With the near-term outlook on its core ranges of iPhones and iPads hazy, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, was unusually open on a call with analysts about longer-range opportunities.在苹果(Apple)近期前景模糊不清的情况下，苹果首席执行官蒂姆库克(Tim Cook)在与分析师的电话会议中谈到苹果的更加长年机会时出现异常真诚。Top of his mind were Apple’s early forays into cars through CarPlay and the living room with Apple TV, as well as artificial intelligence and Pokémon Go-style “augmented reality”.在他心中占有首要地位的是苹果通过CarPlay可行性投身于汽车业务，用Apple TV攻占人们的客厅，还有人工智能和《口袋妖怪Go》(Pokémon Go)式的“增强现实”。So far this year investors have focused narrowly on the iPhone’s growth — or lack of it. After iPhone sales fell 16 per cent in the quarter to March, Apple’s third-quarter results showed only a moderate improvement, with sales down 15 per cent albeit at the higher end of analysts’ expectations.今年目前为止，投资者的注目都意味着集中于iPhone的快速增长——精确地说道是集中于该产品没能构建快速增长的事实。今年第一季度，iPhone销量同比下降16%。
第二季度的业绩表明iPhone的销售情况有所恶化，销量同比下降15%，但正处于分析师预测区间的较高一端。Yet in spite of the continuing decline in Apple’s most important product, investors cheered Tuesday’s results, sending its stock up 7 per cent to above the symbolic $100 level as Wall Street took a longer-term view of the iPhone-maker’s prospects. Shares reached $103.25 in after-hours trading.尽管苹果最重要的产品iPhone的销量持续下降，苹果上周二发布的业绩让投资者欢欣鼓舞。随着华尔街以一种更加将来的眼光来看这家iPhone制造商的前景，苹果的股价下跌7%，突破具备象征意义的每股100美元大关，在盘后交易中超过了每股103.25美元。
The company’s outlook for the fourth quarter indicated that the decline in iPhone sales would continue, with analysts at Piper Jaffray estimating that Apple’s total revenue guidance of $45.5bn-$47.5bn implies a year-on-year drop in iPhone units of 6 to 10 per cent.苹果对第三季度的未来发展指出，iPhone的销量还将之后下降。据Piper Jaffray的分析师估算，苹果455亿美元到475亿美元的收益未来发展指出iPhone销量将同比下降6%到10%。With expectations lower than usual for the technological advances likely to feature in the next iPhone due out in September, many analysts are forecasting little to no growth for the next few quarters, too.下一代iPhone订于9月公布，对这款iPhone有可能主打的技术变革，外界的预期出现异常低落，许多分析师预测iPhone在接下来几个季度的销量会快速增长，或者快速增长很少。
It was perhaps unsurprising that Mr Cook wanted to talk about its other product ideas for a change.因此，库克想换换样，谈论苹果的其他产品点子，有可能就并不令人吃惊了。“Normally they focus on the short term and don’t get into any kind of speculation. This time it was different,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, a Silicon Valley consultancy. “Generally it seemed like they were saying, ‘Let’s talk about the future and not dwell too much on what is going on at the moment’.”“他们一般来说侧重短期，会展开任何形式的庞加莱。这次情况有所不同，”硅谷咨询公司Creative Strategies的分析师卡罗琳娜米拉内西(Carolina Milanesi)说道，“大体上他们就看起来在说道，‘让我们谈谈未来，不要杨家就让眼下再次发生的事情’。
”A jump in Apple’s spending on research and development showed that Mr Cook’s bout of futurology was not all talk, however. Even as its revenues declined, Apple increased its RD investment by 26 per cent to $2.6bn in the quarter. Over the first nine months of the fiscal year, RD is up 28 per cent. “There is quite a bit that we are doing beyond our current products,” he said.苹果研发开支的大幅度下降指出，库克对未来的未来发展并非全都只是说道说道而已。虽然收益减少了，苹果第二季度研发开支同比增加了26%，至26亿美元。截至今年6月底的9个月，苹果的研发开支同比增加了28%。
“我们在目前的产品之外所做到的事情有不少，”他说道。The most ambitious of Apple’s secret development projects is its plan to build an electric car. While Mr Cook did not comment on Apple’s automotive ambitions, he did hint at new product categories beyond its current portfolio.在苹果的秘密研发项目中，最不具雄心的是生产电动汽车的计划。尽管库克未对苹果的汽车产品雄心置评，他的确似乎了目前的产品系列以外的新产品种类。
Walt Piecyk, an analyst at BTIG Research, noted that Apple’s RD spending as a percentage of revenues hit a record 6 per cent in the quarter, compared with 3.5 per cent for 2015 and 2.6 per cent in 2013. “When your [annual] RD budget doubles to $10bn in three years, presumably you have some big projects in the hopper,” he said.BTIG Research的分析师沃尔特佩西克(Walter Piecyk)认为，苹果的研发开支与收益的比例在今年第二季度超过了创纪录的6%，相比之下该比例在2015年为3.5%，在2013年为2.6%。“当你的（年度）研发支出在3年内快速增长了一倍，超过100亿美元，很有可能你正在筹划一些大型项目，”他说道。Throughout the hour-long conference call, Mr Cook made several references to Apple’s development efforts in artificial intelligence and machine learning, which are improving products from its Siri virtual assistant to its Photos app.在长达1小时的电话会议期间，库克数次提到苹果在人工智能(AI)和机器学习领域的研发希望，这些希望正在提高从Siri虚拟世界助手到iPhone上“照片”(Photos)应用于的各种产品。“We have focused our AI efforts on the features that best enhance the customer experience,” he said.“我们把在AI方面的希望集中于在需要仅次于程度提高用户体验的功能上，”他说道。
Mr Cook also pointed to greater ambitions in television. Last September, Apple launched a new set-top box promising to “revolutionise” the TV world through a combination of its App Store and a fancy new remote control.库克也提及了在电视方面的更大野心。去年9月，苹果发售了一款新的电视机顶盒，允诺要通过将其应用于商店与时尚的新款遥控器结合，为电视世界带给一场“革命”。
Despite the lofty rhetoric, it is unclear how well the new Apple TV box is selling. It is buried alongside the Apple Watch and iPod in the “other products” line, where revenues fell 16 per cent in the quarter.尽管措辞十分高调，目前尚能不确切这款新的Apple TV盒销售情况如何。它与苹果手表(Apple Watch)和iPod一道归属于了“其他产品”，该类别第二季度营收同比下降了16%。
In an interview, Luca Maestri, Apple’s finance chief, declined to say whether sales even grew the quarter.在一次专访中，苹果首席财务官卢卡马埃斯特里(Luca Maestri)拒绝接受透漏Apple TV该季度销量否减少。Yet Mr Cook said there was more to come from Apple in the living room. “You shouldn’t look at what’s there today and think we’ve done what we want to do,” he said, identifying the current TV box as merely a “foundation” for bigger things.不过，库克回应，苹果还不会发售更加多经常出现在客厅中的产品。
他说道：“你不应当看著今天不存在的东西，就指出我们已构建了想做的一切。”他认为，目前的电视盒只是构建更大目标的“基础”。One area of focus is bringing more original and exclusive content to Apple platforms. Earlier on Tuesday, Apple announced a deal with CBS Television Studios securing first-run rights to a new series of the popular Carpool Karaoke show, a spin-off of US chat show The Late Late Show with James Corden, which typically racks up tens of millions of views per episode on YouTube.一个受到注目的领域是，为苹果的平台带给更加多原创性独家内容。
上周二早些时候，苹果宣告了与哥伦比亚广播公司电视制作公司(CBS Television Studios)的一项协议，定案了高人气综艺《拼车K歌》(Carpool Karaoke)新的系列的首播权。《拼车K歌》是美国谈话节目《詹姆斯科登深夜秀》(The Late Late Show with James Corden)的派生节目，每一集在YouTube网站上的观赏量一般来说都会超过数千万次。Most intriguing of the long-range bets mentioned by Mr Cook, however, was augmented reality — a technology that layers digital images on top of the real world. This effect can be achieved using a headset such as Microsoft’s Hololens or the “mixed reality” goggles promised by secretive Florida-based start-up Magic Leap, or simply by using a smartphone’s camera, as with the wildly popular Pokémon Go mobile game. The Pokémon Go phenomenon shows that “AR can be huge”, Mr Cook said. “We have been and continue to invest a lot in this. We are high on AR for the long run.”不过，库克提及的长年赌局中，最有意思的部分是增强现实，这是一种将数字化图像变换于真实世界之上的技术。
构建这种效果的方法有，用于头戴式装置（类似于的装置有微软公司(Microsoft)的Hololens，还有佛罗里达州谜样的创业型企业Magic Leap允诺将发售的“混合现实”眼镜），或是像疯狂的手游《口袋妖怪Go》那样仅有利用智能手机的摄像头。库克回应，《口袋妖怪Go》现象指出“增强现实(AR)有可能前景辽阔”。
“我们仍然在这方面投放重金，也不会之后这么做到。从将来来说，我们十分寄予厚望AR。”他说道。
While no AR product has yet emerged from Apple’s labs, as the Financial Times reported earlier in the year, Apple has been hiring and acquiring significant expertise in virtual and augmented reality.虽然正如英国《金融时报》在今年早些时候所报导的，苹果的实验室还没拿走一款增强现实产品，但是在虚拟现实和增强现实方面，苹果仍然在招兵买马。Those efforts could manifest themselves in a future iPhone or Hololens-style headset, while some sort of heads-up display in an Apple car also seems likely.这些希望的成果也许不会反映在未来的iPhone上，或是反映为一款类似于Hololens的头戴式装置，还有有可能反映为苹果汽车中的某种平视表明(heads-up display)功能。Mr Cook said AR could produce both great products and a “great commercial opportunity”, as long as other developers’ apps can tap into what Apple develops. Analysts at brokerage Needham Co estimate Apple could make more than $3bn in revenues over the next two years from Pokémon Go alone.库克回应，只要其他开发人员研发的应用于需要对苹果研发的成果加以利用，增强现实不仅有可能促成最出色的产品，还有可能建构“极大的商业机遇”。
经纪商Needham Co的分析师估算，今后两年意味着从《口袋妖怪Go》一项产品中，苹果就有可能取得逾30亿美元的营收——苹果对应用于内出售项目收益缴纳30%的分为。While the future-gazing seemed to excite investors, Ms Milanesi warned that Apple could only dodge questions about lacklustre sales of its Watch, falling average selling prices for the iPhone and challenges in faster-growing markets such as China and India for so long. “You can waffle through one quarter,” she said, but for shares to stay above the $100 mark, “this is not the kind of call they can have every quarter. It’s just not going to fly.”尽管这一对未来的未来发展或许令其投资者激动不已，米拉内西却警告称之为，规避策略不能老大苹果到这里了——对于苹果手表的低迷销售、iPhone平均值售价的下降、在中国和印度等快速增长较慢市场上面对的挑战招来的种种批评，苹果仍然避而不答。她说道，“你可以糊弄过一个季度”，然而要让股价维持在100美元关口以上，“每个季度都这样对付他们是敢的。
蒙混不过去的。
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