沒人需要蘋果iWatch

Apple and Samsung's purported desire to create a "smart" watch to pair with their smartphones seems to be an incredibly dumb idea. The two, usually wise, companies would be making a grave mistake entering the low-margin cellular accessory market, where the competition is fierce and the barriers to entry are incredibly low. Furthermore, the utility of such a device seems questionable, likely appealing to a limited subset of consumers of unfashionable geeks and pudgy weekend warriors.

坊間盛傳蘋果公司（Apple）和三星公司（Samsung）要打造一個“智能”手錶來匹配他們自己的智能手機。這個想法似乎是個蠢到家的主意。這兩家一貫明智的公司如果進入低利潤率的手機配件市場，那將是一個不可挽回的錯誤。因爲這個市場競爭極其激烈，同時進入門檻低得出奇。再者，這個新玩意兒的實用性也讓人懷疑，它很可能只會吸引一小部分不入流的技術極客和那些胖乎乎的週末健身族。

Rumors that Apple (AAPL) is developing a watch to pair with its iPhone have been swirling around for a while now. The word on the street in Silicon Valley is that the company has about 100 designers working on the product. Nevertheless, there has been little in the way of substantive proof to back up the assertions—no leaked photos, just questionable Photoshop mockups.

蘋果正在開發一款和iPhone搭配的手錶，這個傳言已經流傳了好一段時間。硅谷的街頭巷議還傳言說，蘋果現在投入了100多位設計師開發這個產品。不過，還沒有什麼可靠的證據支持這個傳言——沒看到諜照，只有一些用Photoshop加工過的僞照。

But that apparently isn't stopping Samsung, Apple's biggest rival in the handset market, from developing a smartwatch of its own to counter the phantom Apple product. Lee Young Hee, Samsung's chief executive, told Bloomberg News in an interview that his company has been, "preparing the watch product for so long," and that Samsung was, "working very hard to get ready for it."

但很顯然，這種情況並沒有阻止蘋果在手機市場的最大對手——三星開發自己的智能手錶，以對抗傳說中的蘋果產品。三星移動業務執行副總裁李永熙最近接受《彭博新聞》（ Bloomberg News）採訪時表示，三星已經“在智能手錶開發準備了很長時間，”並“正全力以赴地爲它做好各項準備。”

It is unclear what a "smartwatch" by either Apple or Samsung will actually do, but it doesn't take the brainpower of 100 gifted Apple product engineers to figure it out. That's because there are already a bevy of "smartwatches" on the market and they pretty much all do the same thing.

蘋果或三星開發的所謂“智能手錶”到底有什麼功能目前還不得而知，但它實在用不上100位天賦出衆的蘋果產品工程師爲它絞盡腦汁地工作。因爲市面上已經有很多“智能手錶”了，而且它們的功能都大同小異。

The watch, usually inlaid in a tacky plastic band, connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth to deliver notifications from your phone to its tiny screen. The watch will alert you if you have an incoming call, by displaying the name and number of the contact, and some even display text messages. The watch can also control some apps and the phone's music player, as well. Oh, and they all can tell you the time, too.

這種手錶通常是嵌在一條俗氣的塑料腕帶裏，通過藍牙和智能手機連接，把手機上的各種信息傳輸到它的小屏幕上。比如，如果你有來電，它就會顯示來電人姓名和電話號碼，有些還能顯示短信。這種手錶還能控制一些應用和手機上的音樂播放器。哦，對了，它們還能顯示時間。

The idea of a smartwatch isn't new. Microsoft (MSFT), the king of failed digital products, rolled out its "SPOT" smartwatch to much fanfare in 2002 only to see it crater a few years later. The SPOT used FM radio signals to deliver real-time information to the watch, such as weather, traffic and sports scores. It didn't link up with your phone. (Back then, phones were still dummies.)

智能手錶這種創意一點都不新鮮。比如，失敗數碼產品之王微軟公司（Microsoft）2002年就曾經大張旗鼓地推出了它的所謂“SPOT”智能手錶，但幾年後這玩意兒就銷聲匿跡了。SPOT通過調頻廣播信號向手錶傳輸實時信息，比如天氣、交通和體育比賽的比分等等。它並不和手機連接（那時候手機還沒現在這麼智能）。

"Imagine how handy it would be to have a travel alarm clock that, in addition to telling time very accurately and auto-adjusting to time-zones, could also wake you to your favorite WMA-encoded music, display information about road closures along your expected travel route, and deliver urgent messages," Bill Mitchell, general manager of the Microsoft Personal Objects Group, said about the SPOT watch in 2002.

微軟的個人用品集團（Personal Objects Group）總經理比爾?米切爾2002年曾這麼吹噓了SPOT一番：“想想看，有這麼一款旅行鬧錶該有多方便。它除了能準確顯示時間和自動適應不同時區外，還能用你最喜歡的WMA編碼音樂叫醒你，能顯示你想走的旅行路線上的道路封閉信息，還能發出緊急信息。”