本文摘要：SAN FRANCISCO — For Apple, the hard part — making a smartwatch — is nearly over.旧金山——对苹果(Apple)来说，无以的那部分早已相似尾声——也就是作出一款智能手表。

SAN FRANCISCO — For Apple, the hard part — making a smartwatch — is nearly over.旧金山——对苹果(Apple)来说，无以的那部分早已相似尾声——也就是作出一款智能手表。Soon it will be time for the harder part: selling the long-anticipated Apple Watch to consumers who, so far, are not very excited about the idea of wearing computers on their bodies.迅速它要面临更加无以的一部分：把外界盼望已幸的Apple Watch卖给消费者，而到目前为止，人们并不是很热衷在身上穿着一台电脑。

The first batch of smartwatches from companies like Samsung Electronics, Motorola and LG did not sell well, nor were they particularly well reviewed. And wearable devices like the Google Glass eyewear that got mainstream attention — if not sales — were greeted with considerable skepticism.三星电子(Samsung Electronics)、摩托罗拉(Motorola)和LG等公司首度发售的第一批智能手表销量不欠佳，获得的评价也一般。像谷歌眼镜(Google Glass)这样的可穿着设备获得了普遍注目——销量有可能就是另一回事了——但也受到相当多的批评。But Apple has been in this situation before. Most consumers didn’t care about computer tablets before Apple released the iPad, nor did they generally think about buying smartphones before the release of the iPhone. In both cases, the company overcame initial skepticism.这不是苹果第一次面临这样的局面。在他们发售iPad前，大多数消费者对平板电脑没什么兴趣，发售iPhone前，考虑到卖智能手机的人也不多。

这两个例子里，公司都解决了最初的批评。The Apple Watch, which Apple introduced last September and is expected to be in stores in April, is a miniature computer worn around the wrist, with a touch screen and a crown for navigating the device. There are three different models sold at different prices and the bands are interchangeable.苹果在去年9月发售的Apple Watch，预计将在4月下架销售，它是一个戴着在手腕上的微型电脑，备有一块触摸屏和一个用作设备界面导航系统的表冠。一共有价格不一的三种型号，表带可以替换。Apple has marketed it as a device that can appeal to a range of customers like fitness buffs and luxury watch collectors. But it has limited its functions, making it more like a watch, more easily relatable than a tech doodad that happens to look like a watch, said Ben Bajarin, a consumer technology analyst for Creative Strategies.苹果对这种设备的市场定位很广，从健美狂人到奢华腕表藏家都是目标受众。

但是创新策略公司(Creative Strategies)消费科技分析师本·巴加林(Ben Bajarin)说道，苹果对其功能展开了容许，好让它更加像一块手表，让人更容易相似，而不只是一个恰巧长得像表的高科技玩物。“This is a brand-new category. Most people have no frame of reference with a smartwatch,” said Mr. Bajarin.“这是一个全新的产品门类。面临一块智能手表，多数人是没标准可参考的，”巴加林说道。

In late February, Apple sent out invitations to the media for an event to remind people about the best features of the watch and share some new details about the product, according to two people with knowledge of the event. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, is expected to be the host.2月底，苹果向媒体收到了一份活动邀请函，据两个理解该活动内情的人说道，它的目的是重温这款手表的最重要特性，并共享更好的细节。预计活动将由苹果首席执行官蒂莫西·D·库克(Timothy D. Cook)主持人。Apple is expected to say more about price. The starting price for a basic Apple Watch is $350. Apple has not yet said how much people will have to pay for higher-end models, like the Apple Watch Edition, which is made of 18-karat gold, though watch enthusiasts estimate that it will cost upward of $10,000.苹果可能会透漏更加多定价方面的信息。

Apple Watch基础款的价格是350美元（约合2200元人民币）。苹果仍未宣告高端型号的定价，比如用于了18K黄金的Apple Watch Edition，不过手表爱好者估算它的售价应当相似1万美元。

The watch requires a connection to an iPhone to fully operate.手表必须和一台iPhone相连才能用于所有功能。Inside Apple, members of the team that worked on the watch product, code-named Gizmo, say it was a difficult engineering challenge. Three employees briefed on the project agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.手表产品在苹果内部的项目代号为Gizmo，其研发团队成员说道，它在工程上带给了不利挑战。三名理解该项目的苹果雇员拒绝电子邮件拒绝接受专访。In an effort to maintain secrecy, engineers testing the watch outside the office even created fake casing that made the Apple device resemble a Samsung watch, one person said.其中一人说道，为了保密，在办公室以外的地方测试手表的工程师甚至制作了假表壳，好让这个苹果设备看起来像一块三星手表。

The people who created the watch have been described by Apple employees as an “all-star team.” Apple’s top designers and engineers who worked on its iPhone, iPad and Macs are all part of it, several Apple employees said. Top executives include Jony Ive, Apple’s head of design; Jeff Williams, the head of operations; and Kevin Lynch, a former Adobe executive, who leads the watch’s software development.苹果雇员称之为负责管理手表研发的是一个“全明星团队”。多位苹果雇员回应，团队中有参予过iPhone、iPad和Mac研发的苹果顶尖设计师和工程师。其高管还包括苹果设计主管乔尼·艾夫(Jony Ive)；运营主管杰夫·威廉姆斯(Jeff Williams)；前奥多比公司(Adobe)高管、负责管理手表软件开发的凯文·林奇(Kevin Lynch)。

Employees said it was challenging to cram powerful chips and sensors onto the watch’s circuit board, which is as tiny as a postage stamp.苹果雇员说道，手表的电路板只有一张邮票那么大，要把强劲的芯片和传感器塞进去是很艰难的。Nearly two years ago, the company experimented with advanced health monitoring sensors that tracked blood pressure and stress, among other variables. Many of those experiments were abandoned more than 18 months ago after the sensors proved unreliable and cumbersome, these people said.将近两年前，公司曾尝试用于高级身体健康监测传感器，用作追踪血压和精神压力等等因素。这些雇员说道，几个月后一些传感器经证明还过于可信，而且很轻巧，许多实验因此被退出了。

Apple long ago decided that for the first version of the product, it would include a heart rate sensor and a sensor for tracking movement, to market the device as a fitness-tracking companion to the iPhone. It also has a chip that helps it make wireless payments.苹果早就要求在手表的首个版本中要用于心率传感器和运动追踪传感器，这样就可以将它作为因应iPhone的身体健康追踪工具来推展。表内还有一个可以无线缴纳的芯片。Battery life was also a concern on a device so small, and engineers mulled over how the watch’s power should be replenished. The company in the past experimented with multiple methods to recharge the watch, including solar charging. Eventually it settled with induction, a method in which an electrical current creates a magnetic field, which creates voltage that powers the watch.对于如此小巧的设备，电池寿命也是个问题，工程师们对手表的电池方式有过很多考虑到。

苹果实验了多种电池方式，还包括太阳能电池。最后还是要求用电磁感应，用电流产生一个磁场，磁场进而产生电压用作电池。

Apple has said the watch battery is estimated to last a full day, requiring a user to charge it at night, similar to a smartphone. The company also developed a yet-to-be-announced feature called Power Reserve, a mode that will run the watch on low energy but display only the time, according to one employee.苹果称之为手表的电池大约能保持一整天，用户必须每天晚上电池，和智能手机类似于。据一位雇员称之为，公司还研发了一种仍未发布的“蓄能”(Power Reserve)特性，让手表可以在低电量情况下运转，但只表明时间。

Apple will release the watch a bit later than it had hoped because of technology challenges. It probably didn’t help that several important employees jumped ship. Nest Labs, the smart appliance maker that was acquired by Google last year, poached a few engineers who were the very best on the watch team, according to two people. Among them was Bryan James, Apple’s former director of iPod software, who became a vice president for engineering at Nest in early 2014, these people said.由于在技术上遇到困难，手表的发布会比苹果预期的晚一些。而多名最重要雇员的辞职堪称雪上加霜。有两人透漏，去年被谷歌(Google)并购的智能家电制造商Nest Labs挤到了手表团队中的几名最杰出成员。其中还包括苹果前iPad软件总监布莱恩·詹姆斯(Bryan James)，两人说道他在2014年初沦为Nest的工程副总裁。

Still, when Apple releases its watch in April, it will enter a market already flooded with smartwatches running Android Wear, a version of Google’s Android software system tailored for wearable computers.此外，等到苹果在4月发售手表时，市场早已围观了各种运营Android Wear的智能手表，后者是谷歌Android软件系统的一个自定义版，专用于可穿着电脑。The results so far for Android smartwatches have been disappointing. About 720,000 smartwatches with Android Wear were shipped in 2014, according to Canalys, the research firm.Android智能手表的销售数据，目前来看是令人沮丧的。据研究机构卡纳利斯公司(Canalys)的数据，2014年Android Wear智能手表出货量为72万块。Daniel Matte, an analyst for Canalys, said based on those numbers, it would be premature to call smartwatches a flop. He also predicts Apple’s watch will become the top-selling smartwatch next year.卡纳利斯分析师丹尼尔·迈特(Daniel Matte)说道，从这样的数据来看，说道智能手表早已告终过分草率。

此外他还预测苹果的手表在明年将沦为最热销的智能手表。But it is unlikely to be a game-changer for Apple, at least anytime soon. Toni Sacconaghi, a financial analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein research, thinks the watch will make only a modest contribution to Apple’s bottom line this year. He predicts that Apple will ship 7.5 million watches in the second half of Apple’s fiscal year.但它不太可能沦为苹果的一个划时代产品，最少短时间内会。桑福德·伯恩斯坦公司(Sanford C. Bernstein)金融分析师托尼·萨克纳吉(Toni Sacconaghi)指出，手表在今年苹果的业绩中将只占到较小一部分。

他预测苹果在本财年下半年的手表出货量为750万块。That is peanuts compared with the tens of millions of iPhones that fly off the shelves every quarter.这跟季度销量在千万级的iPhone比一起只是零头。Companies that make watch apps will probably play an important role in defining the purpose of the Apple Watch, similar to the app developers for the iPhone and the iPad.制作手表应用于的公司，可能会是要求Apple Watch用途的一股最重要力量，和应用于开发者在iPhone、iPad的发展中充分发挥的起到类似于。

Tero Kuittinen, a director for Frank N. Magid Associates who does consulting for app developers, said he had talked to about 20 app developers about the Apple Watch. Most of them, he said, were “cautiously optimistic.” But they worry apps for watches won’t be as lucrative as apps for phones because the tiny screen can limit features or — even worse — ads.为应用于开发商获取咨询服务的弗兰克·N·马吉德公司(Frank N. Magid Associates)董事泰罗·库伊蒂宁(Tero Kuittinen)说道，他早已和约20个应用于开发商讲过Apple Watch。他说道多数人都抱着“慎重悲观”的心态。但他们担忧手表应用于会像手机应用于那么赚，因为小屏幕不会容许功能，更糟的是还不会容许广告。David Barnard, an independent app developer, said he was expanding one of his iPhone apps to work with the Apple Watch. The app, called Launch Center Pro, can be customized to initiate different actions like setting the temperature of an Internet-connected thermostat or unlocking a door.独立国家应用于开发者戴维·巴纳德(David Barnard)说道，他正在把他的一个iPhone应用于扩展到Apple Watch上。

该应用于叫作Launch Center Pro，可以自定义各种操作者，比如原作联网温控器的温度，或关上门锁。He said he was both “bullish” on the long-term potential of the smartwatch and “skeptical” about what exactly people would do with it.他说道他对智能手表的未来前景是“看涨的”，但对人们到底用它来做到什么心存“困惑”。

“I really wonder exactly how I’m going to use it and how often I’m going to use it,” Mr. Barnard said.“我知道不告诉我会怎么去用它，用于的频率不会有多低，”巴纳德说道。

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