離開喬布斯的蘋果真心無力續航?
Confession: I was one of the more than 200 sources Yukari Iwatani Kane interviewed for Haunted Empire, the new book about Apple's transition from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook that arrived Tuesday to largely negative reviews.
首先要交代一下，由於《困境中的帝國：後喬布斯時代的蘋果》(Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs)一書的緣故，尤加利•伊瓦塔尼•凱恩已經接受了200多次採訪，我僅僅是其中之一。這本新書講述了在後喬布斯時代，由蒂姆•庫克執掌的蘋果公司(Apple)究竟發生了哪些變化。這本書上週二一面市馬上遭遇了大量的負面評價。I've known since last summer -- and agreed to keep silent about -- the arc of her story. Kane told me in July that she went into the two-year project thinking that if any company could survive the loss of its visionary leader, Apple (AAPL) could. But she came out of it concluding that the company's best days were behind it. Far behind. Not even Jobs, she said, could restore Apple to its former greatness. Tim Cook, his handpicked successor, didn't have a chance.
早在去年夏天，我就知道了她的故事梗概，但我一直信守保持沉默的承諾。凱恩在7月份告訴說，她在啓動這個爲期兩年的寫作計劃時認爲，如果只有一家公司能夠在失去有遠見的領導者之後繼續生存下去，那就是蘋果公司。但寫完這本書後，她得出一個結論：這家公司最輝煌的歲月已經過去了。一去不復返。她說，就算喬布斯死而復生，他也不能帶領蘋果公司重現昔日榮耀，更遑論他親自挑選的接班人蒂姆•庫克。
I was intrigued. I knew Kane's byline from the three years she spent covering Apple from the Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau, where she scored some impressive scoops. Chief among them: The front-page news (reported with Joann Lublin) that Steve Jobs had a secret liver transplant in the spring of 2009. This was a reporter who knew how to follow a chain of sources from the periphery of a story to its center. If she had the goods about Apple in the post-Jobs era, I was eager to see them.
我很好奇。我對凱恩的瞭解源自她在《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)舊金山分社工作期間對蘋果公司持續3年的追蹤報道，其中不乏一些令人印象深刻的獨家新聞，其中最著名的當屬那篇頭版新聞（與喬安•盧布林合作），曝光史蒂夫•喬布斯曾在2009年春天做過一次祕密的肝臟移植手術。這是一位知道如何追蹤線索鏈，從一個故事的外圍直達核心的記者。如果她掌握了一些關於後喬布斯時代的蘋果公司的乾貨，我很想一睹爲快。
I've read the book. And I'm sorry to say that it doesn't deliver.
我已經讀完了這本書。非常抱歉，我覺得它不夠好。There is some good reporting in the first third -- the part that covers the last three years of Jobs' life. But as the Guardian's Charles Arthur points out, the last two thirds are infected with an almost toxic bias, a kind of writerly tick that turns everything Kane sees and hears into further evidence that Apple is doomed.
《困境中的帝國》的前三分之一主要講述喬布斯最後三年的生活，寫得還不錯。但正如《衛報》(the Guardian)的查爾斯•亞瑟所指出的那樣，這本書的後三分之二充斥着一種幾乎帶有毒性的偏見。凱恩用一種精巧的寫作手法，把她看到和聽到的一切都轉化爲彰顯蘋果公司難逃失敗宿命的證據。Ultimately, Kane's attitude undermines her credibility as a reporter. The book is peppered with conclusions that feel like they were reached before the facts were in.
最終，凱恩的這種態度破壞了她作爲一位記者的信譽。書中穿插的結論讓人覺得她還沒有列舉、分析事實，就先入爲主地下了定論。"A decline was inevitable," she writes in her Epilogue, painting Apple's rise and fall in mythical terms:
“衰落不可避免，”她在後記中寫道，並採用神話體描繪了一番蘋果公司的興衰史：The story follows an archetypal pattern—a pattern familiar in both history and myth. A struggling empire, on the brink of dissolution, recalls one of its founders from exile and casts him as a savior. The ruler, ruthless and cunning as Odysseus, gathers the faithful and emboldens them to take startling risks that allow the empire to reach even greater heights than before. Amid the celebrations, the emperor grows sick. Knowing that he is the living embodiment of his kingdom's fortunes, he tries to hide his illness until he is finally forced to accept that he is not immortal. Left to carry on in his name, the emperor's lieutenants fall prey to complacency and confusion, lapsing into disarray and paralysis. Bound to the way things have always been done, these new leaders become less flexible and ignore the warning signs. Their emperor is gone, but ever present. Though they are still at war with enemy armies, these lieutenants cannot find their own way forward. They are tired. They are uncertain. The well of ingenuity has run dry.
這個故事遵循着一個在歷史和神話中常見的模式。一個陷於困境、瀕臨解體的帝國召回了一位在外流亡的創始人，把他封爲救世主。這位猶如奧德修斯般無情和狡猾的統治者將忠誠的部下們召集在一起，激勵他們大膽冒險，放手一搏。這個帝國很快就迎來了前所未有的輝煌歲月。隨後，被一片慶賀聲包圍的皇帝生病了。皇帝深知他自己是帝國命運的鮮活象徵，於是就嘗試着掩飾自己的病情，直到他終於被迫接受一個事實：他不是長生不老的神仙。皇帝歸天后，以他之名延續帝國事業的副官們墜入了自滿和迷茫之中，整個帝國隨即亂作一團，動彈不得。這些束縛於昔日運營方式的新任領導人變得不那麼靈活，忽略了業已出現的警告信號。皇帝已經永遠地離開了他們，但他的魂魄依然無處不在。儘管這些副官仍然在與敵軍作戰，但他們無法靠自己開闢一條前行的道路。他們累了，對一切都不那麼確定。巧奪天工的創意之源已經乾涸。She may be right. But the fact is we don't actually know. And because Yukari Kane didn't manage after two years of reporting to get to the center of the story, neither does she.
她說的可能沒錯。但事實是，我們確實不知道蘋果公司未來的命運。由於凱恩耗費兩年時間也未能抵達故事的核心，她其實也不知道。Serious students of Apple Inc. may want to read this book for the fresh details she adds to the growing literature on the subject. But there are three other recent books they'll want to read first:
論述這個主題的著作猶如汗牛充棟，而且數量還在不斷增長。那些正在認真研究蘋果公司的人們或許希望在這本書中找到凱恩發掘出的新鮮細節。但我建議他們還是先讀讀近期出版的另外三本著作：Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs, for its unparalleled access to the book's reclusive subject.
沃爾特•艾薩克森的《喬布斯傳》(Steve Jobs)。推薦理由：對於這位深居簡出的主人公，作者的接觸次數和了解程度是其他人望塵莫及的。Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple, for what he learned about the company's internal structure.
亞當•拉辛斯基的《蘋果解密》(Inside Apple)。推薦理由：作者對這家公司內部結構進行了深入分析。Leander Kahney's Jony Ive, for what it reveals about Apple's processes for creating new products.
利恩德•卡尼的《喬納森•艾維》(Jony Ive)。推薦理由：這本書披露了蘋果公司創造新產品的流程。
