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纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英iPhone为何中国制造

January 22, 2024   23 min   4746 words

随手搬运西方主流媒体的所谓的民主自由的报道,让帝国主义的丑恶嘴脸无处遁形。

2010年中国河南省的一个工作招聘会上,应聘者蜂拥在富士康科技公司的展台前。
2010年中国河南省的一个工作招聘会上,应聘者蜂拥在富士康科技公司的展台前。 Donald Chan/Reuters

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

去年2月 ,巴拉克·奥巴马在加州与硅谷的各位顶尖名人共进晚餐。按照这次晚宴的规矩,每位客人都得向总统提一个问题。

 在中国,林丽娜(音)是PCH International的一个项目经理。该公司和苹果签有合同。"有很多工作机会,"她说。“特别是在深圳。”
在中国,林丽娜(音)是PCH International的一个项目经理。该公司和苹果签有合同。"有很多工作机会,"她说。“特别是在深圳。” Thomas Lee for The New York Times

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

然而,轮到苹果公司的史蒂芬·P·乔布斯(Steven P. Jobs)说话的时候,奥巴马总统却用自己的问题打断了他:要在美国生产iPhone的话,需要满足什么样的条件呢?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

没多久之前,苹果公司还吹嘘自己的产品都是“美国制造”。今天,美国制造的苹果产品已经少之又少。苹果公司去年售出了7000万部iPhone、3000万台iPad和5900万台其他产品,这些产品几乎都是在海外制造的。

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

干嘛不把这些工作拿回来做呢?奥巴马先生问道。

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

乔布斯先生的回答毫不含糊。按照另一位在座嘉宾的说法,乔布斯的回答是:“这些工作是不会回来的。”

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

总统的问题触及了苹果公司的一个核心信念。苹果的做法不光是因为外国工人比较便宜。更重要的是,苹果公司管理层认为,外国工厂的巨大规模,以及外国工人的灵活性、勤勉精神和工业技能,全都远远地超过了美国同侪。这样一来,对于大多数的苹果产品来说,“美国制造”已经不再是一个可行的选择。

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

苹果公司已经成为全球最知名、最受人崇敬、最多人仿效的企业之一,原因之一就是它毫不手软地实施着高水平的全球运作。去年,苹果公司员工创造的人均利润超过了40万美元,令高盛(Goldman Sachs)、埃克森美孚(Exxon Mobil)和谷歌(Google)相形见绌。

However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.

然而,让奥巴马先生、各位经济学家和各位决策人士着恼的是,说到为美国创造工作机会的问题,苹果公司跟它的许多高科技同行一样,远不像其他一些鼎盛时期的著名公司那么热心。

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

苹果公司在美国有四万三千名雇员,并有两万名海外雇员。20世纪50年代的通用汽车公司(General Motors)雇用了超过40万美国工人,20世纪80年代的通用电气(General Electric)也拥有数十万美国员工,与之相比,苹果公司的员工数目只是一个零头。为苹果的外包商打工的人却要比这多得多:苹果员工之外,另有70万人在设计、制造和组装iPad、iPhone和其他苹果产品。不过,这些人的工作地点几乎都不在美国。恰恰相反,他们的雇主是亚洲、欧洲和其他地方的外国公司,几乎所有的电子产品设计商都要靠他们服务的厂家来制造产品。

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

直到去年还在担任白宫经济顾问的杰瑞德·伯恩斯坦(Jared Bernstein)说,“今天的美国很难创造出适合中产阶级的工作机会,苹果公司的做法就可以说明原因何在。如果说苹果公司代表着资本主义巅峰状态的话,我们就该担惊受怕了。”

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

苹果管理层宣称,走向海外是他们在目前阶段的惟一选择。按照一位前苹果管理人员的讲述,离iPhone预定上架日期只有数周的时候,苹果公司靠一家中国工厂帮忙才完成了生产计划。原因在于苹果公司临时改变了iPhone屏幕的设计,不得不对装配线进行全面调整。将近午夜的时候,新的屏幕才陆续运抵装配工厂。

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

根据这位管理人员的说法,厂里的一名工头立刻叫醒了公司宿舍里的八千名工人,给每名工人发了一包饼干和一杯茶,吩咐他们前往车间。不到半个钟头,往倾斜放置的手机外壳上安装玻璃屏幕的12小时工作班次宣告开始。不到96个小时,那家工厂就已经在以日产一万多台的速度生产iPhone了。

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

这位管理人员说,“那家工厂的速度和灵活性令人咋舌,没有哪家美国工厂能跟它相提并论。”

Similar stories could be told about almost any electronics company — and outsourcing has also become common in hundreds of industries, including accounting, legal services, banking, auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

几乎所有的电子公司都讲得出类似的故事,“外包”也已经成为数百个行业的通行做法,会计、法律服务、银行、汽车制造和制药行业都是如此。

But while Apple is far from alone, it offers a window into why the success of some prominent companies has not translated into large numbers of domestic jobs. What’s more, the company’s decisions pose broader questions about what corporate America owes Americans as the global and national economies are increasingly intertwined.

苹果公司虽然远远算不上个例,但却为我们提供了一个窗口,我们可以从中窥见,一些杰出公司的成功表现为什么没有衍生大量的国内工作机会。除此之外,这家公司的种种决策还引出了一个更为深广的问题,在全球经济与国内经济日益融合的今天,美国企业对美国国民负有什么样的责任。

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

直至去年9月还是美国劳工部首席经济学家的贝特西·史蒂文森(Betsey Stevenson)说,“美国公司曾经觉得自己有责任支持美国工人,即便这并不是财务上的最佳选择。这样的观念已然不复存在,利润和效率压倒了慷慨的情操。”

Companies and other economists say that notion is naïve. Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.

各家公司以及其他一些经济学家纷纷表示,前述观念实属天真幼稚。公司高管们指出,美国人虽然居于世界上教育程度最高的工人之列,但美国的培训工作已经跟不上形势,再也不能为各家工厂提供足够数量的中等技术工人了。

To thrive, companies argue they need to move work where it can generate enough profits to keep paying for innovation. Doing otherwise risks losing even more American jobs over time, as evidenced by the legions of once-proud domestic manufacturers — including G.M. and others — that have shrunk as nimble competitors have emerged.

各家公司辩称,要想兴旺发达,他们就只能把工作转移到那些利润足以维持不断创新的地方。如其不然,假以时日,美国的工作机会还有进一步减少的风险。例证便是包括通用在内的众多美国制造业巨头,它们曾经豪气干云,后来却纷纷缩水,因为市场上出现了一些身手灵活的竞争者。

Apple was provided with extensive summaries of The New York Times’s reporting for this article, but the company, which has a reputation for secrecy, declined to comment.

《纽约时报》向苹果公司提供了本篇报道的详细纲要,然而,以行事隐秘著称的苹果公司拒绝就此发表评论。

This article is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former Apple employees and contractors — many of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs — as well as economists, manufacturing experts, international trade specialists, technology analysts, academic researchers, employees at Apple’s suppliers, competitors and corporate partners, and government officials.

本篇报道基于大量访谈,采访对象包括近40名离职或现职苹果员工及外包商,其中多人都要求隐去姓名,怕的是丢掉工作。此外,报道的采访对象还包括一些经济学家、制造业专家、国际贸易专家、技术分析家、学术研究人员、苹果供应商员工、竞争对手、合作伙伴以及政府官员。

Privately, Apple executives say the world is now such a changed place that it is a mistake to measure a company’s contribution simply by tallying its employees — though they note that Apple employs more workers in the United States than ever before.

苹果公司的一些管理人员私下表示,鉴于世界形势已经急剧改变,仅以员工数目来衡量企业贡献是一种错误的做法。他们同时指出,苹果在美国的工人数目比以往任何时候都要多。

They say Apple’s success has benefited the economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. And, ultimately, they say curing unemployment is not their job.

他们说,苹果的成功给创业者带来了商机,并在手机运营商以及苹果产品承运人之类的企业里催生了更多的工作机会,由此推动了美国经济。他们还说,说到底,消除失业并不是他们的事情。

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

苹果公司的一位现职管理人员说,“我们在100多个国家销售iPhone,并没有义务解决美国的问题。我们只有一个义务,那就是推出最好的产品。”

‘I Want a Glass Screen’

“我想要玻璃屏幕”

In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores, Mr. Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket.

2007年,离iPhone预定的上架时间还有一个月出头,乔布斯先生把一小群僚属召进了一间办公室。几个星期以来,他兜里一直都揣着一部iPhone样机。

Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen, according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his keys from his jeans.

据一名与会者回忆,乔布斯先生气冲冲地举起了样机,调整着样机的角度,好让大家都看到塑料屏幕上的几十条微小划痕。这之后,他把自己的钥匙从牛仔裤兜里掏了出来。

People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.”

他告诉与会者,人们都会把手机揣在兜里,还会把钥匙装进去。“我不愿意出售会有划痕的产品,”他疾言厉色地说。这一来,惟一的办法便是代之以不会产生划痕的玻璃。“我想要玻璃屏幕,这件事情必须在六周之内办好。”

After one executive left that meeting, he booked a flight to Shenzhen, China. If Mr. Jobs wanted perfect, there was nowhere else to go.

与会的一名管理人员走出房间,订了一张去深圳的机票。既然乔布斯先生提出了“办好”的要求,那就只能到深圳去。

For over two years, the company had been working on a project — code-named Purple 2 — that presented the same questions at every turn: how do you completely reimagine the cellphone? And how do you design it at the highest quality — with an unscratchable screen, for instance — while also ensuring that millions can be manufactured quickly and inexpensively enough to earn a significant profit?

两年多的时间里,苹果公司一直在开发这个代号为“紫色2”(Purple 2)的项目,同样的一些问题在项目的每个阶段反复浮现:怎样才能彻底颠覆原有的“手机”概念?怎样才能设计出一款质量最上乘——比如说,带有不会划花的屏幕——的手机,同时确保公司能以足够低廉的成本迅速推出数以百万计的产品、由此赚取丰厚的利润呢?

The answers, almost every time, were found outside the United States. Though components differ between versions, all iPhones contain hundreds of parts, an estimated 90 percent of which are manufactured abroad. Advanced semiconductors have come from Germany and Taiwan, memory from Korea and Japan, display panels and circuitry from Korea and Taiwan, chipsets from Europe and rare metals from Africa and Asia. And all of it is put together in China.

几乎是在每一次讨论当中,问题的答案都出现在美国之外。iPhone的组件虽然因型号而异,所有的iPhone却都包含着数百个零件,在海外生产的零件估计占总数的90%。高科技半导体来自德国和台湾,内存来自韩国和日本,显示屏和电路板来自韩国和台湾,芯片组来自欧洲,稀有金属来自非洲和亚洲,组装的地点则是中国。

In its early days, Apple usually didn’t look beyond its own backyard for manufacturing solutions. A few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, for instance, Mr. Jobs bragged that it was “a machine that is made in America.” In 1990, while Mr. Jobs was running NeXT, which was eventually bought by Apple, the executive told a reporter that “I’m as proud of the factory as I am of the computer.” As late as 2002, top Apple executives occasionally drove two hours northeast of their headquarters to visit the company’s iMac plant in Elk Grove, Calif.

创业之初,苹果公司通常只会在自家后院里寻找代工厂。举例来说,该公司于1983年推出了个人台式电脑Macintosh,数年之后,乔布斯先生曾经吹嘘它是“真正美国制造的机器”。1990年,乔布斯先生还在打理后来被苹果收购的NeXT公司。当时他曾经告诉一名记者,“我为我们的电脑自豪,同样为我们的工厂自豪。”迟至2002年,苹果公司的高层都还会时不时地开车往总部的东北方向走上两个小时的车,到加州的埃克格鲁夫(Elk Grove)去视察公司的iMac工厂。

But by 2004, Apple had largely turned to foreign manufacturing. Guiding that decision was Apple’s operations expert, Timothy D. Cook, who replaced Mr. Jobs as chief executive last August, six weeks before Mr. Jobs’s death. Most other American electronics companies had already gone abroad, and Apple, which at the time was struggling, felt it had to grasp every advantage.

然而,进入2004年的时候,苹果公司已经把大部分的生产工作转到了国外。主导这一决策的人是苹果公司的运营专家蒂莫西·D·库克(Timothy D. Cook)。去年8月,乔布斯先生去世六周之前,他接替乔布斯先生当上了苹果的首席执行官。2004年的时候,大多数美国电子公司已然转向海外,正在挣扎求生的苹果公司由是认为,自己必须用上所有的有利条件。

In part, Asia was attractive because the semiskilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn’t driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.

亚洲之所以诱人,部分原因是那里的半熟练工人比较便宜。不过,吸引苹果公司的并不是这一点。对于高科技公司来说,支出的大头是零件采购和管理来自数百个公司的组件及服务供应链,与之相较,人力成本可谓微不足道。

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

一名苹果公司前高管说,按照库克先生的看法,聚焦亚洲的决策“可以归结为两个原因”。亚洲的工厂“扩大或缩小规模的速度比较快”,与此同时,“亚洲的供应链也比美国强”。这名前高管说,由此而来的结果就是“在这一阶段,我们没法跟别人竞争”。

The impact of such advantages became obvious as soon as Mr. Jobs demanded glass screens in 2007.

2007年,乔布斯先生提出关于玻璃屏幕的要求之后,上述条件的优越性立刻变得一目了然。

For years, cellphone makers had avoided using glass because it required precision in cutting and grinding that was extremely difficult to achieve. Apple had already selected an American company, Corning Inc., to manufacture large panes of strengthened glass. But figuring out how to cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens required finding an empty cutting plant, hundreds of pieces of glass to use in experiments and an army of midlevel engineers. It would cost a fortune simply to prepare.

多年以来,手机生产商一直不愿意使用玻璃屏幕,因为它需要精确的切割和打磨,达到标准的难度非常之大。苹果公司已经选定美国的康宁公司(Corning Inc.)来生产大块的强化玻璃板。然而,要想把玻璃板切成数以百万计的iPhone屏幕,那就得找到一家空闲的切割工厂、数百块实验用的玻璃板以及一大帮中级技师。光是准备工作就得消耗一大笔资金。

Then a bid for the work arrived from a Chinese factory.

就在这时,一家中国工厂跑来投标,要求承揽这项工作。

When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

苹果的考察小组赶到那家中国工厂的时候,厂主们已经开始兴建新厂房了。一名前苹果公司管理人员回忆,厂长的解释是,“这是在提前做准备,免得你们的订单让我们措手不及”。此前中国政府已经承诺为许多产业提供成本补贴,那家玻璃切割工厂也从中分了一杯羹。他们有一间装满玻璃样品的仓库,可以向苹果公司提供免费样品。厂主们还答应提供技师,几乎不需要费用。他们已经建起了厂内宿舍,员工可以24小时随叫随到。

The Chinese plant got the job.

那家中国工厂拿到了订单。

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”

另一名前苹果高管说,“整条供应链如今都在中国。需要1000个橡胶垫圈吗?隔壁就有这样的工厂。需要100万个螺丝钉吗?厂子就在一个街区之外。需要对螺丝钉做一点小小的改动吗?三个小时就可以办到。”

In Foxconn City

走进“富士康城”

An eight-hour drive from that glass factory is a complex, known informally as Foxconn City, where the iPhone is assembled. To Apple executives, Foxconn City was further evidence that China could deliver workers — and diligence — that outpaced their American counterparts.

距那家玻璃厂8小时车程的地方是一大片俗称“富士康城”(Foxconn City)的建筑,iPhone的装配线就在那里。在苹果管理层看来,富士康城进一步证明了一个事实:中国有能力提供比美国同行更好的工人,勤勉的态度也超过美国。

That’s because nothing like Foxconn City exists in the United States.

原因在于,美国根本找不出像富士康城这样的东西。

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.

这片厂区有23万员工,其中许多人都是每周工作6天,一天的工作时间经常会达到12小时。超过四分之一的富士康员工住在公司的宿舍里,许多工人的日薪都不到17美元。一名苹果管理人员曾经在换班的时候进入工厂,他的轿车卡在了川流的员工之中。“这样的规模真是难以想象,”他说。

Foxconn employs nearly 300 guards to direct foot traffic so workers are not crushed in doorway bottlenecks. The facility’s central kitchen cooks an average of three tons of pork and 13 tons of rice a day. While factories are spotless, the air inside nearby teahouses is hazy with the smoke and stench of cigarettes.

富士康雇了将近300名保安来引导步行的人流,免得工人堵在门口的狭窄区域。厂区的主食堂平均每天消耗3吨猪肉和13吨大米。厂房虽然一尘不染,附近的茶馆里却弥漫着烟雾和臭烘烘的烟草味道。

Foxconn Technology has dozens of facilities in Asia and Eastern Europe, and in Mexico and Brazil, and it assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics for customers like Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Samsung and Sony.

富士康科技公司(Foxconn Technology)在亚洲、东欧、墨西哥和巴西拥有数十家工厂,组装的电子消费品估计占世界总量的40%,客户都是亚马逊(Amazon)、戴尔(Dell)、惠普(Hewlett-Packard)、摩托罗拉(Motorola)、任天堂(Nintendo)、诺基亚(Nokia)、三星(Samsung)和索尼(Sony)之类的公司。

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

詹妮弗·瑞格尼(Jennifer Rigoni)担任苹果公司全球供需经理至2010年,但却拒绝谈论自己的工作细节。她说,“他们可以在一夜之间雇来三千人。哪家美国工厂能在一夜之间雇来三千人、说服他们住进宿舍呢?”

In mid-2007, after a month of experimentation, Apple’s engineers finally perfected a method for cutting strengthened glass so it could be used in the iPhone’s screen. The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones. Within three months, Apple had sold one million iPhones. Since then, Foxconn has assembled over 200 million more.

2007年中期,做了一个月的实验之后,苹果公司的技师最终拿出了一个完善的办法,可以把强化玻璃板切割成适合iPhone的屏幕。据一名前苹果公司管理人员所说,夜深人静的时候,运送第一批玻璃屏幕的卡车才抵达富士康城。各位工头立刻叫醒了数千名工人,工人手忙脚乱地穿上制服——男制服是黑白衬衫,女制服则是红色——迅速排成队伍,开始手工组装手机。不到三个月,苹果公司就卖出了100万部iPhone。那之后,富士康又组装了超过2亿部iPhone。

Foxconn, in statements, declined to speak about specific clients.

富士康在声明当中拒绝对具体的客户发表意见。

“Any worker recruited by our firm is covered by a clear contract outlining terms and conditions and by Chinese government law that protects their rights,” the company wrote. Foxconn “takes our responsibility to our employees very seriously and we work hard to give our more than one million employees a safe and positive environment.”

该公司在书面声明当中宣称,“本公司招募的所有员工都签有列明各种条款及工作条件的合同,受到中国劳动法的保护。”富士康“认真履行对员工的责任,努力为百万有余的员工提供安全有益的工作环境”。

The company disputed some details of the former Apple executive’s account, and wrote that a midnight shift, such as the one described, was impossible “because we have strict regulations regarding the working hours of our employees based on their designated shifts, and every employee has computerized timecards that would bar them from working at any facility at a time outside of their approved shift.” The company said that all shifts began at either 7 a.m. or 7 p.m., and that employees receive at least 12 hours’ notice of any schedule changes.

富士康对那名前苹果管理人员讲述的一些细节提出了异议,并在书面声明当中指出,所谓的午夜班根本不可能存在,“因为我们为不同班次员工的工作时间制定了严格的规章,所有的员工都有电子计时卡,根本不可能在规定班次之外的时间进厂工作。”公司还说,所有班次要么是从早上7点开始,要么就是从晚上7 点开始,如果有所变更,公司会提前至少12个小时通知员工。

Foxconn employees, in interviews, have challenged those assertions.

接受采访的时候,富士康的员工对公司的说法提出了质疑。

Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

对苹果公司来说,另一个至关重要的有利条件是中国可以提供大量技师,数目令美国望尘莫及。按照苹果管理层之前的估计,生产iPhone最终要用到20万名装配线工人,需要大约8700名工业技师来承担监督和指导的职责。苹果公司的分析师预计,要想在美国找到这么多的合格技师,所需时间将会长达9个月。

In China, it took 15 days.

到了中国,这件事情只花了15天的时间。

Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.

麻省理工学院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)副教务长马丁·施密特(Martin Schmidt)说,苹果之类的公司“宣称,在美国建厂的难点在于寻找技术工人”。这些公司还说,具体说来,他们需要的技师应该受过超过高中生的教育,但又不是非得拥有学士学位。管理人员们坚称,这种层次的技师在美国非常难找。施密特先生说,“这样的工作相当不错,美国却找不出足够的人来填补这些空缺。”

Some aspects of the iPhone are uniquely American. The device’s software, for instance, and its innovative marketing campaigns were largely created in the United States. Apple recently built a $500 million data center in North Carolina. Crucial semiconductors inside the iPhone 4 and 4S are manufactured in an Austin, Tex., factory by Samsung, of South Korea.

iPhone具有一些美国独有的特色,软件就是其中一例,与此同时,它新颖的营销手段也基本上源自美国。不久之前,苹果公司在北卡罗莱纳建立了一个耗资5亿美元的数据中心。用于iPhone 4和4S的关键性半导体由韩国的三星公司提供,产地则是位于德克萨斯州奥斯丁(Austin)的一家工厂。

But even those facilities are not enormous sources of jobs. Apple’s North Carolina center, for instance, has only 100 full-time employees. The Samsung plant has an estimated 2,400 workers.

但是,以上这些设施并不能提供大量的工作机会。举例来说,苹果的北卡罗莱纳中心只有100名全职员工。据估计,三星的奥斯丁工厂也只有2400名工人。

“If you scale up from selling one million phones to 30 million phones, you don’t really need more programmers,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, who oversaw product development and marketing for Apple until he left in 1990. “All these new companies — Facebook, Google, Twitter — benefit from this. They grow, but they don’t really need to hire much.”

让-路易斯·卡西(Jean-Louis Gassée)曾经负责苹果公司的产品开发和营销,于1990年去职。他说,“即便手机销量从100万部增加到了3000万部,你也用不着更多的程序员。包括Facebook、谷歌和推特(Twitter)在内,所有的新公司都尝到了这种甜头。他们不断成长,但却不需要雇用太多的人。”

It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.

在美国生产iPhone会增加多少成本,相关的数字很难估算。不过,按照多位学者和制造业分析师的估计,由于人力成本对高科技制造业来说微不足道,支付美国标准的薪金会让每部iPhone的成本增加至多65美元。鉴于苹果公司从每部手机收获的利润往往可以达到数百美元,从理论上说,即便在美国生产手机,苹果公司依然可以得到相当不错的收益。

But such calculations are, in many respects, meaningless because building the iPhone in the United States would demand much more than hiring Americans — it would require transforming the national and global economies. Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.

然而,这样的分析从很多方面来说都没有什么意义,原因在于,在美国生产手机的条件远不只是雇用美国人那么简单,还意味着要对美国乃至全球经济进行调整。苹果管理层认为,美国就是没有那么多符合公司需要的工人,也没有速度够快、灵活性够大的工厂。康宁公司之类的苹果合作方也宣称,他们必须走向海外。

Manufacturing glass for the iPhone revived a Corning factory in Kentucky, and today, much of the glass in iPhones is still made there. After the iPhone became a success, Corning received a flood of orders from other companies hoping to imitate Apple’s designs. Its strengthened glass sales have grown to more than $700 million a year, and it has hired or continued employing about 1,000 Americans to support the emerging market.

苹果公司的玻璃订单让康宁公司设在肯塔基州的一家工厂获得了新生,时至今日,用于iPhone的大部分玻璃仍然产于此地。iPhone大获成功之后,康宁公司从急欲模仿苹果设计的各家公司那里接到了一大堆订单。它的强化玻璃年销售额增长到了7亿美元以上。为了满足新起的市场需求,公司雇用了或说是保留了大约1千名美国员工。

But as that market has expanded, the bulk of Corning’s strengthened glass manufacturing has occurred at plants in Japan and Taiwan.

不过,随着市场的扩张,康宁公司已经把大部分的强化玻璃生产任务转到了位于日本和台湾的工厂。

“Our customers are in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China,” said James B. Flaws, Corning’s vice chairman and chief financial officer. “We could make the glass here, and then ship it by boat, but that takes 35 days. Or, we could ship it by air, but that’s 10 times as expensive. So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas.”

康宁公司副主席兼首席财务官詹姆斯·B·弗罗斯(James B. Flaws)说,“我们的客户来自台湾、韩国、日本和中国大陆。我们固然可以在美国生产玻璃,然后再用船运过去,航程却长达35天。我们也可以改用空运,可空运的费用是海运的10倍。既然如此,我们就把玻璃厂开在了那些组装厂的隔壁,那些组装厂都在国外。”

Corning was founded in America 161 years ago and its headquarters are still in upstate New York. Theoretically, the company could manufacture all its glass domestically. But it would “require a total overhaul in how the industry is structured,” Mr. Flaws said. “The consumer electronics business has become an Asian business. As an American, I worry about that, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Asia has become what the U.S. was for the last 40 years.”

161年前,康宁公司在美国诞生,时至今日,它的总部依然位于纽约州北部。理论上说,公司可以把所有的玻璃生产任务放在国内。但是,弗罗斯先生说,这就“需要对整个行业的结构来一次全面调整。电子消费品行业已经变成了亚洲的独门生意。身为美国人,我对这种状况感到担心,可我没办法阻止这样的势头。亚洲已经取代了美国在过去40年当中的地位。”

Middle-Class Jobs Fade

中产阶级工作萎缩

The first time Eric Saragoza stepped into Apple’s manufacturing plant in Elk Grove, Calif., he felt as if he were entering an engineering wonderland.

第一次踏进加州埃克格鲁夫那家苹果工厂的时候,埃里克·萨拉戈萨(Eric Saragoza)恍然觉得,自己走进了一处工程技术的仙境。

It was 1995, and the facility near Sacramento employed more than 1,500 workers. It was a kaleidoscope of robotic arms, conveyor belts ferrying circuit boards and, eventually, candy-colored iMacs in various stages of assembly. Mr. Saragoza, an engineer, quickly moved up the plant’s ranks and joined an elite diagnostic team. His salary climbed to $50,000. He and his wife had three children. They bought a home with a pool.

当时是1995年,这家邻近萨克拉门托(Sacramento)的工厂雇用了超过1500名工人。厂房里面就像是一个万花筒,有各式各样的机械手,有承载着各种电路板的传送带,最后还有处于各个装配流程的花花绿绿的苹果电脑。身为技师的萨拉戈萨先生在厂里的地位迅速攀升,很快就进入了负责诊断产品问题的精英团队,薪水也增加到了5万美元。他和妻子生了三个孩子,还买了一幢带游泳池的房子。

“It felt like, finally, school was paying off,” he said. “I knew the world needed people who can build things.”

他说,“当时的感觉就是,我的学总算是没有白上。我早就知道,这个世界需要会做东西的人。”

At the same time, however, the electronics industry was changing, and Apple — with products that were declining in popularity — was struggling to remake itself. One focus was improving manufacturing. A few years after Mr. Saragoza started his job, his bosses explained how the California plant stacked up against overseas factories: the cost, excluding the materials, of building a $1,500 computer in Elk Grove was $22 a machine. In Singapore, it was $6. In Taiwan, $4.85. Wages weren’t the major reason for the disparities. Rather it was costs like inventory and how long it took workers to finish a task.

与此同时,电子产业却起了变化。由于产品销势每况愈下,苹果公司正在奋力进行自我改造。萨拉戈萨先生入职几年之后,他的老板谈起了加州工厂相对于海外工厂的劣势:刨去原材料不算,在埃克格鲁夫生产一台售价1500美元的电脑需要22美元的成本,在新加坡生产的成本是6美元,台湾则是4.85美元。造成差距的主要原因并不是工资,而是仓储之类的成本,以及工人完成活计的速度。

“We were told we would have to do 12-hour days, and come in on Saturdays,” Mr. Saragoza said. “I had a family. I wanted to see my kids play soccer.”

萨拉戈萨先生说,“老板告诉我们,我们必须每天工作12个小时,星期六也得上班。可我是个有家有口的人,还想看我的孩子们踢足球呢。”

Modernization has always caused some kinds of jobs to change or disappear. As the American economy transitioned from agriculture to manufacturing and then to other industries, farmers became steelworkers, and then salesmen and middle managers. These shifts have carried many economic benefits, and in general, with each progression, even unskilled workers received better wages and greater chances at upward mobility.

现代化的进程总是会让一些工作变化或者消失。美国经济先是从农业转型为制造业,然后又转入其他产业,在此期间,农夫变成了钢铁工人,跟着又变成了推销员或者中层管理人员。这样的转变带来了许多经济效益,总体说来,即便是没有技术的工人也可以通过每一次的转变获得更高的工资,获得更大的上升机会。

But in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly among Americans without college degrees, today’s new jobs are disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities for reaching the middle class.

然而,经济学家们指出,过去20年当中,某种更为根本的东西发生了改变。中等收入的工作开始消失。今天的新工作过多地集中于餐馆职员、接线员、医院护理人员和临时杂工之类的服务性岗位,这些岗位提供不了多少升入中产阶级的机会。对于没有大学学位的美国人来说,情况尤其如此。

Even Mr. Saragoza, with his college degree, was vulnerable to these trends. First, some of Elk Grove’s routine tasks were sent overseas. Mr. Saragoza didn’t mind. Then the robotics that made Apple a futuristic playground allowed executives to replace workers with machines. Some diagnostic engineering went to Singapore. Middle managers who oversaw the plant’s inventory were laid off because, suddenly, a few people with Internet connections were all that were needed.

即便是拥有大学学位的萨拉戈萨先生也抵挡不住这样的势头。刚开始,公司把埃克格鲁夫工厂的一些日常工作交到了海外,萨拉戈萨先生没有在意。接下来,人工智能设备把苹果公司变成了一个未来主义风格的游乐场,也给公司管理层提供了用机器取代工人的机会。公司把一部分的问题诊断工作交给了新加坡。管理工厂库存的中层纷纷下岗,原因在于,公司突然发现,有那么几个连着网的人就够用了。

Mr. Saragoza was too expensive for an unskilled position. He was also insufficiently credentialed for upper management. He was called into a small office in 2002 after a night shift, laid off and then escorted from the plant. He taught high school for a while, and then tried a return to technology. But Apple, which had helped anoint the region as “Silicon Valley North,” had by then converted much of the Elk Grove plant into an AppleCare call center, where new employees often earn $12 an hour.

萨拉戈萨先生身价太高,没法安排不需要技术的工作。与此同时,他又不具备担任高层管理人员的资质。2002年的一次夜班之后,上头把他叫进一间小办公室,辞退了他,然后就让人送他出厂。他教了一阵高中,跟着又尝试重返科技行业。然而,到那个时候,曾经帮助该地区赢得“北方硅谷”美名的苹果公司已经把埃克格鲁夫工厂的大部分改造成了一个售后服务电话中心,新员工的时薪通常只有12美元。

There were employment prospects in Silicon Valley, but none of them panned out. “What they really want are 30-year-olds without children,” said Mr. Saragoza, who today is 48, and whose family now includes five of his own.

硅谷倒是有工作机会,只可惜都没有变成现实。萨拉戈萨先生现年48岁,家里已经有了5个孩子。他说,“他们真正想要的是30来岁、没有孩子的人。”

After a few months of looking for work, he started feeling desperate. Even teaching jobs had dried up. So he took a position with an electronics temp agency that had been hired by Apple to check returned iPhones and iPads before they were sent back to customers. Every day, Mr. Saragoza would drive to the building where he had once worked as an engineer, and for $10 an hour with no benefits, wipe thousands of glass screens and test audio ports by plugging in headphones.

找了几个月工作之后,他产生了绝望的感觉。就连教书的工作也已经无处寻觅了。于是乎,他在一家电子行业临时工介绍所找了个工作,苹果公司雇那家介绍所来检修退回的iPhone和iPad,然后再把机器还给顾客。萨拉戈萨先生每天都要开车去他曾经担任技师的那座大楼,在那里擦洗数以千计的玻璃屏幕、插入耳机以测试音频接口,时薪10美元,没有福利。

Paydays for Apple

苹果公司的发财日子

As Apple’s overseas operations and sales have expanded, its top employees have thrived. Last fiscal year, Apple’s revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the combined state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Since 2005, when the company’s stock split, share prices have risen from about $45 to more than $427.

苹果公司的海外业务及销量膨胀之际,公司高层也大发其财。上一个财政年度,苹果公司的收入高达1080亿美元,超过密歇根、新泽西和马萨诸塞三州预算的总和。2005年拆分股份之后,苹果的股价已经从45美元左右涨到了427美元以上。

Some of that wealth has gone to shareholders. Apple is among the most widely held stocks, and the rising share price has benefited millions of individual investors, 401(k)’s and pension plans. The bounty has also enriched Apple workers. Last fiscal year, in addition to their salaries, Apple’s employees and directors received stock worth $2 billion and exercised or vested stock and options worth an added $1.4 billion.

一部分的财富落到了股东手里。苹果股票是股东最分散的股票之一,高涨的股价让数百万个人投资者、401(k)基金和养老基金从中受益,也让苹果的工人发财致富。上一个财政年度,除了工资之外,苹果的员工和经理还得到了总值超过20亿美元的股票,兑现或生效的股票及期权总值也达到了14亿美元。

The biggest rewards, however, have often gone to Apple’s top employees. Mr. Cook, Apple’s chief, last year received stock grants — which vest over a 10-year period — that, at today’s share price, would be worth $427 million, and his salary was raised to $1.4 million. In 2010, Mr. Cook’s compensation package was valued at $59 million, according to Apple’s security filings.

不过,最大的受益者通常都是苹果公司的高层管理人员。去年,苹果首席执行官库克先生获得了将在10年之内逐步生效的大量赠与股,按现在的股价计算,这些股票的价值是4.27亿美元。除此之外,他的薪水也涨到了140万美元。苹果公司的证券披露材料显示,2010年,库克先生的薪酬包总值为5900万美元。

A person close to Apple argued that the compensation received by Apple’s employees was fair, in part because the company had brought so much value to the nation and world. As the company has grown, it has expanded its domestic work force, including manufacturing jobs. Last year, Apple’s American work force grew by 8,000 people.

一名与苹果公司关联紧密的人士宣称,苹果员工的薪酬是合理的,部分是因为苹果公司为美国乃至全世界创造了如此庞大的价值。随着业务的发展,公司已经扩大了国内员工的规模,包括从事制造业的员工。去年,苹果公司在美国的雇员增加了八千人。

While other companies have sent call centers abroad, Apple has kept its centers in the United States. One source estimated that sales of Apple’s products have caused other companies to hire tens of thousands of Americans. FedEx and United Parcel Service, for instance, both say they have created American jobs because of the volume of Apple’s shipments, though neither would provide specific figures without permission from Apple, which the company declined to provide.

其他公司纷纷将电话中心迁往海外,苹果公司却把自己的电话中心留在了美国。某消息来源估计,苹果产品的销售已经促使其他公司雇用了数以万计的美国人。举例来说,联邦快递(FedEx)和UPS宣称,由于苹果产品带来的巨大运输量,他们都为美国人提供了更多的工作机会。不过,两家公司都不愿意提供具体的数字,说是需要得到苹果公司的许可,与此同时,苹果公司拒绝提供这样的许可。

“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”

苹果公司的一名现职管理人员说,“我们雇用中国工人的做法无可指责,因为美国已经不能提供我们需要的人才了。”

What’s more, Apple sources say the company has created plenty of good American jobs inside its retail stores and among entrepreneurs selling iPhone and iPad applications.

除此之外,苹果方面的消息来源说,公司已经为美国人创造了大量的好工作,有的岗位是在苹果的零售店里,还有的是在销售iPhone和iPad应用软件的商家那里。

After two months of testing iPads, Mr. Saragoza quit. The pay was so low that he was better off, he figured, spending those hours applying for other jobs. On a recent October evening, while Mr. Saragoza sat at his MacBook and submitted another round of résumés online, halfway around the world a woman arrived at her office. The worker, Lina Lin, is a project manager in Shenzhen, China, at PCH International, which contracts with Apple and other electronics companies to coordinate production of accessories, like the cases that protect the iPad’s glass screens. She is not an Apple employee. But Mrs. Lin is integral to Apple’s ability to deliver its products.

做了两个月iPad测试工作之后,萨拉戈萨先生辞了职。按他的盘算,与其忍受这么低的薪水,还不如把时间用来寻找别的工作。不久之前的一个十月夜晚,萨拉戈萨先生坐在自己的苹果笔记本跟前,又在网上发了一轮简历。与此同时,半个地球之外,一位女士走进了自己的办公室。这位女士名叫林丽娜(音译),是PCH国际公司深圳分公司的项目经理,该公司与苹果等电子公司签有合约,负责协调配件生产,比如iPad玻璃屏幕的保护套。林女士不是苹果雇员,但却为苹果的生产能力发挥着不可或缺的作用。

Mrs. Lin earns a bit less than what Mr. Saragoza was paid by Apple. She speaks fluent English, learned from watching television and in a Chinese university. She and her husband put a quarter of their salaries in the bank every month. They live in a 1,080-square-foot apartment, which they share with their in-laws and son.

林女士的工资略少于萨拉戈萨先生受雇于苹果时的工资。通过看电视和中国一所大学的教育,她学会了一口流利的英语。每个月,她和丈夫都会把四分之一的工资存入银行。夫妻俩住在一套108平方米的公寓里,同住的还有儿子和姻亲。

“There are lots of jobs,” Mrs. Lin said. “Especially in Shenzhen.”

“工作机会多得很,”林女士说,“尤其是在深圳。”

Innovation’s Losers

创新浪潮的输家

Toward the end of Mr. Obama’s dinner last year with Mr. Jobs and other Silicon Valley executives, as everyone stood to leave, a crowd of photo seekers formed around the president. A slightly smaller scrum gathered around Mr. Jobs. Rumors had spread that his illness had worsened, and some hoped for a photograph with him, perhaps for the last time.

去年,奥巴马先生与乔布斯先生及其他硅谷高管的那场晚宴临近尾声的时候,所有人都起身准备离开。一群想要合影的人围在了总统身边,乔布斯先生身边也围起了一群规模略小的人。关于他病情恶化的流言已经传开,有些人希望跟他合个影,没准儿是最后一次了呢。

Eventually, the orbits of the men overlapped. “I’m not worried about the country’s long-term future,” Mr. Jobs told Mr. Obama, according to one observer. “This country is insanely great. What I’m worried about is that we don’t talk enough about solutions.”

到最后,两个人走到了一起。按照一名旁观者的叙述,乔布斯先生对奥巴马先生说,“我并不为国家的长远前途担心。这个国家棒极了。我只是担心,我们关于解决方案的探讨不够彻底。”

At dinner, for instance, the executives had suggested that the government should reform visa programs to help companies hire foreign engineers. Some had urged the president to give companies a “tax holiday” so they could bring back overseas profits which, they argued, would be used to create work. Mr. Jobs even suggested it might be possible, someday, to locate some of Apple’s skilled manufacturing in the United States if the government helped train more American engineers.

举例来说,晚宴过程之中,各位高管曾经建议政府修改签证政策,为各家公司雇请外国技师打开方便之门。有些人敦促总统给各家公司一个“税负假期”,好让他们把海外利润转回国内,同时还说,他们会用这些利润来创造工作机会。乔布斯先生甚至提出,如果政府愿意协助培训美国技师的话,有朝一日,苹果兴许会把一部分高技能制造业务迁回美国。

Economists debate the usefulness of those and other efforts, and note that a struggling economy is sometimes transformed by unexpected developments. The last time analysts wrung their hands about prolonged American unemployment, for instance, in the early 1980s, the Internet hardly existed. Few at the time would have guessed that a degree in graphic design was rapidly becoming a smart bet, while studying telephone repair a dead end.

经济学家们就以上及其他一些措施的效用争论不休,同时指出,有些时候,意料之外的发展会为步履艰难的经济带来转机。举例来说,分析师们上一次为美国失业率高居不下而揪心的情形出现在20世纪80年代早期,那个时候,互联网几乎还不存在。当时很少有人能够想到,平面设计学位会迅速成为一个精明的赌注,与此同时,电话修理却会变成一个没有前途的专业。

What remains unknown, however, is whether the United States will be able to leverage tomorrow’s innovations into millions of jobs.

不过,美国能不能把未来的技术革新变成千百万个工作机会,眼下还是个未知之数。

In the last decade, technological leaps in solar and wind energy, semiconductor fabrication and display technologies have created thousands of jobs. But while many of those industries started in America, much of the employment has occurred abroad. Companies have closed major facilities in the United States to reopen in China. By way of explanation, executives say they are competing with Apple for shareholders. If they cannot rival Apple’s growth and profit margins, they won’t survive.

过去10年当中,太阳能、风能、半导体制造以及显示技术方面的技术飞跃已经带来了数以千计的工作机会。这类产业有许多都是发源于美国,由此而来的大部分工作机会却落到了国外。各家公司纷纷关闭在美国的大型设施,为的是在中国重新开张。公司管理层的说辞是,他们这么做,是为了跟苹果争夺投资者。要是增长速度和利润率赶不上苹果的话,他们就无法生存。

“New middle-class jobs will eventually emerge,” said Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist. “But will someone in his 40s have the skills for them? Or will he be bypassed for a new graduate and never find his way back into the middle class?”

哈佛大学的经济学家劳伦斯·凯茨(Lawrence Katz)说,“新的中产阶级工作机会终将出现。可是,那些40多岁的人具备赢得机会的技能吗?他们会不会被刚刚毕业的大学生抢在头里、再也无法回到中产阶级的行列呢?”

The pace of innovation, say executives from a variety of industries, has been quickened by businessmen like Mr. Jobs. G.M. went as long as half a decade between major automobile redesigns. Apple, by comparison, has released five iPhones in four years, doubling the devices’ speed and memory while dropping the price that some consumers pay.

来自多个产业的管理人员纷纷表示,乔布斯先生之类的商人加快了创新的速度。在以前,通用公司要等长达五年的时间才会对车型进行大幅度修改。反观苹果公司,它在4年之内就推出了5款iPhone,手机的速度和内存都翻了倍,针对部分用户的售价却有所降低。

Before Mr. Obama and Mr. Jobs said goodbye, the Apple executive pulled an iPhone from his pocket to show off a new application — a driving game — with incredibly detailed graphics. The device reflected the soft glow of the room’s lights. The other executives, whose combined worth exceeded $69 billion, jostled for position to glance over his shoulder. The game, everyone agreed, was wonderful.

跟奥巴马先生道别之前,乔布斯先生从兜里掏出了一部iPhone,为的是炫耀一款影像效果无比精细的应用软件——一款驾驶游戏。手机反射着房间里的柔和光线,身价总和超过690亿美元的其他高管争先恐后地隔着他的肩膀观赏游戏画面。所有的人众口一词,这款游戏妙不可言。

There wasn’t even a tiny scratch on the screen.

手机屏幕之上,不见丝毫划痕  。