蘋果手錶反映了時尚與科技的鴻溝

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.

萬衆期盼多時的蘋果手錶終於來了。各位，不要叫它iWatch；它是一個新時代。天哪！天哪！天哪！無數的驚歎。

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?

不過，既然現在是時裝週，而它又是一種配飾，我覺得本週我們對其他配飾所提出的問題也適用於這件可穿戴設備（說到底，“可穿戴”這個詞其實也就是衣服的另一種說法）：它戴着好看嗎？它能否最終改變可穿戴設備市場的格局呢？

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

它無疑是向前跨出了一步，但它是否重新書寫了我們審美期待的準則呢？

No.

沒有。

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

從服裝的角度而言，蘋果手錶叫人大吃一驚的一面，是它看上去就是……一塊表。而不是一種設備。

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.

讓一個小玩意能夠擁有蘋果手錶這樣的功能，這顯然是巨大的進步。本週的紐約時裝週上還推出了另外兩件可穿戴設備——三星Galaxy S和英特爾/“開幕式”MICA智能手環，相比而言，它們看上去更像大大的手鐲：更大的矩形曲線屏幕鑲嵌在硬塑料腕帶或覆着蛇皮的塑料腕帶上。

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，蘋果手錶的屏幕小得多，接近正方形，看上去有點像非常時尚的蘋果Nano，它有不鏽鋼或鋁製邊框，或是特別製作的超強18k金邊框。它是第一款以38毫米和42毫米兩種規格推出的可穿戴設備腕錶，兩種尺寸分別是爲男人和女人設計的，此外還有三個不同版本（蘋果手錶普通版、蘋果手錶運動版和蘋果手錶 Edition版，其中Edition版是最適合商務的高端款）。它有多款可供更換的錶帶，外觀和普通錶帶差不多，包括皮革款和不鏽鋼手鐲款。唯一沒有提供的是晚裝款，或者說禮服款（在我看來，這是一種疏忽，在新發明的科技小玩意往往不適合的晚宴場合，一款纖細迷人的腕錶/通訊設備纔是最用得着的。但或許只有我才這麼想）。

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).

蘋果公司說這款腕錶是公司“迄今最個性化的設備”，因爲除了錶帶，還可以更換11款錶盤，比如普通錶盤、蝴蝶圖案和米老鼠圖案的錶盤。

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，我明白他們爲什麼覺得這樣的選擇在技術界是非同尋常，但在時尚界卻很普通。這反映出技術界與時尚界之間的鴻溝——他們覺得革命性的產品在我們看來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.

但我們還是回到這款腕錶上來。它甚至還有一個“王冠”，就是錶盤一側的旋鈕，這種旋鈕通常是用來上發條的，但在這裏是用來滾動屏幕，這樣即便是粗手指也能操縱小小的觸控屏了。

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.

這一切都很智能、很巧妙，甚至是很時尚。但不會讓你去重新設想“一塊每天佩戴的腕錶到底應當是什麼樣的”這個概念。

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

它會讓你重新設想“一塊每天佩戴的腕錶到底應該能夠做什麼”。這是一個很重要的區別。

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.

換言之，它和iPhone和iPod不一樣，iPhone剛出現的時候，和市場上任何其他手機都不一樣，而蘋果手錶嚴格遵循腕錶的美學語彙——而不是其他和腕錶有關的語彙。它要以老古董式腕錶的視覺語言說話。

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

有點諷刺是不是？要想向前走，他們得先向後看。

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.

這也就是說，真正驚人的事實是蘋果想到辦法把這麼多先進技術放在相對較小的硬件之中。至於其他公司，比如說英特爾，得把面板分佈在整個MICA手鐲上，所以這款手鐲纔是這種尺寸。

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).

換句話說：關於蘋果手錶令人震驚的創新部分是，它可以看上去其貌不揚，卻能做各種各樣的事（比如說，如果你裝了喜達屋國際酒店集團的應用，就可以用它打開酒店房間的門）。

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，它可能真的能夠改變人們的行爲，也可能真的威脅到了一些瑞士手錶，但我並不覺得百達翡麗(Patek Philippe)會嚇得全身發抖。

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. …

當然，蘋果手錶將於明年以349美元起售，就算它會推出價格昂貴得多的玫瑰金版本，想必也不會達到百達翡麗的價位。蘋果公司沒有說。所以，大概是斯沃琪(Swatch)吧……