 |
| With Steve Jobs, “The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be” |
 |
| Steve Jobs 2005年在史丹福大學的演講 |
2011年10月5日Steve Jobs死於家中，享年56。
這個世界如果沒有Steve Jobs會是如何一個世界？
Steve Jobs沒有發明個人電腦，但他卻使個人電腦大眾化。
Steve Jobs沒有發明圖形界面，但他卻使圖形界面變為主流電腦界面。
Steve Jobs沒有發明MP3，但他卻使iPod成為行動音樂主要硬體平台。
Steve Jobs沒有發明手機，但他卻使智慧型手機成為真正的“智慧”手機。
Steve Jobs沒有發明指觸控，但他卻使指觸控變為行動裝置的主要介面。
Steve Jobs沒有發明平板，但他卻使平板變為真正行動電腦。
Steve Jobs沒有發明“發明”，但他卻點石成金。
Steve Jobs沒有Invention，但他卻Innovation。
Steve Jobs不是軟體設計師，但他卻使軟體人性化。
Steve Jobs不是設計師，但他卻使工業設計成為市場產品設計的重點。
Steve Jobs不是企業家，但他卻改變傳統商場模式成數位商場。
Steve Jobs不是藝術家，但他卻把藝術帶入冰冷的電腦工業。
Steve Jobs不是哲學家，但他卻將人性帶入電腦運算科技的每一個角落。
Steve Jobs不是宗教家，但他卻讓人如宗教般地追尋。
Steve Jobs不是思考家，但他卻讓人重新思考人生。
Steve Jobs沒有發瘋，但他卻發瘋地改變世界.....
Here's to the Crazy One Who Change the World.
 |
| Here's to the Crazy One. |
所以
With Steve Jobs, “The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be.”
最近Steve Jobs在1983年Aspen舉辦的國際設計會議 (IDCA “International Design Conference in Aspen”) 上的演說錄音被解密。他在“The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be.”上的演講已幾乎預測未來的現在 (見“
Life, Liberty, and Technology”)：
He mentions that computers are so fast they are like magic. I don’t think it is a coincidence that he called the iPad “magical”. 將來的電腦將如“魔術”般的快速。(而後來Steve Jobs以“magical”形容iPad)
He states that in a few years people will be spending more time interacting with personal computers than with cars. It seems so obvious now, but hardly a given back then. 過幾年後，人們花在個人電腦前的時間會比在汽車內的時間還多。(現在看起來很容易拆猜到，但在1983年可不是)
He equates society’s level of technology familiarity to being on a “first date” with personal computers. He recognized that technology would continue to evolve in the near future as would people’s comfort level with it. In hindsight, once it became dominant the PC industry stood relatively still while Jobs was busy planning “the next big thing”. 現在人們和個人電腦的接觸宛如初次約會般的緊張，但未來技術將繼續發展，在不久的將來，人們將舒適自然地和電腦相處。
He confidently talks about the personal computer being a new medium of communication. Again, this is before networking was commonplace or there was any inkling of the Internet going mainstream. Yet he specifically talks about early e-mail systems and how it is re-shaping communication. He matter-of-factly states that when we have portable computers with radio links, people could be walking around anywhere and pick up their e-mail. Again, this is 1983, at least 20 years before the era of mobile computing. 個人電腦將是人類彼此溝通的新媒介新方法。(當時世界是無Internet的時代，無行動電腦的時代！但Steve Jobs已預測將來e-mail的系統將能改變世界的溝通。)
He mentions an experiment done by MIT that sounds very much like a Google Street View application. Steve Jobs提到當時麻省理工學院的實驗性研究，方法類似現在Google的街景地圖(Street View)。
He discusses early networking and the mess of different protocols that existed at the time. He predicts that we were about 5 years away from “solving” networking in the office and 10-15 years from solving networking in the home. I’d say he was pretty much dead-on. Steve Jobs預言當時雜亂的網路協定將隨著時間消失。網路協定定案後大約5年，網路將進入企業，10到15年後網路將進入家庭。
He says Apple’s strategy is to “put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you that you can learn how to use in 20 minutes”. Does that sound like anything we are familiar with today? And they wanted to do it with a “radio link” so that people wouldn’t need to hook it up to anything to communicate with “larger databases” and other computers. Hmmm …. Steve Jobs提到蘋果的戰略就是把個人電腦化成是一本書，你可以隨身攜帶，而且在20分鐘內你就可學會操作它！而且它可和大型資料庫或其他電腦無線相通，宛如收音機廣播一樣，你不用把它跟其他機器直接相接。
He compares the nascent software development industry to the record industry. He says that most people didn’t necessarily know what computer they wanted to buy. In contrast, when walking into a record store they definitely knew what music they liked. This was because they got free samples of songs by listening to the radio. He thought that the software industry needed something like a radio station so that people could sample software before they buy it. He believed that software distribution through traditional brick-and-mortar was archaic since software is digital and can be transferred electronically through phone lines. He foresees paying for software in an automated fashion over the phone lines with credit cards. I don’t know about you, but I think this sounds incredibly similar to the concept of the Apple App Store. Plus his comparison to the music industry just might be foreshadowing the iTunes store. You need to listen to the speech to hear the entirety of this passage for yourself. Steve Jobs把當時的軟體工業和唱片工業相比。人們在買唱片時，已知要買哪一張，因為買者早已由免費廣播電台聽了好幾次歌曲。但當時大部分人都不懂的他需買何種電腦。所以軟體工業應該學習唱片工業，讓人們賣軟體前先行試用。軟體既然是數位的，就需經由數位方式傳播和購買，而不是當時的傳統商場“擺架”方式來賣。
Right at the end of the Q&A session, a question is asked about voice recognition, which he believed was the better part of a decade away from reality. Given the context of Siri today, it is interesting to hear him talk about the difficultly of recognizing language vs voice because language is contextually driven. He says, “This stuff is hard”. 語音辨識很難，可能需時十年以上才能實現化。
1983年是何年代？麥金塔Macintosh在1984年才推出。1983年1月19日蘋果推出的電腦 “Lisa” 的廣告：
所以Steve Jobs在死前28年，已預知未來的數位網路世界、手持電腦如iPad、數位商場，也策劃未來的蘋果的遠景！Steve Jobs is a Visionary，a Crazy one try to change the World，and he did.
