高级商务英语1,UNIT 4 翻译

When Steve Jobs walked on to the stage at San Francisco‟s Yerba Buena Center in January, it capped the most remarkable comeback in modern business history.

今年1月，史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)走上旧金山芳草地艺术中心(Yerba Buena Center)的舞台发布iPad，完成了现代商业史上最引人注目的一次复出。

It wasn‟t simply a matter of the illness that had sidelined him for half the year before, leaving him severely emaciated and eventually requiring a liver transplant. Little more than a decade earlier, both Mr Jobs‟ career and Apple, the company he had

co-founded, were widely considered washed up, their relevance to the future of technology written off both in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street.

这不仅仅关乎半年前迫使他退居幕后的疾病。病魔一度令乔布斯严重消瘦，最终不得不进行肝脏移植手术。而就在十多年前，几乎所有人认为乔布斯的事业及其共同创立的苹果公司(Apple)已经走上绝路。硅谷和华尔街都断定，它们已经与科技的未来无缘。

By the start of this year, however, the rebound was complete. The level of anticipation whipped up in advance of the January event was unusual even by Mr Jobs‟ own, impressive standards.

然而，到了今年初，苹果已然重生。在1月份的发布会之前，即使是按照乔布斯自己的苛刻标准衡量，外界对苹果的期望程度也是异乎寻常的。

Critics often talk disparagingly of the “reality distortion field” generated by the Apple boss: his ability to convince onlookers that technologies that would seem unformed in other hands have reached a peak of perfection at Apple. Generating this suspension of disbelief is essential to stirring up demand for gadgets most consumers had no idea they needed, and is an art form of which Mr Jobs has long been the acknowledged master.

批评者总是用贬抑的口吻谈论乔布斯创造的“现实扭曲场”：他能让观众信服，那些在其他厂商手中似乎尚未成形的技术已经被苹果完美地应用。为了激起消费者购买他们自己也不知道是否真正需要的电子产品的欲望，打消他们的疑虑极其关键，而乔布斯则早就被公认为这种艺术形式的大师。

Speculation had been building in the tech world for months about what was rumoured to be Apple‟s latest

ground-breaking product. A touch-screen computer without a keyboard, it might even rival the impact of the iPod, introduced in 2001, and the iPhone, in 2007. In the event, the iPad that Mr Jobs carried on to the stage with him that day did not disappoint.

在iPad发布之前的数月内，科技界对苹果这款最新的突破性产品猜测纷纷。据传它是没有键盘的触摸屏电脑，甚至可以媲美2001年的iPod和2007年的iPhone带来的影响。在1月份的发布会上，乔布斯带上台的iPad 没有让人们失望。

A rebuttal of F. Scott Fitzgerald‟s much-quoted aphorism that there are no

对于F•斯科特•菲茨杰拉德(F. Scott Fitzgerald)广为流传的名言（美国人的生命

second acts in American life does not come more decisively than this. When Steven Paul Jobs first hit the headlines, he was younger even than Mark Zuckerberg is now. Long before it was cool to be a nerd, his formative role in popularising the personal computer, and Apple‟s initial public offering on Wall Street – which came when Mr Jobs was still only 25 –made him the tech industry‟s first rock star. 中没有第二幕）而言，没有比这更坚决的反驳了。乔布斯首次登上报纸头条时，甚至比现在的马克•扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)还要年轻。早在书呆子备受追捧之前，由于在普及个人电脑(PC)中发挥的关键作用，以及苹果在华尔街的成功上市（当时乔布斯年仅25岁），乔布斯就成为了科技界的第一个摇滚明星。

Now, three decades on, he has secured his place in the foremost ranks of the West Coast tech titans who have done so much to shape the world around the turn of the millennium. Long-time nemesis Bill Gates may be richer and, at his peak, arguably exerted greater sway, thanks to his monopoly over the world‟s PC software. But the Microsoft co-founder has left the stage to devote his life and fortune to good works. It is Mr Jobs who now holds the spotlight.

如今，三十年过去了，乔布斯成为了在塑造世纪之交的世界中居功至伟的美国西海岸的几大科技巨头之一。他的老对手比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)或许更富有，而且在盖茨的事业巅峰时期，凭借其在PC软件领域的垄断，可以说盖茨的影响力比乔布斯更大。但盖茨已经离开了舞台，将其余生和财富奉献给慈善事业。如今，乔布斯才是焦点所在。

Of all the fingers that Apple has poked into Microsoft‟s ey es over the years, none can have rankled as much as the early success of the iPad. Mr Gates himself championed a tablet computer nearly a decade ago, though the stylus needed to write on its screen and the PC-like interface generated little demand.

这些年来，在苹果针对微软的所有打击中，没有一次比得过iPad的巨大成功造成的冲击。近十年前，盖茨自己也开发过一款平板电脑，但由于需要用笔在屏幕上写字，并且采用与PC一样的界面，该产品并未带动多少需求。

The iPad is already turning out to be a different story. Extending the iPhone‟s innovations of a more versatile screen and lightweight “apps” designed for specif ic tasks, it points to a future beyond the computer mouse – and a world without Windows. Sales of cheaper notebook computers are already suffering.

iPad则完全不同。iPad延续了iPhone 在屏幕多用途以及用于具体任务的轻量级“应用程序”方面的创新，代表着一个没有计算机鼠标和没有Windows的未来。廉价上网本的销售已经受到了冲击。

It is not a vision that is universally welcomed among the digerati. By deciding which apps are available in its online store, and setting the rules for how those apps are developed, Apple rules this new kingdom

不是所有数字专家都欢迎这样的未来。通过操纵在线商店销售的应用程序，以及为开发这些应用制定规则，苹果对这个新王国的控制更胜于微软对PC的控制。