乔布斯传 第647期:多点触控(4)（在线收听）

A small company in Delaware called FingerWorks was already making a line of multi-touch trackpads.

特拉华州一家小企业FingerWorks已经制作出一系列多点触控板。

Founded by two academics at the University of Delaware, John Elias and Wayne Westerman,

该公司的创始人约翰·埃利亚斯和韦恩·韦斯特曼是美国特拉华大学的学者。

FingerWorks had developed some tablets with multi-touch sensing capabilities

FingerWorks公司已经研发出具有多点触控功能的平板电脑，

and taken out patents on ways to translate various finger gestures, such as pinches and swipes, into useful functions.

并申请专利，保护自己将手指动作转化为有用功能的技术，如触控缩放和滑动浏览。

In early 2005 Apple quietly acquired the company, all of its patents, and the services of its two founders.

2005年初，苹果公司悄悄收购了该公司及其全部专利，两位创始人也受雇于苹果。

FingerWorks quit selling its products to others, and it began filing its new patents in Apple's name.

FingerWorks不再将其产品销售给他人，并将新专利归入苹果公司名下。

After six months of work on the trackwheel P1 and the multi-touch P2 phone options,

滚轮P1项目和多点触控P2项目进行了6个月后，

Jobs called his inner circle into his conference room to make a decision.

乔布斯把核心圈子成员召至自己的会议室，进行最终抉择。

Fadell had been trying hard to develop the trackwheel model,

法德尔一直以来都在努力研发滚轮模型，

but he admitted they had not cracked the problem of figuring out a simple way to dial calls.

但他承认团队还未找出简单的拨号方式。

The multi-touch approach was riskier, because they were unsure whether they could execute the engineering,

多点触控方案风险更高，因为不确定能否将其工程化，

but it was also more exciting and promising.

但是该方案也更激动人心，更有前景。

"We all know this is the one we want to do," said Jobs, pointing to the touchscreen. "So let's make it work."

“我们都知道，这就是我们想做的东西，”乔布斯意指触摸屏，“那么，就让我们实现它吧。”

It was what he liked to call a bet-the-company moment, high risk and high reward if it succeeded.

这就是他所谓的拿公司一搏的时刻，风险高，但如果成功了，回报也高。