What does the last week mean for the Microsoft vs. Apple wars?People sure like to talk about the competition between these two companies–which makes sense, since it's been going on for at least thirty years–but it's really been pretty quiet in recent years. Microsoft has had a monopoly on PCs under $1000, and Apple has had one on PCs over $1000, and they've both made lots of money. (And Apple has sprinted ahead on the mobile front, where Microsoft is still lacing its running shoes.) Between last week's Windows 8 peek and yesterday's news, though, the two companies are coming back into existential conflict. Microsoft is trying to reinvent Windows into a post-PC operating system. Apple is giving iOS, its post-PC operating system, a level of autonomy formerly reserved for PCs. What the two companies are doing is simultaneously oddly similar and wildly different. (More thoughts to come on this.)
上周对于“微果大战”意味着什么？人们对于这两家公司之间的竞争一直以来都津津乐道——都争了三十几年了，这也见怪不怪——但是近年来人们开始对这个话题失去兴趣了。微软是1000美元以下个人电脑市场的枭雄，而苹果则是1000美元以上市场的翘楚，并且两个企业都赚得盆满钵满（而且苹果在手机领域拔得头筹，而微软则还在摸爬滚打）。上周，微软Windows 8和苹果技术会议两个焦点事件再次将两家公司带到了风口浪尖。微软致力于将Windows系统引入后电脑时代，而苹果则致力于赋予其后电脑时代iOS操作系统以可以媲美电脑的自动化。两家公司所做的事情出奇的一致却又南辕北辙（这一点值得深思）。
Will iCloud…work? Syncing is one of the toughest problems in personal technology; I'm not sure if anyone's ever nailed it. And Steve Jobs acknowledged that MobileMe isn't exactlyproof that Apple knows how to get it right. John Gruber of Daring Fireball points out that Apple isn't calling what iCloud does “syncing,” and that the version of a file that Apple is storing on its servers is the definitive one. That version will just get pushed out to devices as necessary. That should help. But even if you don't consider iCloud to be syncing, it's the single most ambitious moving-data-around-between-devices service to date. If it works without meaningful hiccups, it'll be quite an accomplishment.
iCloud有用吗？同步问题是个人技术方面的一大难题；我不确定是否真的有人做到过。乔布斯自己也承认Mobile Me无法证明苹果已经具备这样的技术实力。约翰•格鲁伯指出，苹果并没有把iCloud的功能称为“同步”，苹果服务器所采用的文件存储格式特征明显。必要时这一文件格式可以被输出。这一点有文章可做。但是，即使你认为iCloud的功能谈不上同步，这的确是设备间数据传输的重要一步。如若流畅度能得到保障的话，它会成为一项了不起的成就。
Do people want the file system to go bye-bye? At the keynote, Steve Jobs explained that the company is working vigorously to eliminate the need for a file system of the sort that personal computers have had ever since the first ones with floppy disks arrived. He was talking about iOS, but iCloud starts to nibble away at the edges of the traditional file system on Macs and PCs, too. My impulse was to think “but I like the file system.” And then I thought “maybe it's an inconvenience I only think I like because I don't know better.”
人们真打算和文件系统说拜拜了吗？昨天会上，乔布斯表示苹果竭力取消自第一台电脑出现时便与个人电脑如影随形的文件系统。他说的是iOS，但是iCloud已经开始蚕食Mac和个人电脑的文件系统。而我想说的是“可是我挺喜欢文件系统的”。但是转念一想，“我大概只是自认为很喜欢它罢了，因为我对这个问题懂的不多。”
Why is Lion only $29? It looks like a pretty meaty upgrade. Certainly far more so than Snow Leopard–I'm provisionally more excited by it than I was by Leopard, which was $129. Maybe Apple figures it's a good idea to get it on as many Macs as possible to increase the chances of people buying lots of software from the Mac App Store?
为什么Lion系统只卖29美元？看起来这次系统升级挺有料，至少比雪豹系统有料多了——Lion系统带给我的激动程度远胜于标价129美元的雪豹系统。难道是因为苹果忽然意识到购买Mac的人越多，Mac应用程序的销路就越好？