【编者按】威廉希尔app 考试频道小编为大家收集并整理了“2012年翻译英语阅读与翻译：苹果是否已经江郎才尽”，供大家参考，希望对大家有所帮助。
Has Apple Peaked?
If Steve Jobs were still alive, would the new map application onthe iPhone 5 be such an unmitigated disaster? Interestingquestion, isn’t it?
As Apple’s chief executive, Jobs was a perfectionist. He had no tolerance for corner-cutting ormediocre products. The last time Apple released a truly substandard product — MobileMe, in 2008 — Jobs gathered the team into an auditorium, berated them mercilessly and then got ridof the team leader in front of everybody, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs. Thethree devices that made Apple the most valuable company in America — the iPod, the iPhone andthe iPad — were all genuine innovations that forced every other technology company to playcatch-up.
No doubt, the iPhone 5, which went on sale on Friday, will be another hit. Apple’s halo remainspowerful. But there is nothing about it that is especially innovative. Plus, of course, it has thatnasty glitch. In rolling out a new operating system for the iPhone 5, Apple replaced Google’s mapapplication — the mapping gold standard — with its own, vastly inferior, application, which hasinfuriated its customers. With maps now such a critical feature of smartphones, it seems to be aninexplicable mistake.
And maybe that’s all it is — a mistake, soon to be fixed. But it is just as likely to turn out to be thecanary in the coal mine. Though Apple will remain a highly profitable company for years to come, Iwould be surprised if it ever gives us another product as transformative as the iPhone or the iPad.
Part of the reason is obvious: Jobs isn’t there anymore. It is rare that a company is so completelyan extension of one man’s brain as Apple was an extension of Jobs. While he was alive, that was astrength; now it’s a weakness. Apple’s current executive team is no doubt trying to maintain thesame demanding, innovative culture, but it’s just not the same without the man himself lookingover everybody’s shoulder. If the map glitch tells us anything, it is that.
But there is also a less obvious — yet possibly more important — reason that Apple’s best daysmay soon be behind it. When Jobs returned to the company in 1997, after 12 years in exile, Apple was in deep trouble. It could afford to take big risks and, indeed, to search for a newbusiness model, because it had nothing to lose.
Fifteen years later, Apple has a hugely profitable business model to defend — and a lot to lose. Companies change when that happens. “The business model becomes a gilded cage, andmanagement won’t do anything to challenge it, while doing everything they can to protect it,” says Larry Keeley, an innovation strategist at Doblin, a consulting firm.
It happens in every industry, but it is especially easy to see in technology because things move soquickly. It was less than 15 years ago that Microsoft appeared to be invincible. But once itsWindows operating system and Office applications became giant moneymakers, Microsoft’s entirestrategy became geared toward protecting its two cash cows. It ruthlessly used its Windowsplatform to promote its own products at the expense of rivals. (The Microsoft antitrust trial tookdead aim at that behavior.) Although Microsoft still makes billions, its new products are mainly “me-too” versions of innovations made by other companies.
Now it is Apple’s turn to be king of the hill — and, not surprisingly, it has begun to behave in a verysimilar fashion. You can see it in the patent litigation against Samsung, a costly andcounterproductive exercise that has nothing to do with innovation and everything to do withprotecting its turf.
And you can see it in the decision to replace Google’s map application. Once an ally, Google is nowa rival, and the thought of allowing Google to promote its maps on Apple’s platform had becomeanathema. More to the point, Apple wants to force its customers to use its own products, evenwhen they are not as good as those from rivals. Once companies start acting that way, theybecome vulnerable to newer, nimbler competitors that are trying to create something new, instead of milking the old. Just ask BlackBerry, which once reigned supreme in the smartphonemarket but is now roadkill for Apple and Samsung.
Even before Jobs died, Apple was becoming a company whose main goal was to defend itsbusiness model. Yes, he would never have allowed his minions to ship such an embarrassingapplication. But despite his genius, it is unlikely he could have kept Apple from eventually lapsinginto the ordinary. It is the nature of capitalism that big companies become defensive, while newerrivals emerge with better, smarter ideas.
“Oh my god,” read one Twitter message I saw. “Apple maps is the worst ever. It is like usingMapQuest on a BlackBerry.”
MapQuest and BlackBerry.
Exactly.
如果史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)还在世，iPhone 5新的地图应用程序还会成为这样一场不折不扣的灾难吗?这是个有趣的问题，对吧?
作为苹果公司(Apple)的首席执行官，乔布斯是一个完美主义者。他从来都无法容忍投机取巧或平淡无奇的产品。苹果上一次发布一款很不合格的产品，是2008年的MobileMe。沃尔特•艾萨克森(Walter Isaacson)在《乔布斯传》中写道，当时乔布斯把那个团队叫到礼堂里，无情地斥责了他们，之后当着所有人的面解雇了团队的领导。iPod、iPhone和iPad这三款设备使苹果成为了美国市值最高的公司，它们都是真正的创新，从而迫使其他科技公司尽力追赶。
上周五上市的iPhone5，毫无疑问会成为另一款畅销产品，苹果的光环依然耀眼。但这部手机却没什么特别有创新性的特色。当然，除此之外它还有那个令人讨厌的瑕疵。iPhone 5预装了新版操作系统，苹果用本公司质量低下的地图软件，替换了谷歌(Google)的地图应用程序，后者是地图软件中最优秀的一款。此举激怒了苹果的顾客。地图现在已经成了智能手机的一个关键功能，苹果这样做似乎是一个令人费解的错误。
也许这只不过是个错误，很快就能纠正，但这也可能是一个危险的前兆。尽管苹果在未来几年里仍然能保持很高的盈利，但它要是能再推出一款像iPhone或iPad一样的革新性产品，我会感到惊讶的。
部分原因很明显：乔布斯已经不在了。一家公司完全是一个人头脑的延伸，这并不多见，而苹果公司正是乔布斯的延伸。他在世时，这是个优点;但现在却成了弱点。苹果当前的管理团队，毫无疑问仍然在努力维持同样要求苛刻、追求创新的文化;但现在紧紧盯着每一个人的乔布斯已经不在了，和当时毕竟不一样了。如果地图软件的瑕疵说明了什么，那就是这一点了。
但还有一个不甚明显，却可能更为重要的原因，可以说明苹果辉煌的时刻恐怕快到头了。在乔布斯流亡12年后，于1997年回到苹果时，该公司正深陷泥潭。那时的苹果可以承担巨大的风险，也敢于寻找一种新的商业模式，因为该公司当时已经到了山穷水尽的地步。
15年之后，苹果有了一个利润十分丰厚的商业模式，它需要保卫这种商业模式，而且有着太多不容失去的东西。当一个公司遇到了这种情况，它就变了。Doblin咨询公司创新战略专家拉里•基利(Larry Keeley)说，“那种商业模式已经变成了一个镶金的樊笼，管理层不会做任何事去挑战这种模式，而是会不遗余力地保护它。
这种情况会发生在每一个行业，但在科技产业尤其常见，因为该产业的发展十分迅猛。不到15年前，微软(Microsoft)似乎还是不可战胜的，但Windows操作系统和Office应用程序变成极为赚钱的产品后，微软的整个战略就转变成了保护这两个利润来源。它肆无忌惮地使用Windows平台推广自身的产品，挤压竞争对手。(微软反垄断案件的审判针对的就是这种行为。)尽管微软还是能赚到数十亿美元，但它推出的新产品，主要是效仿其他公司创新，显示“我也行”的产品。
现在，苹果已经成了众人之上的王者，所以并不意外，它也有了非常相似的行为方式。对三星(Samsung)提起专利诉讼，就体现了这种行为方式。这场官司耗资巨大，还会产生消极效果，它与创新完全无关，全部意义仅在于保护自己的利益。
决定替换掉谷歌的地图软件也体现出了这种行为方式。谷歌曾经是苹果的盟友，现在却变成了对手。因此，允许谷歌在苹果的平台上推广其地图产品，就变得让人无法接受了。更重要的是，苹果希望迫使它的客户使用苹果自身的产品，即便它们并没有竞争对手的产品好。一旦企业开始以这种方式做事，就很容易在更新、更敏捷的竞争对手发起的挑战中败北，后者努力创造新事物，而不是继续榨取旧产品。黑莓(Black Berry)就是一个例子，它曾经在智能手机市场上不可一世，然而现在却成了苹果和三星的垫脚石。
即使在乔布斯去世之前，苹果就已经开始了转变，它的主要目标逐渐变成了保卫自己的商业模式。是的，他根本不会允许下属推出如此令人难堪的应用程序。然而，尽管乔布斯是个天才，但他也不太可能让苹果最终免于归于平庸。大公司会变得墨守成规，而更新的竞争对手则会拿出更聪明、更新鲜的创意，这是资本主义的自然规律。
我看到的一条Twitter消息说，“老天爷，苹果地图简直是史上最烂，就像是在黑莓上用MapQuest似的。”
MapQuest和黑莓。
的确如此。