创业成功人士访谈录 第13期:乔布斯(7)

 　　We Did iTunes Because We All Love Music

　　我们之所以去做iTunes是因为我们都热爱音乐

　　Let’s start with the birth of the iPhone.

　　我们先从iPhone的起源谈起吧，

　　How did you get the idea to create it?

　　您是怎么想到发明它的？

　　We all had cellphones.

　　我们都用过手机。

　　We just hated them, they were so awful to use.

　　我们都不喜 欢用手机，因为它们并不好用。

　　The software was terrible.

　　软件烂得一塌糊涂，

　　The hardware wasn’t very good.

　　硬件也不怎么样。

　　We talked to our friends, and they all hated their cellphones too.

　　我们和朋友聊天，他们也都非常痛恨自己的手机。

　　Everybody seemed to hate their phones.

　　似乎每个人都痛恨自己的手机。

　　And we saw that these things really could become much more powerful and interesting to license¹.

　　于是我们觉得，这些东西完全可以变得更加强大，摆出来也会很有意思。

　　It’s a huge market.

　　这是一个巨大的市场，

　　I mean a billion phones get shipped every year,

　　我是说每年有10亿部手机被卖掉，

　　and that’s almost an order of magnitude² greater than the number of music players.

　　这单生意在数量上可比音乐播放器庞大多了，

　　It’s four times the number of PCs that ship every year.

　　是每年个人电脑销量的4倍。

　　It was a great challenge.

　　这是个巨大的挑战。

　　Let’s make a great phone that we fall in love with.

　　我们要做出一款可以让我们自己都一见钟情的手机。

　　And we’ve got the technology.

　　我们手中有技术，

　　We’ve got the miniaturization from the iPod.

　　有源于iPod的微型制造工艺，

　　We’ve got the sophisticated³ operating system from Mac.

　　还有来自Mac电脑的精密操作系统。

　　Nobody had ever thought about putting operating systems as sophisticated as OS X inside a phone,

　　从未有人想过往手机里放进一个如OS X般精密的操作系统，

　　so that was a real question.

　　这看来确实是个问题。

　　We had a big debate inside the company whether we could do that or not.

　　关于我们能否做到这点，我们公司内部进行过激烈的讨论。

　　And that was one where I had to adjudicate it and just say，“We，re going to do it. Let’s try.”

　　我不得不当机立断地作出决定：“我们可以做到的。让我们试试看吧。”

　　The smartest software guys were saying they can do it,

　　那些最聪明的软件工程师说他们可以做得到，

　　so let’s give them a shot.

　　那么我们给他们这个机会。

　　And they did.

　　他们果然做到了。

　　How do Apple connected with its costumers?

　　苹果和消费者之间的联系是怎样的？

　　We did iTunes because we all love music.

　　我们之所以去做iTunes，是因为我们都热爱音乐。

　　We made what we thought was the best jukebox in iTunes.

　　我们在iTunes里做出了自认为是最好的自动唱片点唱机。

　　Then we all wanted to carry our whole music libraries around with us.

　　然后我们又都希望随身携带全部的音乐资料库。

　　The team worked really hard.

　　研发团队展开了非常艰辛的工作。

　　And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one.You know?

　　他们之所以这么卖命，就是因为我们都需要一个这样的产品。你知道吗？

　　I mean, the first few hundred customers were us.

　　我是说我们自己就是最早的那几百个用户。

　　It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people,

　　这事儿和流行文化无关，和坑蒙拐骗无关，

　　and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t.

　　和说服人们接受一件他们压根儿不需要的东西也关。

　　We figure out what we want.

　　我们只是在搞明白我们需要什么而已。

　　And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through

　　而且我认为，我们已经建立了一套良好的思维体系，

　　whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too.

　　其他许多人都会需要。

　　That’s what we get paid to do.

　　我们收了钱就是来做这件事的。

　　So you can’t go out and ask people, you know, what the next big thing.

　　所以你没法走上大街去问别人下一件大事会是什么。

　　There’s a great quote by Henry Ford,right? He said,

　　亨利福特曾经有过一句名言：

　　“If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me A faster horse.”

　　“如果我当年去问顾客他们想要什么，他们肯定会告诉我‘一匹更快的马’。”

　　What will affect your decision?

　　你根据什么作出决定，

　　How do you make your strategy?

　　怎样制定发展战略？

　　We do no market research.

　　我们从不作市场调研，

　　We don’t hire consultants⁴.

　　我们不招顾问。

　　The only consultants I’ve ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze⁵ Gateway⁶’s retail⁷ strategy

　　这10年来我只请过一家公司 帮忙分析Gateway的零售策略，

　　so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made (when launching Apple’s retail stores).

　　以免犯下与他们一样的错误（开设苹果零售店时）。

　　But we never hire consultants, per se.

　　但是，我们本身是不招顾问的。

　　We just want to make great products.

　　我们只是想制做出伟大的产品。

　　When we created the iTunes Music Store,

　　我们之所以开发iTunes音乐商店，

　　we did that because we thought it would be great to be able to buy music electronically,

　　是因为我们觉得，能够以电子方式购买音乐会相当了不起，

　　not because we had plans to redefine the music industry.

　　而不是因为我们计划去重新定义音乐产业。

　　I mean, it just seemed like writing on the wall, that eventually all music would be distributed electronically.

　　我的意思是，就像在墙上写字，音乐最终还是要通过电子化来发行，

　　That seemed obvious.

　　这很明显。

　　The music industry has huge returns.

　　音乐产业拥有巨大的回报。

　　Why have all this overhead when you can just send electrons around easily?

　　如果你可以简单地通过电子进行传播，为什么还要多花那些冤枉钱呢？

1 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

2 magnitude   

n.大小；重大；星等

参考例句：

• I want to know the magnitude of this equipment.我想知道这个设备的大小。
• I hadn't realized the magnitude of the problem.我没有认识到这个问题的重要性。

3 sophisticated   

adj.老练的，精密的，尖端的，高雅的

参考例句：

• She has become very sophisticated since she went to live in London.移居伦敦后她变得世故多了。
• This is a very sophisticated machine.这是一台非常精密的机器。

4 consultants   

顾问( consultant的名词复数 )； 高级顾问医生，会诊医生

参考例句：

• a firm of management consultants 管理咨询公司
• There're many consultants in hospital. 医院里有很多会诊医生。

5 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

6 gateway   

n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法

参考例句：

• Hard work is the gateway to success.努力工作是通往成功之路。
• A man collected tolls at the gateway.一个人在大门口收通行费。

7 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。