苹果手表反映了时尚与科技的鸿沟

And so it has finally arrived: the long-awaited, much-anticipated Apple Watch. Don’t call it an iWatch; this is a new era, people. OMG! OMG! OMG! And all that.

万众期盼多时的苹果手表终于来了。各位，不要叫它iWatch；它是一个新时代。天哪！天哪！天哪！无数的惊叹。

Because it is Fashion Week, however, and because this is an accessory, I thought it was only fitting – pun intended – that we ask the same question of the wearable (which is another word for clothes, after all) that we ask of the other accessories we see during the week: does it look good on? Is it, finally, a wearables game changer?

不过，既然现在是时装周，而它又是一种配饰，我觉得本周我们对其他配饰所提出的问题也适用于这件可穿戴设备（说到底，“可穿戴”这个词其实也就是衣服的另一种说法）：它戴着好看吗？它能否最终改变可穿戴设备市场的格局呢？

It’s definitely a step forward. But does it rewrite the rules of our aesthetic expectations?

它无疑是向前跨出了一步，但它是否重新书写了我们审美期待的准则呢？

No.

没有。

The big, giant, amazing thing about the Apple Watch, sartorially speaking, is that it looks like … a watch. Not a device.

从服装的角度而言，苹果手表叫人大吃一惊的一面，是它看上去就是……一块表。而不是一种设备。

That is, clearly, an enorMous step forward for a gizmo that has the functionality of the Apple Watch. The two other wearable devices introduced this week at New York Fashion Week – the Samsung Galaxy S and the Intel/Opening Ceremony MICA – look like big bangles in comparison: they have much larger rectangular curved screens embedded in hard plastic, or snakeskin-covered plastic, bands.

让一个小玩意能够拥有苹果手表这样的功能，这显然是巨大的进步。本周的纽约时装周上还推出了另外两件可穿戴设备——三星Galaxy S和英特尔/“开幕式”MICA智能手环，相比而言，它们看上去更像大大的手镯：更大的矩形曲线屏幕镶嵌在硬塑料腕带或覆着蛇皮的塑料腕带上。

The Apple Watch by contrast, has a much smaller, squarer face (it looks a bit like a super chic Nano), framed in stainless steel or aluminum or specially treated super-strong 18-carat gold. It is the first wearable watch to come in two sizes – 38 millimeter and 42 millimeter, presumably for men and women, and it comes in three different lines (Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch Edition, the latter being the most corporate up-market version). It has an enormous number of interchangeable bands that look just like normal watch bands, including leather and stainless-steel bracelets. The only ones it does not seem to offer are evening, or black-tie appropriate, styles. (Which is an oversight to my mind, given that the time a slim, attractive watch/communication device most comes in handy is during an evening event when quick peeks at technology are not appropriate. But maybe that’s just me.)

相比而言，苹果手表的屏幕小得多，接近正方形，看上去有点像非常时尚的苹果Nano，它有不锈钢或铝制边框，或是特别制作的超强18k金边框。它是第一款以38毫米和42毫米两种规格推出的可穿戴设备腕表，两种尺寸分别是为男人和女人设计的，此外还有三个不同版本（苹果手表普通版、苹果手表运动版和苹果手表 Edition版，其中Edition版是最适合商务的高端款）。它有多款可供更换的表带，外观和普通表带差不多，包括皮革款和不锈钢手镯款。唯一没有提供的是晚装款，或者说礼服款（在我看来，这是一种疏忽，在新发明的科技小玩意往往不适合的晚宴场合，一款纤细迷人的腕表/通讯设备才是最用得着的。但或许只有我才这么想）。

Apple is billing the watch as its “most personal device ever,” because aside from all those straps, you can also swap among 11 watch faces (normal, butterfly and Mickey Mouse, for example).

苹果公司说这款腕表是公司“迄今最个性化的设备”，因为除了表带，还可以更换11款表盘，比如普通表盘、蝴蝶图案和米老鼠图案的表盘。

The funny thing is, while I understand why they find this sort of choice extraordinary in the tech world, it’s par for the course in fashion, which points up some of the gulf between the two sectors; What they find revolutionary makes us want to yawn.

有趣的是，我明白他们为什么觉得这样的选择在技术界是非同寻常，但在时尚界却很普通。这反映出技术界与时尚界之间的鸿沟——他们觉得革命性的产品在我们看来乏味得令人想打哈欠。

But back to the watch. It even has a “crown” – that dial on the side of a chronograph that you normally use for winding, but that here acts as a scroll so you don’t have to worry about a fat-fingers problem on a tiny screen.

但我们还是回到这款腕表上来。它甚至还有一个“王冠”，就是表盘一侧的旋钮，这种旋钮通常是用来上发条的，但在这里是用来滚动屏幕，这样即便是粗手指也能操纵小小的触控屏了。

All of which is smart, and slick, and even chic. But it doesn’t make you reimagine the whole concept of how a watch you might wear everyday should look.

这一切都很智能、很巧妙，甚至是很时尚。但不会让你去重新设想“一块每天佩戴的腕表到底应当是什么样的”这个概念。

It makes you reimagine what a watch that you might wear everyday should do. That’s a meaningful distinction.

它会让你重新设想“一块每天佩戴的腕表到底应该能够做什么”。这是一个很重要的区别。

In other words, unlike, say, the iPhone, which resembled no other phone on the market when it appeared, or the iPod, the Apple Watch is firmly in watch aesthetic vernacular – just not other connected watch vernacular. Rather, it speaks the visual language of ye olde-fashioned watches.

换言之，它和iPhone和iPod不一样，iPhone刚出现的时候，和市场上任何其他手机都不一样，而苹果手表严格遵循腕表的美学语汇——而不是其他和腕表有关的语汇。它要以老古董式腕表的视觉语言说话。

Ironic, isn’t it? They had to look backward to go forward.

有点讽刺是不是？要想向前走，他们得先向后看。

Which means, in turn, that the truly mind-boggling bit of all this is the fact that Apple figured out how to fit ALL THAT TECHNOLOGY into that relatively wee bit of hardware. Intel, for example, had to distribute its board throughout the MICA, which is why the bangle is the size that it is.

这也就是说，真正惊人的事实是苹果想到办法把这么多先进技术放在相对较小的硬件之中。至于其他公司，比如说英特尔，得把面板分布在整个MICA手镯上，所以这款手镯才是这种尺寸。

Put another way: the shocking thing, the innovative thing, about the Apple Watch is that it can look as normal as it does while doing all the things it does (including opening hotel doors, if you have the Starwood app).

换句话说：关于苹果手表令人震惊的创新部分是，它可以看上去其貌不扬，却能做各种各样的事（比如说，如果你装了喜达屋国际酒店集团的应用，就可以用它打开酒店房间的门）。

So, while it may indeed change behavior, and may indeed threaten some in Switzerland, I don’t think Patek Philippe should be shivering in its boots.

所以，它可能真的能够改变人们的行为，也可能真的威胁到了一些瑞士手表，但我并不觉得百达翡丽(Patek Philippe)会吓得全身发抖。

Of course, the Apple Watch will start at $349 when it goes on sale next year, and even presuming that the rose-gold version will cost a whole lot more, it probably won’t reach the Patek pricing league. Apple isn’t saying. So Swatch, on the other hand. …

当然，苹果手表将于明年以349美元起售，就算它会推出价格昂贵得多的玫瑰金版本，想必也不会达到百达翡丽的价位。苹果公司没有说。所以，大概是斯沃琪(Swatch)吧……