TOEICスコアに関する名言

今週のビジネスウィークはアップルを特集しています。仕事で英語を使う人は、EconmistやTimeよりもBusinessweekの方が読みやすいかもしれません。米国アマゾンのアカウントがあればKindleで月5ドルくらいで購読できますのでコストパフォーマンスもいいです。

さて、アップルCEOのクックの下記の言葉は、試験を前にして平常心を保つのにいいかもしれません。

“I don’t feel euphoric on the up, and I don’t slit my wrists when it goes down,” he says. “I have ridden the roller coaster too many times for that.”
（上がったからって浮かれるわけでもないし、下がったからって手首を切るわけでもありません。ジェットコースターの体験は何度もしているんです。）

クックが話しているのはアップルの株価についてですが。。。
None of this rattles Tim Cook. Oh, he’s heard it, of course, but his soft-spoken, deliberate manner in interviews is not cover for how, say, Apple’s share price affects his mood. “I don’t feel euphoric on the up, and I don’t slit my wrists when it goes down,” he says. “I have ridden the roller coaster too many times for that.” When asked about the rise of low-cost manufacturers, he’s equally even-tempered. “It happens in every market I’ve seen,” he says. “It happens in all consumer electronics, from cameras to PCs to tablets to phones to—in the old world—VCRs and DVDs. I can’t think of a single consumer electronics market it doesn’t happen in.”

特集の内容は、デザイン責任者のJony Iveとソフトウエア責任者のCraig Federighiとの共同作業の話や携帯電話業界全体での話を知ることができます。特にどのように二人が仕事を進めているのかを知ることができるのは貴重ですね。デザインについては下記の動画や特集をお読みください。



Apple Chiefs Discuss Strategy, Market Share—and the New iPhones
By Sam Grobart

さて、クックCEOの話に戻りますが、特集の最後に“You have to bring yourself back to, ‘Are you doing the right things?’ And so that’s what I focus on, instead of letting somebody else or a thing like the market define how I should feel.”と語っていました。自分を取り戻す、自分らしくある、そんな場合にはYou have to bring yourself back toと言えばいいのですね。

“Innovate or die” is no longer just a mantra for Cook; it’s a common refrain from Apple’s fans and critics. Since Jobs’s return to Apple in 1996, the company has grown not by inventing devices, but by perfecting them and creating markets. Apple didn’t make the first music player. It didn’t make the first smartphone or tablet, but it did turn them into things that people are willing to camp out overnight to buy.

Apple has set a pace for itself that can be hard to keep up. Like it or not, every time Cook walks onstage and unveils anything less than a mind-blower, the world—or at least the stock market—reacts with disappointment. Apple shares dropped 5 percent the day after the new iPhones were introduced and are down about 10 percent for the year. “Am I happy about that? No, I’m not,” Cook says. “You have to bring yourself back to, ‘Are you doing the right things?’ And so that’s what I focus on, instead of letting somebody else or a thing like the market define how I should feel.”


Tim Cook: The Complete Interview
By Sam Grobart

クックCEOのインタビューがありましたが、技術的に興味深い記事は以下でしょうか。このきじは、指紋認証によってNFC機能が闇に葬り去られるのではないかと見ています。

How Apple IPhones Could Change Commerce
By Joshua Brustein

So far, grand ideas about mobile payments and coupons have not been backed up by consumer adoption, so there’s reason to be skeptical about the potential for some new features from one phone maker to change things. But Apple’s new phone does seem to be banging another nail into the coffin of near-field communications, a technology that allows phones to exchange information when brought into close proximity. NFC, which has been integrated into many Android phone and stores’ point-of-sale machines, was once heralded as the way to drive mobile payments and other commerce-based functions. NFC backers often cited the inevitability of an iPhone with NFC as a tipping point for the technology’s adoption. But increasingly it seems like Apple may never do so, despite a trickle of patents hinting otherwise.

“Apple has effectively killed NFC by refusing to support it,” said Evans.

この辺りの技術動向を読むのは難しいです。iPhone5のときはまさにNFCが搭載されなくて失望した人もいたわけですが、指紋認証がアップルの答えだったとすると、普通の人が思っている以上のインパクトがあるのかもしれません。