苹果诞生了

Now that they had decided to start a business, they needed a name.

既然决定开公司了，就要给公司起个名字。

Jobs had gone for another visit to the All One Farm,

乔布斯之前又去了一次团结农场，

where he had been pruning the Gravenstein apple trees, and Wozniak picked him up at the airport.

在那里给格拉文施泰因苹果树剪了枝，沃兹去机场接他。

On the ride down to Los Altos, they bandied around options.

在回洛斯阿尔托斯的路上，两人讨论了好几个名字。

They considered some typical tech words, such as Matrix, and some neologisms,

他们考虑过一些典型的技术词汇，比如“矩阵”;

such as Executek, and some straightforward boring names, like Personal Computers Inc.

或者自己创一个新词，像 “Executek”，又或者干脆用个直白又无趣的名字，比方说“个人电脑股份有限公司”

The deadline for deciding was the next day, when Jobs wanted to start filing the papers.

决定名字的截止日期是第二天，因为乔布斯准备递交申请文件了。

Finally Jobs proposed Apple Computer.

最后，乔布斯提议叫“苹果电脑公司”

"I was on one of my fruitarian diets," he explained.

“我那段时间正在吃水果餐，”他解释说，

"I had just come back from the apple farm.

“我刚刚从一个苹果农场回来。

It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating.

这名字听上去有意思，有活力，不吓人。

Apple took the edge off the word 'computer.'

'苹果'削弱了'电脑'这个词的锐气。

Plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book."

还有，这能让我们在电话簿上排在雅达利之前。”

He told Wozniak that if a better name did not hit them by the next afternoon, they would just stick with Apple.

他告诉沃兹，如果到第二天下午还想不到更好的名字，那就用“苹果 ”。

And they did. Apple.

他们真的用了。“苹果”

It was a smart choice.

这是个明智的选择。

The word instantly signaled friendliness and simplicity.

这个词立刻释放出友好而简洁的信号。

It managed to be both slightly off-beat and as normal as a slice of pie.

这个名字既有一点儿标新立异，又不会让人觉得古怪。

There was a whiff of counterculture, back-to-nature earthiness to it, yet nothing could be more American.

名字里带有一点点反主流文化、返璞归真的气息，又十分美国化。

And the two words together—Apple Computer—provided an amusing disjuncture.

这两个词放在一起--苹果电脑--制造了一种有趣的分裂感。

"It doesn't quite make sense," said Mike Markkula,

“这个名字有点儿无厘头，”迈克? ?马库拉说，

who soon thereafter became the first chairman of the new company.

他后来成了这家新公司的第一任董事长，

"So it forces your brain to dwell on it.

“它会让你仔细回味。

Apple and computers, that doesn't go together!

苹果和电脑，这两者根本扯不上关系啊！

So it helped us grow brand awareness."

如此一来，就增加了我们的品牌知名度。”

Wozniak was not yet ready to commit full-time.

沃兹尼亚克还没有准备好全身心加入苹果。

He was an HP company man at heart, or so he thought, and he wanted to keep his day job there.

他骨子里还是个惠普的人，至少他是这么想的，他还想保留自己在那儿的工作。

Jobs realized he needed an ally to help corral Wozniak and adjudicate if there was a disagreement.

乔布斯意识到，自己需要一个盟友，一来是要帮助说服沃兹，二来是在自己和沃兹有意见分歧的时候打破僵局。

So he enlisted his friend Ron Wayne, the middle-aged engineer at Atari who had once started a slot machine company.

所以他请来了朋友罗恩·韦恩，雅达利那个曾经开过老虎机公司的中年工程师。

Wayne knew that it would not be easy to make Wozniak quit HP, nor was it necessary right away.

韦恩知道，要让沃兹尼亚克离开惠普很困难，当下也没有必要让他离开那儿。

Instead the key was to convince him that his computer designs would be owned by the Apple partnership.

当前的关键问题是说服他将他的电脑设计归为苹果公司所有。

"Woz had a parental attitude toward the circuits he developed,

“沃兹对自己设计的电路有一种家长情结，

and he wanted to be able to use them in other applications or let HP use them," Wayne said.

他希望这些电路能有其他应用，或者让惠普也可以使用，”韦恩说，

"Jobs and I realized that these circuits would be the core of Apple.

“乔布斯和我意识到，这些电路将会是苹果公司的核心。

We spent two hours in a roundtable discussion at my apartment, and I was able to get Woz to accept this."

我们在我的公寓里讨论了两个小时，终于让沃兹接受了这个条件。”

重点讲解：

1.pick sb up 接某人；结识；中途搭乘

例句：The police picked him up in a small cafe .

警察在咖啡馆里找到他。

2.bandy around 散播；议论

例句：Many people bandy around the suggestion that a person should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water each and every day.

许多人对一个人每天应当摄取8杯8盎司大小玻璃杯的水这一说法而争论不休。

3.take the edge off 挫伤锐气；缓一缓；使钝减弱挫其锐气

例句：Some babies prefer a little formula first to take the edge off their hunger.

因为大多数宝宝喜欢先喝奶来减弱他们的饥饿感。

4.a whiff of 一点；一些

例句：Indeed, there is a whiff of Dubai about the Chinese property market at the moment.

的确，目前中国房地产市场的确有一些迪拜的影子。