iPad专题.docVIP

iPad专题 Lex专栏：大放异彩的iPad Tech takes tablets 英国《金融时报》 Lex专栏 /story/001036222? Filler of stockings, saviour of publishing, compulsory accessory for the self-respecting executive: tablets are hard to ignore, as is the company that in 2010 finally made them a success: Apple. 它是装在袜子里的圣诞礼物，它是出版业的救星，它是自视甚高的高管必需的配饰。人们很难忽视平板电脑，也无法忽视今年最终让平板电脑取得成功的那家公司——苹果(Apple)。 Between unveiling the iPad in April and New Year抯 eve next week, the company will have sold about 14m of its new toy, the most successful product launch in Apple抯 history (it took more than three years for iPods to sell at the same rate). But beyond the immediate impact to Apple抯 share price, the arrival of tablets marks the culmination of a long anticipated trend: convergence. 从今年4月发布之日起，到新年前夜，苹果的iPad销量将达到1400万部，成为该公司历史上发布最为成功的产品（iPod达到同等销量花了3年多）。但除了对苹果股价的直接影响，iPad的问世还标志着一个人们期待已久的一个趋势——趋同性——达到了顶点。 Assuming that the next version of the iPad contains a camera, there are now marked technological similarities among many types of devices: music players, phones, tablets and laptops. Indeed, this commonality has helped Apple expand its product lines with comparatively little research and development spending. 假设iPad的下一个版本包含照相功能，那么如今的很多种设备在技术上都具有明显的相似性：音乐播放器、手机、平板电脑和笔记本电脑。实际上，这种共性使得苹果只需投入相对较少的研发支出，就拓展了产品系列。 The convergence is good for Apple, but is a threat to some established supply chains and manufacturers. Few anticipated the rapid move to flash-based storage or the sale of software via app stores. Estimates for PC sales five years hence require far more guesswork than before, because the extent to which tablets replace laptops is unknown (although likely considerable). 趋同性对于苹果有利，但对于一些老牌供应商和制造商却是威胁。很少有人预料到，市场会如此之快转向基于闪存的存储设备，或通过应用软件在线商店来销售软件。因此，要预计未来5年个人电脑的销量，要比以前更费脑子，因为平板电脑将在多大程度上取代笔记本电脑仍是一个未知数（尽管可能会很可观）。 Yet Apple could also be threatened by convergence. For now, tablets are constrained by what is effectively smartphone software, so they remain largely consumption devices. A tablet operating system that allo