫·乔布斯头脑灵活，思路开阔，在他主导下，公司已经有三次这么做了。1984年，苹果公司推出麦金塔电脑。这并非首个以鼠标操作并应用图标（注1）的电脑，但却将这些理念应用为有用的产品。然后是2001年，iPod面世。这不是首个数字音乐播放器，但其简洁精巧，将数字音乐引入主流。2007年，苹果再接再厉，推出了iPhone。这不是首款智能手机，但苹果在其他手机生产商失败之处崛起，将移动网络及软件下载培育成大市场。

As rivals rushed to copy Apple’s approach, the computer, music and telecoms industries were transformed. Now Mr Jobs hopes to pull off the same trick for a fourth time. On January 27th he unveiled his company’s latest product, the iPad—a thin, tablet-shaped device with a ten-inch touch-screen which will go on sale in late March for $499-829 (see article). Years in the making, it has been the subject of hysterical online speculation in recent months, verging at times on religious hysteria: sceptics in the blogosphere jokingly call it the Jesus Tablet.

其竞争对手群起仿效苹果成功之路，遂使电脑、音乐与电信产业获得变革。现在，乔布斯冀望第四次再施其妙招，再获成功。1月27日，他展示了公司最新产品iPad－－10英寸触摸屏的薄薄平面产品。该产品将于3月末上市，售价499至829美元（见有关文章）。这款东西研发多年，近几个月来，网上掀起对其猜测的风潮，其热度有时接近对宗教之狂热：博客圈中的无神论者戏谑地称之为平板耶酥。

The enthusiasm of the Apple faithful may be overdone, but Mr Jobs’s record suggests that when he blesses a market, it takes off. And tablet computing promises to transform not just one industry, but three—computing, telecoms and media.

苹果公司追捧者的热情可能有些过火，但乔布斯以往成功表明，他青睐于哪个领域，哪个市场就会火起来。平板电脑笃定将转变不只一个、而是三个行业－－电脑、电信与媒体。

Companies in the first two businesses view the iPad’s arrival with trepidation, for Apple’s history makes it a fearsome competitor. The media industry, by contrast, welcomes it wholeheartedly. Piracy, free content and the dispersal of advertising around the web have made the internet a difficult environment for media companies. They are not much keener on the Kindle, an e-reader made by Amazon, which has driven down book prices and cannot carry advertising. They hope this new device will give them a new lease of life, by encouraging people to read digital versions of books, newspapers and magazines while on the move. True, there are worries that Apple could end up wielding a lot of power in these new markets, as it already does in digital music. But a new market opened up and dominated by Apple is better than a shrinking market, or no market at all.

前两个行业的企业对iPad问世感到恐惶，因为苹果公司的历史证明其是令人生畏的竞争者。与此形成对照的是，媒体业真心实意地对此表示欢迎。盗版猖獗，信息免费和广告网上传播，这使媒体公司在网上发展艰难。亚马逊公司的电子阅读器Kindle拉低了图书价格，又不能投放广告，故媒体公司对此热衷程度有限。它们希望这款新产品可推动人们在移动中阅读数字图书、报纸与杂志，带给他们新生。诚然，有些人担心，这些新市场的主宰权有可能最后被苹果攫取，数字音乐就是现成的例子。但是，苹果开启并主导一个新市场要好过市场萎缩，或根本无市场可言。

Keep taking the tablets

继续瞄准平板电脑

Tablet computers aimed at business people have not worked. Microsoft has been pushing them for years, with little success. Apple itself launched a pen-based tablet computer, the Newton, in 1993, but it was a flop. The Kindle has done reasonably well, and has spawned a host of similar devices with equally silly names, including the Nook, the Skiff and the Que. Meanwhile, Apple’s pocket-sized touch-screen devices, the iPhone and iPod Touch, have taken off as music and video players and hand-held games consoles.

以企业界人士为目标客户的平板电脑行不通。微软多年来致力于此，但鲜获成功。苹果公司也于1993年推出了Newton掌上手写电脑，但惨遭失败。Kindle做得相当好，而且引起一系列类似产品竞相效仿，名字也同样怪，如Nook、Skiff和Que。与此同时，苹果开发了袋装的触摸屏产品iPhone和iPod Touch，它们作为音乐与视频播放器及掌上游戏机大为成功。

The iPad is, in essence, a giant iPhone on steroids. Its large screen will make it an attractive e-reader and video player, but it will also inherit a vast array of games and other software from the iPhone. Apple hopes that many people will also use it instead of a laptop. If the company is right, it could open up a new market for devices that are larger than phones, smaller than laptops, and also double as e-readers, music and video players and games consoles. Different industries are already converging on this market: mobile-phone makers are launching small laptops, known as netbooks, and computer-makers are moving into smart-phones. Newcomers such as Google, which is moving into mobile phones and laptops, and Amazon, with the Kindle, are also entering the fray: Amazon has just announced plans for an iPhone-style “app store” for the Kindle, which will enable it to be more than just an e-reader.

IPad本质上就是膨胀了的大型iPhone。作为电子阅读器与视频播放器而言，其大屏幕更为诱人，而且还带着iPhone的一大堆游戏与其它软件。苹果公司希望许多人能弃笔记本而转用iPad。若果如此，它将开辟一个新产品市场：从体积上看比手机大又比笔记本小，从功能上看能充作电子阅读器、音乐与视频播放器和游戏机。各行业已齐集于这一市场：手机生产商正推出上网本等小型笔记本电脑，电脑生产商进军智能手机领域。还有谷歌与亚马逊等新进者也加入这场混战，如谷歌进入手机与笔记本领域，亚马逊携Kindle而来：刚刚宣布了Kindle关于iPhone式“应用程序商店”的新计划，这将使之功能超出电子阅读器范畴。

If the past is any guide, Apple’s entry into the field will not just unleash fierce competition among device-makers, but also prompt consumers and publishers who had previously been wary of e-books to take the plunge, accelerating the adoption of this nascent technology. Sales of e-readers are expected to reach 12m this year, up from 5m in 2009 and 1m in 2008, according to iSuppli, a market-research firm.

根据以往经验，苹果公司进军该领域不仅仅会引发生产商之间的激烈竞争；消费者与出版商以前对电子阅读器持谨慎态度，不愿进行尝试，苹果的新产品还会加速促使他们接受这一新技术。市场调研公司iSuppli的调查结果显示，电子阅读器的销量在2008年是100万，2009年达到500万，今年将增至1200万。

Hold the front pixels

占据技术领先地位（注2）

Will the spread of tablets save struggling media companies? Sadly not. Some outfits—metropolitan newspapers, for instance—are probably doomed by their reliance on classified advertising, which is migrating to dedicated websites. Others are too far gone already. Tablets are expensive, and it will be some years before they are widespread enough to fulfil their promise. In theory a newspaper could ask its readers to sign up for a two-year electronic subscription, say, and subsidise the cost of a tablet. But such a subsidy would be hugely pricey, and expensive printing presses will have to be kept running for readers who want to stick with paper.

平板电脑的广泛应用会拯救挣扎中的媒体业么？很不幸，不会。有些依赖分类广告的媒体－－如都市类报纸－－可能注定消亡，因为分类广告正转向分门别类的网站。其它一些媒体则早已没落。平板电脑价格昂贵，要扩张到一定规模才能实现其做出的承诺，这尚需时日。从理论上讲，报纸可要求其读者注册，如订阅两年电子刊物，并补贴平板电脑费用。但这样的补贴额将极不菲，而且，平面媒体还不得不继续维持成本高昂的印制发行，以满足那些固守纸质阅读的读者。

Still, even though tablets will not save weak media companies, they are likely to give strong ones a boost. Charging for content, which has proved difficult on the web, may get easier. Already, people are prepared to pay to receive newspapers and magazines (including The Economist) on the Kindle. The iPad, with its colour screen and integration with Apple’s online stores, could make downloading books, newspapers and magazines as easy and popular as downloading music. Most important, it will allow for advertising, on which American magazines, in particular, depend. Tablets could eventually lead to a wholesale switch to digital delivery, which would allow newspapers and book publishers to cut costs by closing down printing presses.

更进一步而言，尽管平板电脑无法拯救弱势媒体，但有可能推动强势媒体发展。在网上根据浏览内容收费原来难以实现，以后将变得更容易。读者已准备付费在Kindle上阅读报纸与杂志（包括经济学家）。IPad拥有彩屏，并与苹果公司的网上商店整合起来，这将使下载书籍、报纸和杂志与下载音乐一样容易与流行起来。最重要的是，这可以引入广告，而美国杂志尤为依赖广告。平板电脑最终可能使数字产品批发放送，这将使报纸与书籍出版商停止印制纸质媒体，以削减费用。

If Mr Jobs manages to pull off another amazing trick with another brilliant device, then the benefits of the digital revolution to media companies with genuinely popular products may soon start to outweigh the costs. But some media companies are dying, and a new gadget will not resurrect them. Even the Jesus Tablet cannot perform miracles.

若乔布斯以另一款非凡产品再显神通，那么，对那些拥有真正受人欢迎产品的媒体而言，这场数字革命带来的益处可能很快超过所付出的代价。但是，一些媒体已在消亡，一种新发明的产品不会令其复活，甚至平板耶酥也创造不了奇迹。

注1：首次将图形界面广泛应用到个人电脑上。
注2：似是短语hold the front page引申出来。

PS 译者忠实翻译原文，旨在交流，并不代表认同文中观点。

译者：龙辰
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