四级阅读The magician魔术师

as if by magic an “incredible”new electronic gadget(小器具) in front of an amazed crowd, were the performances of a master showman . All computers do is fetch and work with numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. Mr Jobs,who died recently aged 56,spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products.

[B]The reaction to his death, with people leaving candles and flowers outside Apple stores and politicians[p?l?'t??nz] singing praises on the internet, is proof that Mr Jobs had become something much more significant (adj. 重

technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea--the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smartphone, the tablet computer(平板电脑)-- and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms competed with each other to follow where he led. In the process he brought about(引起[导致]（某事）; 创造; 实现) great changes in computing, music, telecoms(电信) and the news business that were painful for existing firms but welcomed by millions of consumers.

attention to detail and a dictatorial( [?d?kt??t?:ri?l] adj. 独裁的; 专横傲慢的) management style which many bosses must have envied(['env?d]v. 妒忌，羡慕envy的过去式和过去分词). But most of all it was the extraordinary(adj. 非凡的; 特别的) trajectory [tr??d?ekt?ri] (轨迹

revived the failing company he had

co-founded and turned it into the world’s biggest tech firm (bigger even than Bill Gates’s Microsoft,the company that had outsmarted Apple so dramatically in the 1980s), sounds like something from a Hollywood movie.

[E]But what was perhaps most astonishing about Mr Jobs was the absolute loyalty he managed to inspire in customers. Many Apple users feel themselves to be part of a community, with Mr Jobs as its leader. And there was indeed a personal link. Apple’s products were designed to accord with the boss’s tastes and to meet his extremely high standards. Every iPhone or MacBook has his fingerprints all over it.His great achievement was to combine an emotional spark with computer technology,and make the resulting product feel personal. And that is what put Mr Jobs on the right side of history, as technological innovation has moved into consumer electronics over the past

people’s homes now have more powerful and more flexible, devices than their offices do; consumer gadgets and online services are smarter and easier to use than most companies’ systems. Familiar consumer products are being adopted by business, government and the armed forces. Companies are employees. Doctors use tablet computers for their work in hospitals. Meanwhile, the number of consumers hungry for such gadgets continues to swell. Apple’s

怪人

people by giving them access to cutting-edge technology. His insistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity, has become deep-rooted in his own company, and is spreading to rival firms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask: “what would Steve Jobs do? ”

[H]The gap between Apple and other tech firms is now likely to narrow. This week’s announcement of a new iPhone by a management team led by Tim Cook, who replaced Mr Jobs as chief executive in August, was generally regarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr Jobs to shower his star dust on the event, it felt like just another

Mr Jobs, Mr Bezos also flattered(抬举) him.With Mr Jobs gone, Apple is just one of many technology firms trying to arouse his uncontrollable spirit（精神）in new products.

[I]Mr Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion(扭曲，变形) field ”, such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he created a reality of his own, channelling the magic of computing into products that reshaped entire industries. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe” did just that.