[转帖] [2012.09.15]Apple’s new smartphone 苹果的新智能手机
http://www.ecocn.org/thread-82717-1-1.html
Apple’s new smartphone
苹果的新智能手机
Five out of ten
表现平平
The iPhone 5 is hardly a great leap forward
iPhone 5 很难说有革命性的改进
Sep 15th 2012 | SAN FRANCISCO | from the print edition
The smartest phone in the room?
这是室内最智能的手机？
SOME hilarious videos doing the rounds on the internet show people pretending to take photos with invisible iPhones and hold conversations on them. These spoofs are meant to poke fun at Apple and its legion of fans. But the very notion that the firm could produce a see-through phone also highlights how closely its brand has become associated with revolutionary innovations. What a pity, then, that the iPhone 5, which was unveiled on September 12th, fails to live up to that hard-won reputation.
一些令人捧腹的视频在网上传开，视频中人们假装用隐形的iPhone手机拍照，聊天。这些戏弄人的视频旨在取笑苹果公司和它的大批粉丝们。但其中苹果生产出透明手机的理念也显示了苹果的品牌已与革命性的更新紧密联系在一起。遗憾的是，九月十二号发布的iPhone 5没能担当起这来之不易的名誉。
The device is thinner than its predecessors, has a bigger screen and boasts connectivity to superfast 4G wireless networks. But it now competes against impressive offerings from the likes of South Korea’s Samsung and other rivals, who are constantly churning out snazzier superthin handsets of their own with stunning displays. They are unlikely to lose much sleep because of the incremental changes made to the iPhone 5.
新的设备比前代都更薄，有着更大的屏幕以及提升到了超高速的4G无线连接网络。但它现在对抗的是韩国三星那样的公司和其他竞争对手推出的令人印象深刻的产品。这些公司不断自行制造具有极佳显示屏的时髦手机。iPhone 5带来的累计更新可不会让这些公司太过失眠。
This is a high-stakes game for Apple, whose phone business still accounts for more than half of its revenues. These are not about to plummet: hordes of folk still want to get their hands on smartphones. IHS, a research firm, reckons that next year global shipments of smartphones will exceed those of non-smart ones for the first time. But the iPhone is facing much stiffer competition from handsets using Google’s popular Android operating system. According to IDC, another research firm, Android’s share of smartphone sales rose from 24% in 2010 to 66% in the first half of this year; Apple’s grew by four percentage points, to 20%, over the same period.
这对苹果来说是个高风险的竞赛：手机收入仍占到该公司总收入的一半以上。目前还不到骤跌的时候：大量的人依然想得到智能手机。研究公司HIS认为明年全球智能手机交易将首次超过功能手机。但iPhone还面对使用流行的谷歌安卓操作系统的手机带来的激烈竞争。据另一调查公司IDC的说法，安卓的占有率从2010年的24%上升到今年上半年的66%；苹果公司同期内增长4个百分点到达20%。
The company still has an important advantage over its rivals in the form of its huge “ecosystem” of digital apps, 700,000 of which are now available in its online store, and cloud-based services such as iTunes, which is getting a revamp. And that advantage will be reinforced by the firm’s new mobile operating system, iOS 6, which will power the iPhone 5 and a smaller iPad tablet computer Apple is expected to launch later this year. The system includes a new digital-mapping app developed by Apple and a feature that allows users to store things such as digitised aircraft boarding passes and movie tickets. These and other offerings can be combined to make mobile commerce more seamless. “The ability to tie digital stuff into the real world is becoming much more important for users,” says Ian Fogg, an analyst at IHS.
苹果公司依然有一项胜过竞争对手的重要优势，这就是它由700000款在线商店应用和正被改进的iTunes等云端服务构成的庞大生态系统。新的移动操作系统iOS6将帮助加强这种优势。iPhone 5和苹果预定今年晚些时候发布的一款更小的iPad平板电脑都将运行这种操作系统。新系统包括了苹果开发的数字化测绘地图应用以及能保存数字登机牌和电影票的特性。这些新特性和其他功能整合起来后将进一步打破移动商务的界线。IHS的分析师Ian Fogg 说：“将数据融入到现实世界的能力对用户来说越来越重要”。
Indeed it is. But other firms such as Amazon, which is rumoured to have a smartphone in the works, and Google are busy beefing up their ecosystems of software and hardware too. So Apple will have to work harder to stay ahead of the pack or risk seeing some of its profits vanish like those imaginary phones.
事实亦如此。但据传将推出一款智能手机的亚马逊等其他公司和谷歌也在忙着加强他们的软、硬件生态系统。因此苹果也需更努力的工作才能在其他公司面前保持领先，否则就面临目睹自家利润像幻想出的手机（上文提到的透明手机）一样泡汤的风险。
原文出自《经济学人》杂志 译者：崔嘉伟
from the print edition | Business |
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