我爲什麼拋棄了蘋果手錶

I wanted it to work. I wanted to fall in love, like so many of my friends. “It takes a while,” they said. “Don’t expect a coup de foudre. Let it build over time.”

我希望這次能成功。我希望自己能像很多朋友那樣愛上它。“這需要花點時間，”他們說。“別指望一見鍾情，感情是需要時間慢慢培養的。”

So I did. I knew other people looked at what I had with envy. But a month and a half after we first got together, I have decided it is time to — well, call time.

於是我就這麼做了，我知道其他人用嫉妒的眼光看着我所擁有的東西。但當初次邂逅過去一個半月之後，我覺得——好吧，這麼長的時間已經夠了。

I am breaking up with my Apple Watch. The relationship was, despite all expectations, not what I needed. All the focus on San Francisco and Apple’s next big innovation this week (streaming!) made me realize it was not playing my tune.

我就這樣拋棄了我的蘋果手錶。儘管我對這段關係期待頗高，但它畢竟不是我需要的。這個星期，人們都把目光投向舊金山，密切關注着蘋果公司下一個重大創新（流媒體！），於是我也明白，它放的不是我喜歡的調調。

Still, I will never regret the weeks we spent together. They taught me some valuable truths about myself.

不過，我不會爲我們共度的幾個星期感到後悔。這段時間讓我認識到了關於自身的重大真相。

Like, for example, that I do not want to be defined by a talking point on my wrist.

比方說，我確實不想用手腕上顯眼的玩意兒彰顯身份。

There is a reason that I carry the same (no logo) handbag everywhere I go, a reason my (pre-Apple) watch had no bells or tourbillon whistles; a reason I gravitate toward clothes that are not identifiable by season or designer and do not appear in any advertisements I have ever seen.

所以我走到哪兒都只是帶着一個沒有標識的手袋，在用這個蘋果手錶之前，我的手錶沒有鬧鈴，也沒有陀飛輪的聲響；我只喜歡那些沒有標明當季時新或是著名設計師的衣服，那些我沒在廣告裏見過的衣服。

I spend a lot of time in a world where products are shorthand for people, and I know too well the risks of having such semiology attached to myself (though I fully acknowledge my willingness to attach it to others).

在這個我生活多年的世界上，商品被簡化，賣給人們，我深深知道把這樣一種符號意義同自己聯繫起來會有什麼樣的危險（儘管我知道自己也會把這樣的符號和別人聯繫起來）。

But when I started wearing the Apple Watch (the 38-millimeter case with a Milanese Loop band, which is the smaller size with a flexible stainless steel bracelet), it became a subject of conversation no matter where I was: in meetings at work, at the bagel store, at my son’s track meet. It has been so everywhere, marketed to so many people, there was just no mistaking it.

但是一旦我戴上蘋果手錶（38毫米錶殼米蘭尼斯錶帶，是比較小的型號，有可彎的不鏽鋼手鐲錶帶），它就成了話題的焦點，不管我走到什麼地方：工作會議、麪包店、兒子的家長會。它早已無處不在，做過無數推廣，人們絕不可能認錯。

First everyone wanted to know about it. Then they wanted to try it. Then they made certain assumptions about me.

一開始，所有人都想了解它，後來他們就想試試看，再接下來他們就開始對我產生特定的猜測。

Which, frankly, I would have made about any woman like myself walking around with a big black box on her arm.

坦白地說，如果看到一個像我這樣的女人胳膊上挎着一個大黑箱子到處走來走去，我也免不了對她產生同樣的想法。

Because no matter how attractive the Apple Watch is in the context of other smartwatches or smartbands, no matter how much of an aesthetic advance its rounded corners and rectangular display, it still looks like a gadget. Especially on someone, like me, with relatively small wrists.

因爲，不管蘋果手錶在智能手錶和智能手環界有多麼誘人，不管它的圓角和矩形顯示器是多大的美學進步，它看上去仍然只是個小玩意兒。特別是對於我這種手腕很細的人來說。

Not only does its face effectively span the width of my forearm, but the cool little screen saver that so many reviewers have lauded — the Mickey or the butterfly or the galaxy (which is the one I have) or the pseudo-watch hands (the one that, notably, is always on in every picture of the watch, and actually makes it look like a watch) — is also functionally sleeping most of the time.

它的錶盤寬度和我的手腕差不多寬，還有它那個酷酷的屏幕保護，很多人看了都嘖嘖讚歎——有米老鼠、蝴蝶和星空（我的就是星空），還有兩個假錶針（所有蘋果手錶的圖片上都有這個假錶針，搞的它好像真的是塊表一樣）——大多數時間，這個屏保就睡在錶盤上。

Every time I see it, I want to shriek, “Beam me up, Scotty.”

每次看見它我都想大叫一聲，“傳送我上去，斯科蒂。”（語出《星際迷航》——譯註）

Not that it would do much good. Typing doesn’t awaken the picture. Even when I rock my arm back and forth energetically, it often takes a few tries before up the earth pops. The default position is blank.

倒不是說它沒用。鍵入不能激活屏保，就算我用力來回晃胳膊，也得花上好幾次，那個地球才能跳出來。默認位置是空白的。

Just as my default position when trying to read an email or the text of a headline on the small screen involves raising my wrist to near eye level — or, if a phone call is involved and my actual phone is not reachable, talking into thin air. If your children or acquaintances come upon you, it’s pretty much an invitation to ridicule.

在這個小屏幕上，想讀email、短信、新聞標題，我習慣的姿勢一般是把手腕舉到視平線處，如果有電話打來，手機又不好拿，得用它來打電話的時候，感覺就像是對着空氣說話。如果你的孩子或者熟人這時走到你身邊，很可能會笑話你。

“Why is that more embarrassing than endlessly looking at a phone?” my friends said when I complained.

“爲什麼這比頻繁看手機更讓人尷尬呢？”我抱怨的時候，朋友們都這麼問我。

It’s a valid question, but after some contemplation I think the answer is simple: A phone is hand-held, and we are used to seeing people read things held in their hands. Like, say, books. But seeing somebody staring at her wrist (or merely sneaking a surreptitious glance at it) telegraphs something else entirely: (1) rudeness or (2) geekiness.

這是個好問題，但是經過思考，我覺得我的回答很簡單：手機是拿在手裏的，而我們已經習慣了看到人們閱讀拿在手裏的東西，比方說讀書。但是看着某人盯着手腕（或者是鬼鬼祟祟地偷瞄自己的手腕），還用它來發訊息，這就讓人覺得又不禮貌，又像是科技狂。

This doesn’t seem to have bothered the tech writers, most of whom wrote persuasively positive reviews of the gadget, primarily based on what it could do for you. And it is certainly more subtle than Google Glass, though I am not sure that is saying much.

對於科技寫手們來說，這算不上什麼大事，他們大多數人都爲蘋果手錶寫了令人信服的樂觀評論，內容主要是基於它的功能。而且它顯然比谷歌眼鏡精緻，不過我覺得這也說明不了太多問題。

Granted, all of this would likely pale in importance if the watch were truly transforming my life, as my iPhone has. But I have never had a problem turning away from my emails when I need to concentrate on something else — I’ve effectively trained myself to compartmentalize — so I need specific alerts as to what is important.

退一步說，如果這塊表真的能像iPhone手機那樣改變我的生活，那麼一切也就都沒什麼大不了的了。我一向訓練自己把手頭的事劃分得很清楚，需要專心做事的時候，我從來不會分心去查email，所以我需要有個提醒，告訴我什麼郵件是重要的。

And the small screen is simply too small to really read on, so I’ve been more annoyed than happy when it alerted me to texts from my loved ones; and when I saw a headline, all I wanted to do was find the rest of the story.

小屏幕實在是太小了，根本沒法用它好好讀東西，所以每當它提示我，重要的親朋好友給我發信息了，我的感覺不是高興，而是煩躁；而且我又是那種一看標題就忍不住想讀內容的人。

Besides, the busywork the watch’s apps can replace — handing over airline boarding passes, opening hotel room doors — seems less like an advance than a loss of control. Call me a Luddite, but honestly, I don’t mind unlocking things with my actual hands. The new watch OS announced this week may change the situation, but I am not sure I have the patience to wait.

此外，蘋果手錶上的應用可以替代一些工作，但看上去不像是進步，倒像是失控——提交登機牌、打開酒店房間等等。你可以說我是個厭惡技術的人，但老實說，我不介意用自己的雙手打開門鎖。新的蘋果手錶操作系統宣佈這個星期可以在這方面進行改進，但我不確定我還有沒有耐心等下去。

Likewise (and I know this will be heresy to anyone really excited about the coming Fitbit initial public offering), the fitness-app aspect — the tracking of my steps, the measuring of my heart rate, the telling me to stand up when I am in the middle of an article — seems more like a burden than freedom.

同樣（我知道對於那些興奮期待Fitbit健康手環首次公開募股的人們來說有點像異端邪說），那些健康應用更像是給人帶來負擔而不是自由——就是那些幫你計步、測量你的心跳、提醒你文章寫到一半站起來活動的應用。

I have worked hard to wean myself from a reliance on exercise machines telling me how hard I had worked — how many calories I had burned, how many stairs I had climbed — in part because I knew I was cheating pretty much all the time anyway and thus could not trust the results, and in part because it became an excuse to modify, or not, my ensuing behavior.

我費了很大力氣讓自己不再依賴鍛鍊器械，不讓它來告訴我我鍛鍊得有多麼辛苦——我燃燒了多少卡路里、我爬了多少級臺階——部分是因爲我知道自己經常作弊，機器給的結果靠不住，部分也是因爲它成了一種藉口，來掩飾或不掩飾我隨之而來的行爲。

But the truth is, I know when I am in shape; I can see the difference in my body and feel it when I ride my bike in the park. The watch threatened to drag me back into a numbers-driven neurosis, and that’s a temptation I would rather not have. (Also, I have too many friends who look at their fitness tracker in the middle of conversation, then immediately spring up and start walking around energetically, to feel it is really additive to my life.)

但事實是，我知道自己很健康；如果我去公園裏騎自行車，我能感覺到自己的身體和心情發生了變化。這塊表威脅着我，要把我拖回到由數字驅動的神經兮兮中去，我寧願不要這種誘惑（我有不少朋友都是說着一半話就開始看他們的健康追蹤器，然後馬上跳起來，精神頭十足地繞圈走路，我覺得這對於我來說完全多餘）。

I did like the fact that I could turn my phone ringer off, and the watch would vibrate when, say, my children were on the line and I needed to take the call. But in the end that wasn’t enough.

我確實喜歡把手機關成靜音，孩子們打來電話時手錶會震動，我再拿起電話。但到頭來這點好處還不夠。

When I told a colleague about the breakup, he observed that perhaps I wasn’t the target for the Apple Watch. That I should be sure to tell the Siri on my wrist, “It’s not you, it’s me.” He may be right.

我告訴一個同事我拋棄了蘋果手錶，他指出，或許我不是它的目標用戶。我一定得告訴手腕上的Siri，“不是你的問題，是我的。”他也許是對的。

Except I don’t think so, and not just because often, opposites do attract. But because I actually think I am the intended: a nontech person who wouldn’t otherwise have too many gadgets (a phone, an iPad, a laptop), but who could be seduced into buying another because of its desirability.

但我並不這麼認爲，這不僅僅是因爲不是冤家不聚頭。而是因爲我覺得我的確是它的目標用戶：一個非技術型的人，本來不願意擁有太多科技產品（手機、iPad、筆記本電腦就夠了），但卻可能被誘惑着多買下一件，只因爲它太誘人了。

That’s the way Apple increases market share and owns a category, after all: by sucking in those who are not Apple addicts. It’s why the company worked so hard to get close to the fashion flock.

所以蘋果的市場份額才日益增加，並且獨樹一幟：靠的就是吸引那些不迷戀蘋果產品的人。所以蘋果公司才那麼努力，去貼近時尚人羣。

But here’s the thing: The watch isn’t actually a fashion accessory for the tech-happy. It’s a tech accessory pretending to be a fashion accessory. I just couldn’t fall for it.

但問題就是這樣：蘋果手錶其實並不是爲喜歡技術的人設計的時尚配飾。它是假裝成時尚配飾的技術配飾。我就是不喜歡罷了。