美国国家公共电台 NPR Has Apple Lost Its Innovation Mojo?

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It's hard to overstate how the technology developed by Apple has revolutionized our lives. But fast forward to 2017; innovation now is increasingly coming from other companies. NPR's Laura Sydell looks at the reasons behind that shift.

LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE¹: In 2007, Apple was in its heyday² when CEO Steve Jobs introduced a device that would change everyday life.

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STEVE JOBS: And we are are calling it iPhone.

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Cheering).

JOBS: Today...

UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Applauding).

JOBS: Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.

SYDELL: And it did. For the first time, a mass-produced mobile phone had a touch screen, a music player and an Internet connection, things we now take for granted. Bob Burrough was a software engineer and a manager who worked on the team that helped create the iPhone. Burrough says, under Jobs, everyone at Apple was passionate³ about the products.

BOB BURROUGH: It was all about we're all working towards the same goal. We're all working on the same product. And if there is something that you see that needs to get done, you basically just stepped in and took care of it.

SYDELL: Burrough, who spoke⁴ to NPR via Skype, recalls a time when he was working on the iPod Nano. Just as they were about to ship the first units, Burrough realized that 2,000 of them had been left running, draining the batteries.

BURROUGH: I told the distribution center, look, you need to go pull them back out of the box, shut them down and make sure that the batteries are fully⁵ charged when they come out of the box to go into the customer's hand for the very first time.

SYDELL: But in 2011, the culture of Apple changed after Steve Jobs died and Tim Cook took over as CEO. Burrough says when he noticed something wrong...

BURROUGH: The way that I was expected to deal with it was shut my mouth and do my job and take care of whatever my assigned responsibility was and don't worry about what anybody else is doing.

SYDELL: Burrough believes the culture shift has affected⁶ the products. He left Apple in 2014. Bryson Gardner has similar memories. He worked there for nearly a decade and was one of the team leaders for iPod and iPhone development. He says Jobs encouraged debate about the products, but then he brought it all together.

BRYSON GARDNER: His clarity of vision was very effective. It actually made my job very easy in retrospect⁷.

SYDELL: Gardner says Cook is a more traditional CEO. The company's more hierarchical. Cook brings together his top managers and builds consensus⁸. And Gardner thinks Apple is also a victim of the iPhone's success, which brings in about 70 percent of the company's revenue.

GARDNER: Looking historically at Apple, there was more equal importance across a lot of the product lines and more opportunity to push into new spaces. One of the challenges is how do you manage the iPhone in relation to all the other technologies that you could be doing?

SYDELL: Arguably, Apple has made innovations with its watch, Apple Pay and its fingerprint⁹ security. But many analysts¹¹ say Amazon's Echo, a speaker device that responds to voice commands, Microsoft Surface, which competes with the Mac, and now Samsung's Galaxy¹² S8 smartphone with its high-end screen are having much more impact on consumers. To James McQuivey, an analyst¹⁰ at Forrester Research, Apple risks going down the same path as Sony Electronics, which once dominated the market for portable music players.

JAMES MCQUIVEY: As recently as 2000, people were still talking about the Walkman and what a big innovation that was. Well, you don't hear people talk about Sony like that anymore.

SYDELL: Apple could still turn it around. It is the most valuable company in the world. But many of Apple's users and fans are still hoping that the company can find a way to wow them once again with its innovation. Laura Sydell, NPR News.

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1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 heyday   

n.全盛时期，青春期

参考例句：

• The 19th century was the heyday of steam railways.19世纪是蒸汽机车鼎盛的时代。
• She was a great singer in her heyday.她在自己的黄金时代是个了不起的歌唱家。

3 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

6 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

7 retrospect   

n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯

参考例句：

• One's school life seems happier in retrospect than in reality.学校生活回忆起来显得比实际上要快乐。
• In retrospect,it's easy to see why we were wrong.回顾过去就很容易明白我们的错处了。

8 consensus   

n.(意见等的)一致，一致同意，共识

参考例句：

• Can we reach a consensus on this issue?我们能在这个问题上取得一致意见吗？
• What is the consensus of opinion at the afternoon meeting?下午会议上一致的意见是什么？

9 fingerprint   

n.指纹；vt.取...的指纹

参考例句：

• The fingerprint expert was asked to testify at the trial.指纹专家应邀出庭作证。
• The court heard evidence from a fingerprint expert.法院听取了指纹专家的证词。

10 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

11 analysts   

分析家，化验员( analyst的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• City analysts forecast huge profits this year. 伦敦金融分析家预测今年的利润非常丰厚。
• I was impressed by the high calibre of the researchers and analysts. 研究人员和分析人员的高素质给我留下了深刻印象。

12 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。