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2011年 10月 06日 14:42
莫博士：我所认识的乔布斯
史
蒂
夫?乔布斯（Steve
Jobs）是天才，他对多个产业和几十亿人的生活都产生了巨大影响，自从他今年八月辞去苹果公司（Apple）首席执行长以来，有关他的文章已经数不胜
数。他是一位可与托马斯?爱迪生（Thomas Edison）或亨利?福特（Henry Ford）比肩的历史人物。相关报道
而且他很会推销。是的，他真会推销。 当然，乔布斯有更具个性化的一面，而我则有幸对此有所了解，因为在他执掌苹果公司的14年时间里，我曾与他先后交谈过很多。从以下几个故事里可以了解我所认识的乔布斯。 乔布斯把电话打到我家 乔 布斯在中途离开苹果公司以前我并不认识他。那时我还不报道科技领域。在乔布斯离开苹果的那段时间我只与他见过一次面。他在1997年重返苹果后几天开始给 我打电话，而且是在周日晚上。他连续四、五个周末在周日夜间往我家里打电话。作为一名老记者，我知道他想取悦我，好让我站在当时举步维艰的苹果公司一边， 我曾经推荐过苹果的产品，但乔布斯给我打电话前不久我曾建议读者们不要买苹果的产品。 
Associated Press
1997年时的乔布斯。
在他第二次打来电话后，我妻子开始对他在周末打来这种骚扰电话表示不满。我却不这样觉得。 在后来的电话中，他有时会抱怨我对苹果产品的某些评论，或是这些评论的部分内容──不过，说实话，我对将苹果公司的大多数产品推荐给并非“科技达人”的普通消费者感到很放心。 我知道他会抱怨，因为他每次打电话的开场白都是：你好，沃尔特。我给你打电话不是要抱怨今天的专栏，不过如果可以的话，我有一些评论。 乐观主义者 我无从知道乔布斯在1997和1998年苹果最黑暗的日子里怎样跟他的团队沟通，当时苹果公司岌岌可危，他不得不向主要竞争对手微软(Microsoft)求助。他当然有难以相处、反复无常的一面，而且我也认为，不管是当时还是后来，这一面都在苹果公司内外展现出来了。 但我可以诚实地说，在我跟他的多次谈话中，他表现出的最主要的语气是乐观和确定，对于苹果公司以及整体上的数字革命都是如此。就在他告诉我，他想让音乐业同意他出售数码歌曲或是与竞争对手角力所面临的种种困境时，至少在我面前，他的语调总是充满耐心和远见。 当 苹果开设第一家零售专卖店时，他的这种特质得以展现。他组织媒体记者参观，对专卖店的自豪之情溢于言表，就像个为第一个孩子而骄傲的父亲。我当时评论说， 肯定只会有寥寥几家门店，并质疑苹果对零售有何了解。他看着我，就像我是个疯子一样，他说，会有很多很多门店，而且苹果公司已经花了一年时间，在一个秘密 地点利用模型来调整门店布局。我曾打趣式地问乔布斯，他是否曾在从事首席执行长的繁重工作之余，拨冗来拍板产品玻璃的透明度和木质材料的颜色等细节小事。 他说，当然了，就是这样。 揭开苹果产品的神秘面纱 有 时候，但并不总是，他会邀请我去看苹果公司某些尚未对外界公布的重磅产品。他或许也让其他记者去看过。这种时候我们会在一间巨大的会议室里碰面，同时在场 的只有他少数几名助手。乔布斯会坚持用布把这些新产品盖住（即使是在私下场合），然后他会像玩杂耍般把幕布揭开，这时他眼里闪着光，声音里充满着激情。接 着我们会坐下来长时间地谈论现在和未来，以及行业内的逸闻趣事。 我仍然记得他向我展示苹果公司首款iPod那天的情况。我对一家电脑公司 居然涉足音乐播放器领域感到吃惊，而他则解释说，他将苹果视为一家数字产品公司，而不是一家电脑公司。他并没有就此提供更多细节。乔布斯向我展示苹果公司 的iPhone手机、iTunes音乐网店时也是这种情况。后来到iPad平板电脑时，他是让我去他家里看尚未展现给世人的iPad的，因为他那时已经病 重得不能去办公室了。 地狱里的冰水 在第五届“全数字化大会”（All Things Digital Conference）上，乔布斯和他的长期竞争对手──才华横溢的比尔?盖茨（Bill Gates）出人意料地同意一同出席，这是他俩第一次同在一个讲台上接受长时间的采访。但这次访谈几乎没有搞成。 那天早些时候，在盖茨到来前，我在讲台上单独采访了乔布斯，问他作为一名Windows应用程序的主要开发商有何感想，我之所以这样问，是因为那时苹果iTunes网店出售的应用程序已被安装在了数亿台Windows个人电脑中。 乔布斯语带嘲讽地说，这就像是给身处地狱的某人送去一杯冰水。当盖茨随后到来并听到这话时，他很自然地感到愤怒。在正式开始接受采访前的见面中，盖茨对乔布斯说，“所以我猜自己是来自地狱的代表。” 乔布斯递了一瓶冰水给盖茨，两人间的僵局就此打破，随后的采访进行得很成功，两个人表现得都像气度非凡的政治家。采访结束时，听众们起身长时间鼓掌，一些人还流出了眼泪。 那一次散步 乔布斯接受肝脏移植后在帕洛阿尔托的家中休养期间，他邀请我去聊聊。那次拜访最终历时三个小时，其间我们还一同散步去了附近的一家公园。他坚持要散步，虽然我担心他虚弱的身材状况。 他解释说，他每天散步，而且每天为自己设定一个更远的目标，而那一天他的目标就是邻近的那个公园。我们边走边聊，突然，他停下脚步，看上去情况不妙。我恳求他掉头回家，解释说我不懂急救，而且甚至能想象媒体的大标题：无能记者任由乔布斯倒毙路旁。 但他大笑着拒绝了我的要求，歇了一会儿后，继续向公园进发。我们坐在公园里的长椅上，谈起人生、各自的家庭以及病痛。（几年前我曾经心脏病发作。）他告诫我要保持身体健康。然后我们走了回去。 乔布斯那天没出事，我永远都为此感到欣慰。但现在他真地离开了，而且如此年轻，这是全世界的损失。 Mossberg: The Steve Jobs I Knew That Steve Jobs was a genius, a giant influence on multiple industries and billions of lives, has been written many times since he retired as Apple''s chief executive in August. He was a historical figure on the scale of a Thomas Edison or Henry Ford. He did what a CEO should. He hired and inspired great people; managed for the long term, not the quarter or the short-term stock price; made big bets and took big risks. He insisted on the highest product quality and on building things to delight and empower actual users, not intermediaries like corporate IT directors. As he liked to say, he lived at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. And he could sell. Man, he could sell. But there was a more personal side of Steve Jobs, of course, and I was fortunate enough to see a bit of it, because I spent hours in conversation with him, over the 14 years he ran Apple. Here are a few stories that illustrate the man as I knew him. The Phone Calls I never knew Steve when he was first at Apple. I wasn''t covering technology then. And I only met him once between his stints at the company. Within days of his return in 1997 he began calling my house, on Sunday nights, for four or five straight weekends. As a veteran reporter, I knew he wanted to flatter me, to get me on the side of a teetering company whose products I had once recommended, but had recently advised readers to avoid. Yet there was more to the calls than that. They turned into marathon, 90-minute, wide-ranging, off-the-record discussions that revealed to me the stunning breadth of the man. One minute he''d be talking about sweeping ideas for the digital revolution. The next about why Apple''s current products were awful, and how a color, or angle, or curve, or icon was embarrassing. After the second such call, my wife became annoyed at the intrusion he was making in our weekend. I wasn''t. Later, he''d sometimes call to complain about some reviews, or parts of reviews -- though, in truth, I felt very comfortable recommending most of his products for the average, non-techie consumers. I knew he would be complaining because he''d start every call by saying ''Hi, Walt. I''m not calling to complain about today''s column, but I have some comments, if that''s okay.'' The Optimist I have no way of knowing how Steve talked to his team during Apple''s darkest days in 1997 and 1998, when the company was on the brink and he was forced to turn to archrival Microsoft for a rescue. He certainly had a nasty, mercurial side to him, and I expect that, then and later, it emerged inside and outside the company But I can honestly say that, in my many conversations with him, the dominant tone he struck was optimism and certainty, both for Apple and for the digital revolution as a whole. Even when he was telling me about his struggles to get the music industry to let him sell digital songs, or griping about competitors, at least in my presence, his tone was always marked by patience and a long-term view. This quality was on display when Apple opened its first retail store. He conducted a press tour for journalists, as proud of the store as a father is of his first child. I commented that, surely, there''d only be a few stores, and asked what Apple knew about retailing. He looked at me like I was crazy, said there''d be many, many stores, and that the company had spent a year tweaking the layout of the stores, using a mockup at a secret location.***I teased him by asking if he, personally, despite his hard duties as CEO, had approved tiny details like the translucency of the glass and the color of the wood. He said he had, of course. The Product Unveilings Sometimes, not always, he''d invite me in to see certain big products before he unveiled them to the world. He may have done the same with other journalists. We''d meet in a giant boardroom, with just a few of his aides present, and he''d insist─even in private─ on covering the new gadgets with cloths and then uncovering them like the showman he was, a gleam in his eye and passion in his voice. We''d then often sit down for a long, long discussion of the present, the future, and industry gossip. I still remember the day he showed me the first iPod. I was amazed that a computer company would branch off into music players, but he explained, without giving any specifics away, that he saw Apple as a digital products company, not a computer company. It was the same with the iPhone, the iTunes music store, and later the iPad, which he asked me to his home to see, because he was too ill at the time to go to the office. Ice Water in Hell For our fifth All Things Digital Conference, both Steve and his longtime rival, the brilliant Bill Gates, surprisingly agreed to a joint appearance, their first extended onstage joint interview ever. But it almost got derailed. Earlier in the day, before Gates arrived, I did a solo onstage interview with Jobs, and asked him what it was like to be a major Windows developer, since Apple''s iTunes program was by then installed on hundreds of millions of Windows PCs. He quipped: ''It''s like giving a glass of ice water to someone in Hell.'' When Gates later arrived and heard about the comment, he was, naturally, enraged. In a pre-interview meeting, Gates said to Jobs ''so I guess I''m the representative from hell.'' Jobs merely handed Gates a cold bottle of water. The tension was broken, and the interview was a triumph, with both men acting like statesmen. When it was over, the audience rose in a standing ovation, some of them in tears. The Walk After his liver transplant, while he was recuperating at home in Palo Alto, Steve invited me to catch up. It turned into a three-hour visit, punctuated by a walk to a nearby park that he insisted we take, despite my nervousness about his frail condition. He explained that he walked each day, and that each day he set a farther goal for himself, and that, today, the neighborhood park was his goal. As we were walking and talking, he suddenly stopped, not looking well. I begged him to return to the house, noting that I didn''t know CPR and could visualize the headline: ''Helpless reporter lets Steve Jobs die on the sidewalk.'' But he laughed, and refused, and, after a pause, kept heading for the park. We sat on a bench there, talking about life, our families, and our respective illnesses. (I had had a heart attack some years earlier.) He lectured me about staying healthy. And then we walked back. Steve Jobs didn''t die that day, to my everlasting relief. But now he really is gone, much too young, and it is the world''s loss. Walter S. Mossberg 苹果产品发展史2011 年 07 月 07 日 11:47:41
在过去30多年里，苹果公司的产品中既有传奇之作也有遗憾败笔。本图集回顾了苹果产品的发展历程。
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