乔布斯传 第170期:图形用户界面之争(3)

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乔布斯提议两人一起出去好好走走，一般他想要进行严肃谈话的时候都会如此。

They trekked¹ the streets of Cupertino, back and forth² to De Anza college,

他们在库比蒂诺的街道上走了很久，在迪安扎学院来来回回，

stopping at a diner and then walking some more.

他们停下一起吃了晚饭，然后又接着往前走。

"We had to take a walk, which is not one of my management techniques," Gates said.

“我们不得不边走边说，但这并非我所擅长的，”盖茨说道，

"That was when he began saying things like,

“这时候他开始说，

'Okay, okay, but don't make it too much like what we're doing.'"

‘好吧，好吧，只是你们别搞得太像我们做的东西了。’”

As it turned out, Microsoft wasn't able to get Windows 1.0 ready for shipping³ until the fall of 1985.

事实上，微软直到1985年秋季才发布Windows 1.0操作系统。

Even then, it was a shoddy product.

即便如此，它仍然是一款劣质产品。

It lacked the elegance⁴ of the Macintosh interface⁵,

它缺乏麦金塔界面的优雅，

and it had tiled windows rather than the magical clipping of overlapping⁶ windows that Bill Atkinson had devised.

窗口平铺；相比之下，麦金塔采用的是比尔·阿特金森设计的神奇的重叠窗口。

Reviewers ridiculed⁷ it and consumers spurned⁸ it.

因此，评论家嘲笑它，消费者唾弃它。

Nevertheless, as is often the case with Microsoft products, persistence⁹ eventually made Windows better and then dominant¹⁰.

然而，就像微软的其他产品一样，Windows操作系统因为他们的不懈努力，后来主宰了整个操作系统领域。

Jobs never got over his anger.

乔布斯从未走出这场愤怒。

"They just ripped us off completely, because Gates has no shame," Jobs told me almost thirty years later.

“他们完完全全盗用了我们的东西，因为盖茨没有廉耻。”事情发生近30年后，乔布斯这样对我说。

Upon hearing this, Gates responded,

盖茨得知后，回应道：

"If he believes that, he really has entered into one of his own reality distortion fields."

“如果他觉得自己说的是事实，那么他还真是走进了自己的现实扭曲力场。”

In a legal sense, Gates was right, as courts over the years have subsequently ruled.

从法律意义上来说，盖茨没错，多年来，此案的法律裁决都判定盖茨无错。

And on a practical level, he had a strong case as well.

而在现实情况中，盖茨的说法也很合理。

Even though Apple made a deal for the right to use what it saw at Xerox¹¹ PARC,

尽管苹果公司签署了合同，有权使用自己在施乐PARC看到的东西，

it was inevitable¹² that other companies would develop similar graphical interfaces¹³.

但其他公司也必然会开发出相似的图形界面。

As Apple found out, the "look and feel" of a computer interface design is a hard thing to protect.

正如苹果公司所发现的，无论在法律上还是现实中，计算机界面设计的“外观和感觉”都很难受到保护。

And yet Jobs's dismay was understandable.

不过，乔布斯的沮丧之情也可以理解。

Apple had been more innovative¹⁴, imaginative, elegant in execution, and brilliant in design.

苹果公司一直以来在执行上更富创新，更有想象力，也更有品位，而且他们的设计也更好。

But even though Microsoft created a crudely copied series of products,

但是，虽然一开始微软只做出了一系列粗制滥造的复制品，

it would end up winning the war of operating systems.

它最终还是臝得了操作系统之争。

This exposed an aesthetic¹⁵ flaw in how the universe worked:

这一事实说明世界并非完美：

The best and most innovative products don't always win.

最好最创新的产品并非总是赢家。

A decade later, this truism caused Jobs to let loose a rant¹⁶ that was somewhat arrogant¹⁷ and over-the-top,

这也致使乔布斯在此事十年后对微软大肆批判，虽然他说的话多少有点儿夸张，

but also had a whiff of truth to it.

但也有几分道理。

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste," he said.

“微软唯一的问题就是他们没有品位，一点儿都没有，”他说，

"I don't mean that in a small way.

“并不是狭义上的没有品位，

I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their product."

而是广义上的，他们没有独到的见解，也不会在产品中注入多少文化。

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