第一代iPhone謝幕前的天鵝之歌

What does one say about a new iPhone? At this point, a decade after the first one sent the earth spinning in directions both magical and ghastly, it can be difficult to summon any fresh wonder when appraising the familiar little slab of digital horror and delight.

對於一個新iPhone你要說什麼呢？第一代iPhone橫空出世，讓地球朝着既神奇又可怕的方向旋轉已經十年了，到了現在，再來評估這個眼熟的、匯聚了驚恐和喜悅的數字小設備已經很難引起任何新鮮的讚歎感了。

The problem is especially acute for the two traditional iPhones hitting the market this year, the iPhone 8 and the larger 8 Plus, which are priced at $699 and up and will begin shipping this Friday.

對於今年發佈的兩款傳統iPhone來說，這個問題尤其明顯，iPhone 8和尺寸更大的8 Plus的起價爲699美元（約合人民幣4600元），將於本週五開始發貨。

The 8s look almost identical to the iPhones 7, 6S and 6, a model introduced back when Donald Trump was still hosting a reality TV show. To make matters worse, both are overshadowed by the $1,000 all-screen iPhone X, which Apple considers the foundation for the next iteration of the iPhone. That model ships in November, and reviewers have not yet had a chance to use it.

iPhone 8看起來與iPhone 7、6S和6幾乎一模一樣，想當年，6出來的時候，唐納德·特朗普還在主持真人秀節目。更麻煩的是，這兩款機型在1000美元的全面屏iPhone X的映襯下黯然無光，蘋果把X當作iPhone下一輪迭代的基礎。它將在11月份出貨，測評人員還沒有機會把玩它。

So here’s my conclusion, after nearly a week testing the 8 and 8 Plus: The 8s feel like a swan song — or, to put it another way, they represent Apple’s platonic ideal of that first iPhone, an ultimate refinement before eternal retirement.

所以我在測試了8和8 Plus近一個星期之後，得出了這樣的結論：8s感覺像一首天鵝之歌。換句話說，它們代表了蘋果的第一代iPhone的柏拉圖式理想，是永恆隱退之前的最終精煉。

Unsurprisingly, both the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are very good phones. Most of Apple’s improvements over the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are minor, but if you have an older model, either of the 8s will feel like a solid upgrade. And if you are considering upgrading from an Android phone, there’s one area where the new iPhones still rank head and shoulders above their competition — the processor, the engine that runs the entire device, where Apple is so far ahead that it almost feels unfair.

沒有意外，iPhone8和8 Plus都是非常好的手機。它們在iPhone7和7 Plus上做的大部分改進都很輕微，但是如果你使用的是較舊的機型，那麼8系列的任何一款都會代表實實在在的升級。如果你正在考慮從Android手機改用iPhone，那麼這兩款新機型仍然有一個方面是競爭對手無法比擬的——那就是處理器，整個設備的引擎，蘋果在這方面遙遙領先，感覺暴虐對手。

But let’s start with the basics.

但是我們還是從最基礎的方面開始講吧。

? The iPhone’s overall design is very slightly improved in the 8. The new models have a glass back, which you would think would make them more delicate but which actually adds a slight grippiness, making them less prone to catastrophe. (I’d still use a case for the 8 Plus, which I find ungainly to hold; the 8, though, shines in its caseless glory.)

iPhone 8的整體設計略有改善。新機型的背殼是玻璃材質的，你以爲會更脆弱，但實際上卻稍微增加了抓握力，使得它們更不容易遭受滑落之災。（我仍然給8 Plus裝了個手機殼，我覺得要抓握它並不是很輕鬆，而8則在彷彿沒有背殼的情況下顯得熠熠生輝。）

The glass back allows for the iPhone 8’s handiest new feature, wireless charging. This works just as it does on the many other phones that have long sported this trick: Set the phone down on a charging pad and it just starts charging, even through most cases. Apple said it would release its own charging mat next year; for now, you can use one of the many third-party mats that run the Qi wireless standard. (Over all, battery life on the 8 was comparable to that of the 7 — it lasted all day with light use, about half a day with heavy use, and always not long enough.)

玻璃背殼可以讓iPhone 8發揮非常方便的無線充電新功能。充電方式和很多早就擁有這個功能的其它手機差不多：將手機放在充電墊上，然後它就開始充電，大多數手機殼都不會妨礙這個過程。蘋果表示明年將會推出自己的充電墊，就現在來說，你可以使用其他支持Qi無線標準的衆多第三方充電墊。（總而言之，8的續航時間與7相當，充一次電輕度使用可以用一天，重度使用可以用半天，總是嫌不夠長）。

? The display on the 8 and 8 Plus is better than on the 7, but only very slightly. In particular, the screen uses a technology Apple calls True Tone, which automatically adjusts the display’s white balance to match the lighting in your surroundings. This adds a subtle vibrancy to everything you see — though honestly the only time I was able to appreciate it was when I compared it side by side with the iPhone 7.

? 8和8 Plus的顯示屏好於7，但只好一點點。值得一提的是，該顯示屏採用了蘋果稱爲True Tone的技術，可自動調節顯示屏的白平衡，以便與你周遭的光線相匹配。這會爲你看到的一切增添一點微妙的豔麗——不過老實說，我唯一一次有所體會，是將其與iPhone 7並排放在一起進行比較的時候。

In other ways, the display is where the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus fall furthest short of their rivals. The 8s use a technology called LCD, while Apple’s rivals in the high-end phone market, including Samsung, use a newer screen technology called OLED. I won’t get into the differences here except to say OLEDs are noticeably superior — they produce more vibrant colors and deeper contrast ratios. Even Apple seems to agree, given that OLED is the basis for the display in the iPhone X.

就其他方面而言，顯示屏是iPhone 8和8 Plus最不及競品之處。8和8 Plus採用了一種叫LCD技術，但蘋果在高端手機市場上的對手，其中包括三星，都採用了更新一些的OLED顯示技術。我在此就不詳述兩者的差異了，只想說OLED屏幕要好出一大截——它們能呈現更鮮活的色彩，提供更高的對比度。就連蘋果似乎也同意這一點，因爲iPhone X的顯示屏就是以OLED技術爲基礎。

? The cameras in the 8s are very good, which is always true of cameras in the iPhone. My kid had a birthday party this weekend, and just before leaving for the venue, I decided to take a risk — I left my fancy interchangeable-lens “mirrorless” camera at home, and instead took just the 8 Plus.

? 8和8 Plus的攝像頭非常好，iPhone的攝像頭一向如此。這個週末，我給孩子辦了個生日派對，就在出門前往派對場地之前，我決定冒一次險——把昂貴的可換鏡頭“無反”相機留下，只帶上8 Plus。

It would be too much to say that the phone produced images comparable to those I could get on my dedicated camera. In some indoor, low-light shots, Apple’s noise-reduction algorithm left an annoying watercolorlike ripple on my shots (a problem that has plagued previous iPhones, too).

要說8 Plus拍出的照片堪比我的專用相機，可能言過其實。拍照時如果室內光線較暗，蘋果的降噪算法會在一些照片上留下惱人的水彩般的波紋（這問題也困擾着以前的iPhone）。

But that was the exception. Most images were astounding, and given the iPhone 8’s advantages in size, convenience and usability, I predict that my camera will be spending a lot more time in the drawer. In particular, I fell hard for the 8 Plus’s “Portrait Lighting” feature, which uses data from a depth sensor to mimic the blurred-background “bokeh” effect you get when taking portraits with expensive cameras. That feature made its debut last year on the iPhone 7 Plus, but in the 8 Plus, it’s been further refined to let you adjust the lighting of each shot, making for breathtaking portraits that you’ll be surprised came from a mere phone.

但這只是特例。大多數照片都令人驚歎，加之iPhone 8在尺寸、方便度和可用性方面的優勢，我猜我的相機還會在抽屜裏待很長時間。我尤其喜歡8 Plus的“人像光線”(Portrait Lighting)功能，即利用來自深度傳感器的數據，模擬讓背景變模糊的“散景”效果——拍人像時要達到這種效果，你常常得使用非常昂貴的相機。該功能於去年首次在iPhone 7 Plus上亮相，但在8 Plus上得到進一步完善，你可以調節每一張照片的光線，製作出令人歎爲觀止的肖像照——你會驚奇於它們竟然是用手機拍出來的。

? But the best thing about the 8 and 8 Plus is what’s most hidden: It’s the processor that powers everything else. The first thing I usually do when I get a new iPhone is run a benchmark app to get a sense of the kind of power I’m dealing with. (Yeah, I’m real fun.)

? 但8和8 Plus最好的地方也是最深藏不露的地方：令這所有的一切成爲可能的處理器。拿到一部新iPhone時，我通常會先運行一個基準測試應用，以便感受一下處理器的性能（沒錯，我就是這麼有情趣的一個人。）

For the last few years, Apple’s phones have been producing benchmark scores so high you wonder if they’re powered by some kind of black magic. For instance, on Geekbench 4, one of the more popular benchmark apps, the iPhone 8 gets a single-core processor score of around 4,200. That makes it about 25 percent faster than the iPhone 7 and about 80 percent faster than the iPhone 6S.

過去幾年裏，蘋果手機的基準跑分一直極高，簡直讓人覺得他們是不是用上了什麼黑魔法。例如，在比較常用的基準測試應用Geekbench 4上，iPhone 8的單核處理器跑分約爲4200。比iPhone 7快了約25％，比iPhone 6S快了約80％。

The fastest Android phones, though, are painfully behind. With a Geekbench score of around 1,900, Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S8 is not just half the speed of the iPhone 8, but it’s actually slower than last year’s iPhone 7, and even slower than the iPhone 6S, released in 2015. In fact, Apple’s phones are now so powerful that the closest rivals aren’t phones but computers — for instance, the processor in the iPhone gets benchmarking scores comparable to the Intel chips found in some of Apple’s latest MacBook Pro laptops.

然而，最快的安卓手機遠遠落後於此。三星旗艦手機Galaxy S8的Geekbench跑分約爲1900，僅相當於iPhone 8的一半，其實比去年開售的iPhone 7還要慢一些，甚至不如2015年開售的iPhone 6S。實際上，蘋果手機現在的性能非常強大，同它最接近的競爭對手不是手機，而是電腦——例如，iPhone處理器的基準跑分堪與蘋果最新數款MacBook Pro筆記本電腦中一些英特爾芯片的跑分相媲美。

I spoke to several processor analysts about why Apple is so far ahead on processing power. They explained that Apple can produce these gains because it designs its own processors, while its competitors rely on chips created by third parties. And performance matters. Everything you do on a phone is improved by better chips: The interface is more responsive, advanced graphical features like augmented reality (in which digital scenes are interposed on the real world) work more fluidly, and they allow for groundbreaking new features, like the face-detection system Apple built into the iPhone X.

我與幾位處理器分析師探討蘋果爲什麼在處理能力方面遙遙領先。他們解釋說，蘋果之所以能夠取得這些進展，是因爲處理器是由它自行設計的，而其他競爭對手則需要依賴第三方創制的芯片。性能是很重要的。有了更好的芯片，你用手機所做的一切都能得到改善：接口響應會更靈敏；擴增實境（在現實世界中插入數字場景）等高級圖形功能可以更加流暢地運行；而且還可以開創突破性的新功能，比如蘋果爲iPhone X內置的面部探測系統。

And while experts said Apple’s lead might slip over time, for now, its advantage remains enormous enough to make the iPhone a must for people who think of their phones as their most important computing device — in other words, you and me and everyone we know.

雖然專家表示，蘋果的領先優勢可能會隨着時間的推移而下滑，但目前它的優勢仍然很大，因此，對於那些將手機視爲最重要的計算設備的人來說，iPhone依然必不可少——換句話說，就是你我，以及我們認識的每一個人。