果粉必知：“苹果”的11个秘密

英语自学网

The company behind the ubiquitous iPhone and iPad is famously secretive, but there a few little known facts about the California-based company.
　　1 Steve Jobs was adopted and half Syrian
　　Apple’s legendary co-founder and chief executive died in October 2011, but while heading up the company Steve Jobs revealed that he was actually adopted and half Syrian. His biological parents, Joanne Schieble and Syrian immigrant Abdulfattah Jandali met as 23-year-old students at the University of Wisconsin.
　　Jobs was put up for adoption in 1955, through pressure from Schieble’s parents. Schieble and Jandali later married and had a daughter, Jobs’ biological sister.
　　2 Apple’s first computer was satanically priced
　　Apple’s first computer, the Apple I, was priced at $666.66. Steve Wozniak apparently priced it without realising that the triple-six configuration had Satanic connotations, instead pricing it at one-third over the wholesale price of $500, and preferring one repeating digit over 667 because it was "easier to type".
　　3 Apple ships everything by air, not sea
　　Apple is Cathay Pacific’s biggest freight customer, as it prefers to move most of its stock by air instead of boat. The benefit is being able to move stock quickly rather than cheaply, with stock moved from China to the US in 15 hours instead of 30 days. It means that less money is tied up in stock (normally on credit) before it can be sold on.
　　It also means that phones, tablets and computers all worth in excess of ￡500 each are not sitting in a container at sea which might sink or get hijacked.
　　4 A Macintosh is an apple variety
　　The Apple Macintosh is so called because the macintosh was Jef Raskin’s favourite variety of Apple.
　　At the time it was just a codename, which Steve Jobs reportedly tried to change to “bicycle” while Raskin was out of the office, but Macintosh stuck until the end of product development and made it onto the box.
　　5 Apple’s hero shots aren’t computer generated
　　The big, glossy super-high-resolution photos of Apple’s latest products in adverts and on its site are not computer generated. Instead, they are a painstaking blend of hundreds of high resolution, super-close up photos all with narrow depths of field.
　　The individual images are stitched together, in a similar way to high dynamic range photography which blends photos with different exposures, into one massive, ultra-high-resolution image entirely in focus.
　　6 Steve Wozniak is still an Apple employee
　　Apple co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak set up the company in 1976 with Steve Jobs in his garage. He no longer actively works for Apple, but is still officially an Apple employee and receives a stipend estimated to be worth $120,000 a year.
            
            

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　　7 Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow
　　Steve Jobs’ last words were "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow" while looking over the shoulders of his family, according to his sister Mona Simpson, who allowed the eulogy she gave at Jobs‘ memorial service to be published in the New York Times.
　　8 Apple had three founders
　　Apple was founded in 1976 by three people, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.
　　Ronald drew the first Apple logo, wrote the original partnership agreement and the Apple I computer manual, but sold his 10% stake two weeks in for just $800 because of concerns over debt.
　　That same stake would have been worth over $35bn today.
　　9 Thank Ive for the white iPod
　　Steve Jobs was opposed to the idea of white products initially, but was convinced to use white as Apple’s primary colour for its products by Apple’s designer Sir Jony Ive.
　　In Ive’s recent biography, former Apple designer Doug Satzger has said that Jobs was only won over by white when shown a different shade called “moon grey”.
　　Ive’s love for white originated long before he joined Apple, right back to the work he produced while still a design student at Newcastle.
　　10 Packaging obsession
　　Apple pays as much attention to its packaging as it does to its products. So much so, that it has a dedicated secret packaging room within its headquarters in Cupertino, California.
　　Packaging designers spend countless hours opening boxes within this special room, attempting to elicit the correct emotional response in customers opening new products for the first time. In his book, Inside Apple, Adam Lashinsky describes the level of obsession and attention to detail Apple commits to packaging:
　　“One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colours, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular designer's obsession.”
　　11 Balls
　　In his recent unauthorised biography of Jony Ive, author Leander Kahney included a photo of an iMac G4 inside its box. The stem connecting the screen to the domed base is encased in polystyrene, with the two ball-shaped speakers carefully and very deliberately placed either side of the shaft. The idea of arranging them to look like male genitals was apparently the idea of the design team.
　　For good measure, the book also features a high school photo of Ive, arguably the world's most famous designer and tastemaker, with a very impressive mullet.
            
            

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　　相关内容
　　1. 史蒂夫·乔布斯童年被领养，且有一半叙利亚血统。
　　苹果公司联合创办人、前行政总裁史蒂夫·乔布斯于2011年10月逝世。据相关消息显示，乔布斯童年曾被收养，而且有一半叙利亚的血统。乔布斯的亲生母亲是乔安妮·席贝尔（Joanne Schieble），亲生父亲是从叙利亚移民到美国的阿卜杜拉法塔赫·詹达利（Abdulfattah Jandali ），他们相识于威斯康星大学，当时他们还是23岁的大学生。
　　但因为女方父母对这桩恋情的强烈反对，乔布斯最终于1955年被送去领养家庭。席贝尔和詹达利后来也结婚了，并育有一女，也就是乔布斯的亲妹妹。
　　2. 第一代苹果机价格的秘密。
　　第一代苹果机“Apple I”标价666.66美元，史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克显然没有意识到这个由5个6组成的数字背后所具有的“邪恶涵义”，他只是想让定价比批发价500美元高出1/3。定这个价格的另一个原因是，一个重复数字要比667“更易输入”。
　　3. 所有的苹果产品都通过航空运输，而不是海运。
　　苹果是国泰航空最大的货运客户，苹果公司向来通过航空运输派送货物，而不是海运。相比于更廉价的运货方式，苹果选择了更快捷的运货途径，因此送到中国的货物就可以在15天内而不是30天内到达。这意味着在售出之前，库存冻结的资金更少。
　　这也意味着，每一台手机、平板和电脑都具有超过500美元的价值，而不是在茫茫大海上一只集装箱里面临着沉没或被抢劫的危险。
　　4. “麦金塔”是一种苹果的名字。
　　“麦金塔”（Macintosh）是苹果个人电脑的一个系列，根据该项目发起人杰夫·拉斯金最爱的苹果品种而命名。
　　一开始“麦金塔”只是一个项目代号而已。据相关报道称，乔布斯曾试图在拉斯金不在公司的时候将其改为“自行车”（bicycle）。但“麦金塔”最终还是被保留了下来，并出现在大小包装盒上。
　　5. 苹果产品的效果图并非计算机生成的图形。
　　广告和柜台上那些超大高清的苹果宣传图并非是计算机生成的。相反，那些图片是由数百张高清、微距、小景深拍摄的照片经过繁琐复杂的拼接制成的。
　　把数百张实物照片拼到一起的方法类似于高动态范围成像技术——以完全相同的焦点把曝光不同的照片混合到一张超大、超高清的图片里。
　　6. 史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克还是苹果的员工。
　　苹果公司的联合创始人“沃兹”（沃兹尼亚克的绰号）1976年在自家车库与乔布斯创立了苹果公司。目前他仍是苹果的正式员工，并且享受一份每年约12万美金的固定津贴。
　　7. 噢，哦，噢，哦，噢，哦
　　乔布斯的妹妹莫纳·辛普森（Mona Simpson）同意将自己的悼词公开发表在《纽约时报》上。根据悼词所言，乔布斯在最后时刻一直望着家人，最后的遗言是“噢，哦，噢，哦，噢，哦”。
　　8. 苹果有三位创始人。
　　苹果公司由三位创始人于1976年创立，分别是史蒂夫·乔布斯、史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克和罗纳德·韦恩。
　　韦恩绘制了第一个苹果的商标，撰写了最初的合作契约和第一代苹果机的使用手册。但是韦恩在苹果成立2周后就因负债累累而以800美元卖掉了10%的股份。
　　那10%的股份在今天的价值将超过350亿美元。
　　9.伊夫的白色iPod
　　最初乔布斯反对使用白色作为苹果公司所有产品的基本色，但最终被设计师乔纳森·伊夫说服。
　　在最近出版的伊夫的传记中，前苹果设计师道格·萨茨格（Doug Satzger）说，乔布斯被说服的唯一原因是伊夫提出了一个叫做月光灰（Moon Gray）的设计理念。
　　从伊夫在纽卡斯尔上学时设计的作品来看，他在加入苹果之前就超爱白色。
　　10. 包装控
　　苹果不仅重视产品的研发生产，对产品的外包装也同样精益求精，以至于在加利福尼亚州库比蒂诺市的苹果公司总部里，甚至有一间神秘的包装专用间。
　　在这间特殊的房间里，设计师们无数次拆开产品外包装，试图使消费者在第一次拆开包装时能收获最好的情感体验。《苹果内幕》（Inside Apple）的作者亚当·拉辛斯基（Adam Lashinsky）曾在书中描述过苹果公司对于包装的执着。
　　“一次又一次，设计师们似乎没完没了地设计和测试不同的箭头标识、不同的颜色，甚至是告诉消费者该如何揭开iPod上边完全密封的透明塑料的小小标签。这些挑剔的设计师对完美有着不懈的追求。
　　11. 球形
　　由利安德·卡尼(Leander Kahney)所撰写的《乔纳森·伊夫：苹果伟大产品背后的天才》一书中收录了一张iMac G4的照片。iMac G4的主机是聚苯乙烯制的半球体，球面顶端连接着显示器，两侧精致地放着两个球形的喇叭。这种类似男性生殖器的外观似乎反映了苹果设计团队的理念。
　　此外，传记中还收录了一张伊夫高中时代的照片。这位公认的世界最著名的设计师和时尚制造者少时留着一头蓬松的乱发，这种发型有个名字叫做“乌鱼头”(Mullet)。