VOA慢速英语2015 苹果公司制造的“最好的智能手表”并不适用于每个人

Apple Makes 'the Best Smartwatch,' Not for Everyone 苹果公司制造的“最好的智能手表”并不适用于每个人

After several days of using the new Apple Watch, many reviewers called it “the best smart watch” but others wondered if the watch is for everyone.

David Pogue is a technology writer at Yahoo Tech and a long-time fan of Apple products. Mr. Pogue wrote, “The Apple Watch is light-years better than any of the feeble, clunky efforts that have come before it. The screen is nicer, the software is refined and bug-free, the body is real jewelry¹.”

But he ended the review with, “You don’t need one. Nobody needs a smartwatch. After all, it’s something else to buy, care for, charge every night. It’s another cable to pack and track. Your phone already serves most of its purposes. With the battery-life situation as it is, technology is just barely in place to make such a device usable at all.”

After spending a week with the watch, Lauren Goode of Re/code observed, “Smartwatches can sometimes feel like a solution in search of a problem.”

Many Apple products are known for being easy to use. But technology experts say it will take some time for users to learn the new wearable device. Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times wrote, “It took three days – three long, often confusing and frustrating² days – for me to fall for the Apple Watch. But once I fell, I fell hard.”

Scott Stein of CNET magazine said he felt lost when using the watch. He wrote, “There are so many ways to interact: swiping, touching³, pressing harder into the display, a button and a clickable digital crown-wheel. Plus, there's Siri. Do I swipe, or click, or force touch or speak? Sometimes I didn't know where an app menu was. Or, I'd find getting back to an app I just had open would require an annoying series of crown clicks, swiping through apps, then opening the app again.”

Like many first-generation products, the reviewers are disappointed with some features of the watch, like poor quality speaker on the watch and limited capability⁴ of third-party apps. And users need to have one of the latest iPhones to be able to use the watch.

Geoffrey A. Fowler of the Wall Street Journal wrote, “if you can tolerate single-day battery life, half-baked apps and inevitable⁵ obsolescence⁶, you can now wear the future on your wrist.”

Despite the negative reviews, many of the smartwatch reviewers agreed that Apple will still sell many watches to Apple fans. Joshua Toplsky of Bloomberg Business wrote, “Apple will sell millions of these devices, and many people will love and obsess⁷ over them.”

The watch will be available for pre-order online on Friday, April 10 at 3:01 a.m. EST for people in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Hong Kong, China and Japan.

Customers will have to pay at least $349 for the least expensive model or as much as $17,000 for the Apple Watch Edition of “18-karat Rose Gold Case with Rose Gray Modern Buckle⁸.”

For those who cannot wait or cannot afford an Apple watch, the Chinese website Alibaba is already selling the knockoff – or fake – Ai Watch, which looks very similar to an Apple Watch, for about $50.

Words in This Story

solution – n. something that solves a problem

feeble – adj. not good enough : not successful or effective

light years – n. (informal) a long distance or great amount

frustrating – adj. causing feelings of anger and annoyance⁹

first-generation – adj. designating the first version of something made available

half-baked – adj. (informal) not fully¹⁰ thought through

obsolescence – n. the condition of no longer being used or useful

knockoff – n. a copy of something, especially of an expensive or designer product.

1 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

2 frustrating   

adj.产生挫折的，使人沮丧的，令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's frustrating to have to wait so long. 要等这么长时间，真令人懊恼。
• It was a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. 那是一次有失颜面并且令人沮丧至极的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

4 capability   

n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等

参考例句：

• She has the capability to become a very fine actress.她有潜力成为杰出演员。
• Organizing a whole department is beyond his capability.组织整个部门是他能力以外的事。

5 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

6 obsolescence   

n.过时，陈旧，废弃

参考例句：

• For some small unproductive mills,the reality is not merger but obsolescence and bankruptcy.对一些效率低下的小厂而言，现实不是合并，而是可能被淘汰和破产。
• Finally,the cost approach can provide a basis for allocating penalties,specifically economic obsolescence.最后，成本法可作为一个分配因陈旧特别是因经济

7 obsess   

vt.使着迷，使心神不定，（恶魔）困扰

参考例句：

• I must admit that maps obsess me.我得承认我对地图十分着迷。
• A string of scandals is obsessing America.美国正被一系列丑闻所困扰。

8 buckle   

n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲

参考例句：

• The two ends buckle at the back.带子两端在背后扣起来。
• She found it hard to buckle down.她很难专心做一件事情。

9 annoyance   

n.恼怒，生气，烦恼

参考例句：

• Why do you always take your annoyance out on me?为什么你不高兴时总是对我出气？
• I felt annoyance at being teased.我恼恨别人取笑我。

10 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。